Lesson 6: Flat Out Flat

K so there's a few different meanings for stiches in knitting. There are the stitches knit and purl and those are the basics, but you combine those two in different ways to make totally different looks. You can make knitting pieces look actually flat on one side and bumpy on the other. It's crazy.

The first stitch you should know is called stockinette stitch. It is probably the single most common stitch in the knitting world if you don't count cables and fancy lace patterns and that shtuff. This stitch will make your knitting look smooth and flat, just flat out flat, on one side and kinda like gravel on the other side. The best part is you don't even need to learn any new techniques! Basically just do one row in knit stitch then on the next row do the purl stitch. Keep alternating between those two stitches and BAM! You have stockinette power!

Next up: garter stitch. You have secretly been doing this the entire time. It's a conspiracy. You knit every row. No purling involved. Yep that's pretty much it.

Ribbing is usually done in the beginning of a piece or sometimes for the entire thing. It adds a nice edge and it's wicked stretchy. You can see it in most sweaters on the bottom hem and the sleeve cuffs. It looks like this:


There are different types of ribbing but they are all basically the same thing. You knit some stitches the move the yarn between the needles to the front of the work and purl some stitches. Then, you move the yarn back between the needles to the back of the work where it started and knit more stitches. You just repeat that process until you get to the end of the row and on the next row you do the same pattern. Whether you start with a purl or knit stitch on the next row is determined by the last stitch you did on the previous row. If you did knit stitches on the first row the 2nd row will start with purls and so on. The pattern you use will tell you how many stitches to knit and purl. In this picture it's k2, p2. It could be abbreviated ad k2, p2 rib or 2 by 2 rib. There are other styles such as k1, p3 which has a much different look or k3, p2 which looks different too. You can experiment with the different types if you want.

All of these stitches can combine or just one can be used in a pattern to make the knitting look interesting and unique. I think you should practice stockinette stitch and ribbing the most since those are the hardest to learn plus you have already done garter stitch. Also because the first pattern I post will use both of those. (I have a master plan behind all of this posting)
Peace out.