A Bit About Knitting

Knitting, as defined by Wiktionary, is "Combin[ing] a piece of thread with two needles into a piece of fabric." It was born out of the need for humans to cover up. Now, knitting has become more of a hobby than a means for survival.

Throughout this website, I'd like to give some general information about knitting as well as share some of my own personal knitting history as well as my finished and in progress projects.

Yes, sometimes we really do get that absorbed in it. Most of us really do want to just keep knitting and knitting until it's all over.

Getting Started

One of the most important things to keep in mind when knitting is that the right tools make the job so much easier. When you're just starting out, all you really need is some yarn and a pair of needles. When you get more addicted involved, you'll want much more than just that. Below, you'll find a list of the tools that I use.

  • Needles
    • Types
      • Straight
      • Circular
      • Double Pointed
    • Materials
      • Bamboo
      • Aluminum
      • Steel
      • Glass
      • Casein
      • Plastic
    • Sizes
      • Metric
      • U.S.
      • UK / Canadian
      • Japanese
  • Notions
    • Gauge Checker
    • Row Counter
      • Clickers
      • Barrel
      • Beaded
    • Stitch Markers
      • Plastic
      • Beaded
    • Stitch Holders
    • Cable Needles
      • Straight
      • J-Shaped
    • Tapestry Needles
    • Straight/T-Pins
    • Measuring Tape
    • Pen/Pencil
    • Scissors
    • Crochet Hooks

I've included a picture of my knitting notions below. For some of the less recognizable items, I've included a link to a glossary of information about that item.

Knitting Supplies Gauge Checker Cable Needles Row Counters Stitch Markers Knitting Supplies

Once you have your yarn and your pair of needles, you need to learn how to do a knit stitch. When you master that, you can be the queen (or king) of scarves, discloths or whatever tickles your fancy. You can also learn the purl stitch and start to make patterns into your square items. It also helps if you know how to cast on and bind off, but if you have a nice knitter friend teaching you, they might help you out with that too. Finally, you can learn more detailed items for patterns and shaping. I'm still learning new techniques all the time.

Tips and Tricks

¤ Many times, the yarn that a pattern suggests that you use will not be the yarn that you will be using for your own project. When that happens, you must do some math to figure out how many balls of your yarn you're going to need. The minimum information that you'll need to find is the yardage per ball/skein of both yarns. I've created a simple calculator that you can use.

¤ Knitting Help has tons of videos teaching you various stitches or methods of casting on, etc. This is a really great resource if you get stuck while working on a project.

¤ Ravelry is a fiber artist's best friend. You can keep track of your projects and your stash and share with other Ravelry users. It really got me into knitting again once I uploaded my stash and realized just how much yarn I had sitting around.

Enjoy!

Ok. After all that, click here if you're ready to start learning how to knit (or ready to start knitting again).