Lesson 3: Holy Cake it's the Knit Stitch!!

Ladies and gentle-dudes, put your hands together for the one, the only, the knit stitch!! (insert applause here)
Well I suppose that since you know how to cast on you probably would like to know how to do the rest of the knitting. Let's start with the knit stitch, shall we?

This is one of the 2 most basic stitches known to knit-kind and I am warning you now that in the beginning you will drop stitches, have horribly uneven work, and most likely you will end up with a bunch of blah. The bright side is this will not be the case once you complete my knitting boot camp. Just kidding that doesn't exist. 

Form an X with the needles

Well let's get to it. First cast on some stitches. I think 10 will work. The next thing you want to do is insert the needle in your right hand (aka the right hand or RH needle) into the stitch on the needle in your left hand (LH needle). You can mouse over the pictures and a little label will tell you which direction it goes with if you get confused.

This blue is my new favorite
 nail polish color

 Wrap the yarn around the front of the RH needle from left to right.

This is the hardest part.
Just keep practicing

 Now just like you did for method #2 of casting on bring the LH needle up and over the top of the RH needle from front to back.

Push the stitch off the LH needle and you're done! Now you repeat that on the rest of the stitches. Put the needle in, wrap the yarn, bring the needle up and over and push the stitch off. Do it over and over and over and over until you don't have any more stitches on the LH needle. That was one row.
To do the next row you turn the knitting around half a turn and switch the needles in your hands so you have the old RH needle in your left hand and so on.


Then just repeat the steps again and there's another row!
So basically just practice working back and
forth on the rows and it should look a little something like this:

This is 5 rows so far

If not take all the stitches off the needles and pull the yarn until you have nothing and start again or just keep going until your work gets more even. Leave questions in the comments and I will respond to them. Ok I'm excited! Now when I give you the "suggestion" you can actually do it!! Go forth and knit! 

Lesson 2: Yes, Casting on is Fun (sorta)

Well now we actually get to the real knitting part!! You are going to need a pair of knitting needles and yarn. There are 3 main types and the simplest is straight needles which are long sticks with a point on one end and a little nub on the other end. The nubs will make sure the stitches don't fall off and it will also they say the size of the needles. If I were you I would just get some cheep yarn like Red Heart Super Saver because it's easy to use. Get a light color though. Basically just find whatever needles and yarn you want.

Yay now you are going to be able to knit!! The first thing you must do is decide which type of cast on you want to use. My personal favorite is #1 because it looks nicer, but #2 is easier.

Method #1

Make a slip knot away from the end of the yarn. Rule of pinky: finger tip to elbows length for every 12 stitches you are casting on (the picture may help).

In my example I am going to cast on 10 stitches so my slip knot will be about 16" from the end. If you don't know how to make a slip knot watch this video please and thank you. VIDEO!!!! I like this video a lot because the guy uses rope so you can see it and he makes it short and sweet.
Once you get The slip knot on your needle you can cast on the rest. Set your hands up like this:

Put the tail end around your thumb. Put the other end around your pointer finger. Hold them both together with the rest of your fingers.

Going up from the bottom put the needle in the loop that's around your thumb.

Going from left to right and back to front, put the needle under the strand that's around your finger, like so.

Now move the thumb and its loop over and off the needle from front to back.

Last but not least, take your fingers out of the loops and pull the stitch tightish. Don't make it too tight or it will be hard to work with later. Slightly looser than snug is good.

Congratulations you have just casted on a stitch with the hard method!! The pattern you use will tell you how many to cast on and the slip knot counts as one so actually there are 2 now. To make the rest of the stitches just set up your hands up and repeat the steps after the slip knot thing until you have enough. When you are done DO NOT CUT OFF THE TAIL!! I seriously cannot stress that enough.

Method #2: 

Make a slip knot about 2.5" from the end. No matter how many stitches you need to cast on, always make the tail about the same length. If you mouse over the pictures they tell you which direction they go with. From bottom to top put the needle tip in the slip knot. Hold the needles in and X shape with the inserted (red) needle behind the other (blue) one. That was a little over explained....

Going around the back, left side, and front wrap the yarn around the (red) needle. Yes it matters which way you wrap it.

Bring the other (blue) needle up and over the wrapped (red) needle. This will make the loop on the red needle seem more like a loop that just wrapped yarn.






Slip the new stitch onto the original (blue) needle.




 Now you can pull the yarn a little, but not too tight or there will be a problem.  Now you have 2 stitches on the needle! When you make the rest of the stitches insert the needle into the last stitch you made and wrap the yarn over the front of the needle from left to right. I think the trickiest part would be getting the needle up and over the other needle without losing the stitch. Just practice, it takes time. Now go forth and knit! Or practice casting on.....                

Lesson 1: In the Beginning...

In the beginning, there was something. That something could be anything. I am referring to something a little different though.
Before you can knit any stuff, you must learn how to make a stitch. I shall teach you.
This is going to be a spread out thing meaning I am not going to tell you everything about knitting in one post, because frankly, I don't know everything there is to know. But, I encourage you to follow along and read the lesson posts. I will put up new lessons regularly that will hopefully not confuse you to the point where you wind up in vegetative state.
K you need to know basics before you even pick up your needles (this may be boring, but it's super important so just hang in there). I guess first I will define some key terms. Sorry that this sounds so much like school...

Yarn: Spun thread used for knitting, weaving, or sewing

Fiber: What the yarn is made of. There are a gazillion fibers. Some are combined to make blends. Ex: cotton, alpaca, acrylic etc.

Weight: How thick or heavy the yarn is; the fatness of the yarn. Bigger yarn=bigger stitches

Gauge: How many stitches you have in an inch. It will change depending on the needles you use and the weight of your yarn. Gauge is extremely important!! (when I start talking about swatching it will all make sense)

Cast on: This is how you start knitting. It makes the foundation and gets you started on your project. There are a couple different methods to this.

Bind off: This is how you end knitting. It creates a secure edge so the knitting doesn't unravel.

Stitch: Each individual little stitch is separate but connected to all the other little stitches. They all look like little "v"s.

Skein: Ryhmes with rain. A bundle or ball or roll of yarn.

Ok so now that you know all that boring word stuff you can learn something that is quite important: how to read a yarn label! Bet you thought I was going to say how to actually knit.
The Red Heart brand has really easy to read labels. In the pictures there are the most important pieces of information. The first is the yardage and gramage (is that a word?) of that skein. It is important because you have to know how many skeins you will need for a project and the pattern you use will generally tell you how much yarn you need by telling you the required yardage.
Next is the weight. That is the little black and white picture of the skein of yarn with the number 4 on it. This number referrs to the weight of the yarn. It will range from 1-6 with 1 being the skinniest. 4 is medium or worsted which is about in the middle of the scale.
There are also little drawings that tell you about how to care for the yarn. Whether to iron it or not, and stuff like that. Some nicer yarns don't have that but they will more often than not tell you if it is machine washable and so on.

Ok I guess that's all for the basics. I just realized that this post is super long. Oh well. Now go forth and knit! (or wait for the posts that tell you how to do so)

On the right in the red strip there is weight in ounces and grams.  Many  yarns of lesser quality have patterns that you can make with that type of yarn.

The white boxes from left to right: the weight, recommended size of knitting needles and gauge you will have with that size, recommended crochet hook size and gauge you will have with that size, water temperature, machine washable or not, and a do not iron symbol. 100% acrylic is the fiber content.

Hey Hey Hey

Yo. So here's the scoop: basically this entire blog is about hockey and knitting. Those are my two greatest loves in the world and without either I see no point in living. I am not one of those people who's like "Hockey ya! beatin people and smashin them into the boards wooo!!!". No. That is only a small part of hockey.  It is actually about pure greatness and skill and speed and "woah that was a great move!" and stuff like that. Its about the hard work and dedication that people put in - wait I'm getting too emotional here. Basically all you need to know is that hockey is about pure awesomeness. Same with knitting. They both posess large amounts of awesomeness. So those are my views about that.
I also really love listening to music. Pretty much all types of music really. Well all except blues. I really can't stand blues music. My favorite bands are Queen and The Wanted. I really can't decide which is awesomer because they are both amazingly cool. They are quite different though. Well not that different, only the genre of music they play, the time period in which they exist(ed), there entire images, their audiences etc. Other than that they are pretty much the same (sarcasm). They are both British though!! I also really love Taylor Swift and Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood. Those guys rock too.  So basically that was me rambling about music I like.
The next thing I want to tell you people about is my beautiful puppy Halainn (pronounced hay-lin). Well she's not really a puppy. She's 5 now. But she's still a puppy at heart so it's ok. Halainn is a boxer/lab/pit-bull mix; a mutt. She is chock full of energy and cuteness. I will probably talk a lot about her because I love her so much. Feel free to tune out if you wish.
So in a few paragraphs that is me mostly. There's more obviously, but we shall save the rest for later. As always, go forth and knit! Plus don't forget to read my note.



NOTE: There will be many times where I will attempt to make you laugh, but will probably fail miserably. Just putting that out there. Adios.