Essential Skills for Learning to Knit

1. Learn to knit!: hi there, and welcome to knitting Basics. My name is Join Actonel, and in this class you're going to become a never in this class. We're going to need a size four yarn and size seven needles. Now you can it with any combination of needles and yarn. But for this class, I'm going to show you on a size seven needle in a size four yard. It's very easy to net. All you have to do is no the knit stitch and the Purl stitch. And off you go, we're gonna start at the class by teaching you how to do this slip knot and attach the yarn to the needles. Then I'll show you how to do your net stitch and you'll practice. And they don't teach you how to do a Purl stitch and your practice, and then I'll come back and teach you how to fix your mistakes. So don't worry. Just give it a try, and I'll teach you how to fix any mistakes that you make. And when you practice, that gives you permission to make mistakes. And I think mistakes air really important. They're part of the knitting process. Then we're also going to talk about how we can mix, knit and Purl stitches together to create some patterns. Once you've learned how to make your swatch and create some patterns, then I'll teach you how to bind off your knitting. In this class, you'll be working on a swatch. A swatch is a great thing because it can become anything. And in this class, if you work on your swatch long enough, it will become a scarf. This is a great project for you to share with the community right here in this classroom. So relax, enjoy and make your swatch, and you will become a knitter when unit you are making a fabric. 2. How to Hold Knitting Needles: So let's start by talking about how you position your hands as your knitting. You have to needles, and we're going to start with straight needles. It has an end on one end and a point on the other. You're gonna hold one day the lender right hand and one needle in your left hand. The easiest way and the best way that I found to hold the needles is to pinch the needles between my fore finger and my thumb and then use my pointer finger. Two. Point the needles as I need Teoh and then rest my other three fingers on the base of the needles. Take some time and practice holding the needles in your hands. Get a feel for how they balance on your fingers. 3. How to Form a Slip Knot: next thing to Dio is to really work on how to attach the yarn to the needles. Start knitting. First thing to do is to tie a slip knot. You'll simply turn the working and over the end that goes to the yarn. Pinch that between your finger and your thumb and then simply loop that end right up and you'll tie that knot and there's your slip knot, and the reason it's called a slip knot is because this one end just moves freely back and forth. So you'll simply put that right on to your knitting needle and then tighten that right down . And that is how you start knitting. Now there is one other way to tie a slip knot. If you prefer, you can wrap the yarn around your two fingers and then bring the loop right up and you'll get a slip knot the same way. So whichever one works for you, either one is fine. So we're going to start by putting that slipknot onto the Knitting needle, take a little time and practice time slip knots with the two methods you just learned 4. How to Cast-On: I'm gonna show you a couple of different types of cast ons. You can again choose the one that works best for you. The first cast Tom will do is a knitted cast on. Now this one resembles knitting the most. And this is the way I started. This is how my grandmother taught me. I'm gonna put the ball of yarn on the right side, and I'm going to be working with my right hand using then did the tip of your knitting needle. You're going to slide the needle right under the loop and then taking this working in that goes to the ball of yarn. You look that around and behind the needle and give it a little pull and you can feel that slide between those needles and then using the tip, you're going to bring that yard right up through that first slipknot and then you'll bring your needle over and pull that down and there's your person did stitch. So let's do that again. The needle goes right behind the first you will be handled that the other needle yarn goes around. You're going to bring that loop right up and then put that onto the needle. Do that again, being that around under, put it on the needle. And that really is how you form that in its stitch. Come right around like that. And on it goes, pound up and over. Now you can see. Would you take a look at what? This what this does This gives you a very nice knitted stitch right here along the bottom. You have your knitting in the front and Purl stitches along the back. And that's a very good set up for an inning. Another very popular cast on is the long tail cast on. Now, with this cast on, you do need to estimate the amount of you are you need for the stitches. You're going to cast Tom to do that. All I have to dio is take my yarn and wrap it around my knitting needle 10 times. One, 23 45678 9 10 And I want to pinch this section right here and this section up here because what that's going to do is tell me about how much yarn 10 stitches will take. Now I can then get a ruler and give it a little measurement to see that 10 stitches is about nine inches, and then I'm going to give myself a little bit extra. So for 10 stitches, it's about 10 inches. So if I know I'm going to put up 10 stitches onto my knitting needle, I'll give myself 10 inches of length on this end, and I'm gonna give myself a little bit of length here, pulled it out and then to show you how to do the long tail cast on. So you're simply going toe. Lay the yarn over your index finger and your thumb of your left hand, and then give that a pinch down at the bottom by your little finger. So all I've done is laid it right over and given it a pinch. Now I have the end of the yarn towards the front of my body and the tail that goes to the ball of the yarn towards the back so you can see how that set up. And I'm just going to take my knitting needle and push it down across the top to come over this thumb around my finger, and then I'll see a little bit of that tail sticking right up and go ahead and time I slip . Not that way. The reason I do this is because it gives me the same stitch on the front of that slip stitch. It's not a different looking stitch. It's not it not. It looks the same as everything else. So the next step is to put the yarn back over my thumb and forefinger and that we're going to cast on. You're going to take your your knitting needle by your thumb up by your forefinger and right through that little part right there down here, by your thumb, up by your finger and right through the loop, but some by your finger and right through the loop, by your thumb up by your finger and through the loop, some by your finger and through the loop one more time. So your thumb about your finger and through the loop. Now let's take a look at this cast on. This one's a little bit different than the knitted cast on in this example. We have the net stitches towards the front, and the Purl stitches right here. If you do the long tail cast on your first row of stitches, our Purl stitch. And that's just important to remember. Just a piece of knowledge tohave, um, so that you know, when you're starting your row, whether you're starting with PERL stitches, ordinates touches, take some time and practice both methods of casting on. Remember, you can pause the video at any time and rewind to repeat a step if you still have questions or you just need to see the demonstration again. 5. How to Form the Knit Stitch: The goal is to practice your knit and Purl stitches. We really are going to be making anything. Specifically, However, when you're finished with this, you could use it as a scarf. The idea, really is to make us watch and to practice your net and you're pro stitches, you will probably have to take some stitches out as you go along and read that you might allow your mistakes to stay in the in the swatch that you're making. This really is about practicing. I always recommend for my students that they not worry about exactly what they're making at first, because we tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves if we're trying to make something specific, whereas if you just allow yourself to practice, there's less pressure. So we'll put a little less pressure on ourselves, and we'll just net now. As you're working through this, you could end up using this as a scarf, or it could just be your practice stitches. So pressure is off. We're just gonna practice. Let's start by casting on 36 stitches. I'm going Teoh. Use the long tail cast on method, and I'll give myself enough of the tail so that I can cast on those 36 stitches. Now, I don't always measure exactly how much I need, and I'm OK with that. If I end up with a little extra on the ends, I'm really all right with that. So I just pull out about what I think I need and I'll start with the working end away from me and the tail end close to my body. My first cast on Stitch comes down around my thumb by my finger and through the triangle, and now we're cast on 36 of these. - Now what? You have all 36 stitches on. We're going to remember that we have that knit stitch facing us and the Purl stitch on this side, and that's OK, because the first stitch we're going toe learn is a knitting stitch, and we're just going to knit all the sides on on both of them. So I just want you to practice by knitting. Now, as you cast on your stitches, you do want to pay attention to how tight they are. You don't want to give it a death grip of a poll because then you won't be able to do your knitting. It will be too tight. You don't want it so loose that it falls off either. So you do have to practice a little bit to get that tension exactly where it should be. And if you have a tail like Ideo, you can either trim that off or you can, um, leave it long and tie it up a little bit. I'm just because this is a swatch, I'm just going to trim mine off. You want to make sure you deal with that ends that you don't accidentally get that into your project? It's happened to me before. Trust me, it will happen to you at some point. But give yourself a little bit of a break there and just tie it off. Okay? So to start knitting, the first thing we're going to Dio is slide than you go behind this first loop right here, slide it right in there and then grabbing the end that goes to the ball of yarn. Come right over the back of the needle and then bring that right up through the top and slide it right off the needle. And that's knitting. So there is to it is gonna come around the back of that needle up through the loop, come back through the back of the needle and use those tips. The tips air tapered on your needles. You can slide that tip right along and you'll feel it Come right along that other edge, slide it up and then you're simply sliding that stitch right off. Slide that behind around. Slide that right up it's now, we're gonna go ahead and net all the way across all 36 of the stitches and just practice Go slow as you get ready to you want to go ahead and push those stitches right up to the edge of the tip. They start to fall off, slide it back down. If one falls off, it's OK. Don't worry about it. If it just keep right on going. Like I said, this is your This is your practice. We're not going to try and fix anything yet. We're just going Teoh practice. The best thing about knitting is that you're not gonna mess up your material. If you don't like what you're doing, you're just gonna a little out. It's just a really it's just a bunch of knots. So if you don't like what you're doing, pull it out and start over again. Some people get upset about that, but I always feel like this is part of the learning process, and knitting is about the process. It's about the process of creating that relaxing time for yourself and just enjoying the knitting now and you'll notice that I'm not focusing on had attention your yard right now or anything like that. We're just grabbing that yarn by the tips of our fingers and bringing it around. And that's because this is the easiest way to get started. So why don't you do a few rows of knitting unjust practice if you need to, You can put the video on pause and rewind and rewatch a section and just give yourself an opportunity to practice those knitting stitches. Now, let me show you, though, how to turn around first, let's get to this end here, all the way to the end. Don't do that last stitch. Slide that right over and you get your first row. Congratulations. Now the next thing you want to do is simply turn this around you in. Turn it now you know the end that your knitting, it's right here to the ball of the yarn. We're gonna go ahead and knit a couple of rows, same processes before just gonna slide in and net. So why do you need a couple of rows and meet me back right here? 6. How to Form the Purl Stitch: and your knitting should look something like this. This is what's called a garter stitch. Now, when we're knitting, what we're doing is we're making a fabric, and the fabric will have a different look to it. Depending on the stitches that you dio, we learned how to do the net stitch, and we met each side of our knitting. And we've created Pearle bumps on each side, which means that we've created a garter stitch fabric. Let me show you a piece of that a little further along, and you'll see that this fabric really has a very distinct look to it. It's all those Purl stitches on both sides, and each side of the fabric looks the same because I've met both sides. So if you just kept going with your piece and you wanted to, you could knit this into gist of lovely scarf right on its own. It's a nice think fiber and a nice warm scarf so you could stop right here and make something if you wanted to. Your in inner. Now we want to go a little further, though, and I want to teach you the pearl and the nets stitch. So these are the only two stitches in knitting. So let me show you. Ah, couple of things. Um, that change. Now here I've got another piece where I have done a little bit of that Gardere stench. And then I've done a nit stepped on one side and a Purl stitch on the other side. So now my fabric looks different. It has all those pearl bumps on one side and knit stitches on the other side. And the important thing about doing a swatch is that you start with that little bit of garter stitch and then we're going to leave some garter stitch along the sides so that when we're finished, our swatch sits nice and flat so that we can measure for gauge. All right, So let me show you a couple of things about what happens when you mix that knit and that Purl stitch. Here's some others watches that I've made just mixing the Net and the Pearl sketch. Here's one. Here's what Here's what you're finished. Watches going toe look like so you'll just practice that knitting and that pearling and the goal is to get your stitches to look as even as possible. Now If you mix Annette Stitch and a Pearl sketch, you end up with a piece of ribbing. Now this is commonly found along the broom of a hat or along the cuff of a sweater or along the waste of a sweater. Um, you'll find this in a lot of different places, and you can change how many pearl and knit stitches you have and that will create that rib the thickness of your rib. So this again is identical on both sides because you're spreading out Thanet and the Pearl . So if I pull this, you'll see that I have knit stitches right here. M Pearl stitches right here. So that's kind of cool. And then when you start to play with your knitting and your pearling, you can. This is just simply taking this stitch and adjusting where the nets in the pearl and the pearls lineup. So in this one, I net every two stitches and I pearled every two stitches on this one. I met every step. I'm sorry on this one. I knit every other stitch and pearled every other stitch. And then I just changed that as I went along. And what that does is create a whole different sort of fabric. So, as you can see, just by learning these two stitches, you'll see different things coming off the bottom of your needles. So let's Lauren that Purl stitch. It's not hard to do. It's really just needing the Nets. Ditch backwards, that's all it ISS. So we've turned a work, and we have are. So watch down here with the garter stitch on the slide. These stitches right up to the front now because I want you to create a swatch, which has those Gorder stitches on the sides as well. We're always going to knit the 1st 2 stitches and the last two stitches. Now, if you mess that up and you end up pearling or doing whatever it's, it's perfectly all right. Don't worry about it. It's just a swatch, so we'll start by netting two stitches. Same as we've been doing. It won no to, and now we'll do our Purl stitch To do the Purl stitch, you need to bring your yard to the front of your work. When you're knitting, the yarn stays in the back of your work. Now we're pearling, so it's going to come to the front, and I'm simply going to put that needle in and bring my yarn around over the top of the needle and around and slide it right through. Let me show you again. You aren't over the top of the needle, and then what you're doing is sliding that tip and bringing it through and letting the stitch come right off that needle. It's literally the opposite of the knitting. We're just coming right through back behind and off over time, around the needle back through and off it goes, and we'll just pearl all the way across this row. - Now you can hold your knitting needles where it's comfortable for you. Generally, I hold my needles pretty close to my lab and just it right in front of my hands. You can see that I am holding this needle steady on my left side. I just hold that needle riel study, and the right side is doing all of the work. Other side. You can even balance the tip of that needle in your lap if you need to keep it steady. Now. Technically, pearling is the back of your work, and the knitting is the front of your work. So what we're doing is working across the back of the work, okay? And we get to that end and we'll turn this around and let's just take a quick look here. What we've done, you can see now that this looks a little bit different than than those per bumps. Now we have some knit stitches that are starting to come out. So let's this side. We're going to knit because this is our net side. Remember, we're gonna nit those 1st 2 stitches and those last two stitches. We'll just nip right across this room. You need to use your hand to your point a finger to point that Beatle down. That's fine. Get yourself into the rhythm and learn the movements first. Then you can learn how Teoh pick up speed, - the one that rate that end months. Take a look at our work. It's always important when you get to the end of your row to take a look at you work because if you have a mistake, you can fix it at this point very easily. So there we have our knitting and we have our pearling, so we'll go right back around, and now we'll flip it over. And there's our pearl row. So why don't you knit and Purl a couple of rows and then we'll come right back here and meet up again? 7. How to Fix a Mistake: in case you make a mistake. If you're going along and then you realize oops, I knitted when I should have pearled It's OK, it's OK, it's so easy to undo. And I wish I had learned this early early on in my knitting because there's so many times I just ripped everything out because I just didn't know how to fix it. And it's not hard to effects. So I've made an error here I pearled instead of instead of knitting. So all I'm gonna dio is take thes two stitches and I'm gonna slide them right off. Now you can see nothing bad happened. I dropped the stitches off. My whole piece didn't come unraveled. There's no disaster that happened. Everything's OK. I'm just going to pull this yarn out. And my little stitches are right there. See how nice and safe they are. They're still right there. I'm just gonna turn this over and I'm going to put those stitches back onto my needle and then I can go back to my stitching right here, and I can say, All right, I want to switch this yarn to the front so that I can do my knitting And there we go. I fix those two stitches. Now the only thing that you probably need to pay attention to if you're going Teoh undo some stitches is how to put the stitch back onto the needle because there is a right and a wrong way to do that. If you can accidentally twist the stitch, which would, then you'll be able to see it right away because see how evenly these stitches are formed. If by accident your stitches twisted, you'll see a little twist right in there, and then you can go back and undo that. So how does the needle? How did the stitches sit on the needle? The front leg of the stitch should be right in the front when the back in the back. If, for some reason I had put this onto the stitch onto the needle the wrong way, it would simply be turned around so that it was the opposite way on the needle. And I would know this because when I go to put my my stitch in, it would be a little bit tight, so I'll just take it off and turn it the right way. Now if I want to go back and undo a lot of stitches. I can also do that by picking through them with the other needle tip. And all I would want to do on the pearls is simply come up under that Purl bump and slide that needle up and then slipped my stitch back off, and then I can pull that right out, and this ditch comes undone. So I'm just gonna go right up here under that pro bump, slide that back onto my needle, split that stitch off and give it a pull, and that will come right, I'm done now. I have a couple of knit stitches right here. Let's say I wanna undo some of those knit stitches. I can come right into the V of that statue and take it right off, lift it off and then undo it and the pups right off so I can kind of come back and say, Oops. I made a mistake. I need to go back five stitches and I can come right in and I can undo my stitches. If I'm at all concerned that I might drop it and just go ahead and do it and then I know my , um I have to flip this around toe, work it because my working yarn is always to the right. So here I am. I need to reduce some stitches. Here I am with my pearl bumps, So I know I'm rolling and I'll just put that needle and and go ahead and do my pearling now this stitch. See? Now here's a guy who's backwards. This stitch is backwards, and I can tell because this it's twisted and it's a little hard to get my needle in there, so I'm simply going to lift this off and just turn it right around and put it back on to the right spot and do my stitch so I might have twisted. When I went to take these off, I twisted a couple of them, so I'm just gonna take him off and put him back on properly and then go ahead and do my sketch. So lived him off, turn him around, and now I can such knees interested to. So it was Pop it right around. Now I'm ready to do my knitting when the slide this needle to the back of my work going to do my knits touch. He's backwards, too, with him around. Slide right in and do that Nets touch. So see how easy it is to fix our mistakes. It's not hard. It's really easy to dio, and you don't need to panic or be worried. Um, this is our swatch. So practice going back, taking a couple stitches out, putting them back on, making sure they're not twisted stitches and see how you dio. It's a really, really important thing to practice very, very early on, it's that you become a confident knitter. 8. How to Read Knitting Patterns: now that you've practiced your knit stitch your pearl stench and you know how to fix your mistakes, let's take a look at what happens when you start playing with nits and the pro stitches together here. I have an example of a swatch of just practicing now. Like I said, this could become ah, Scarf. But for right now it's just a practice little palate. And sometimes I'll leave something on the needles just so that I can play with it and try out a new stitch and practice and see what happens. This is all done with just knits. M pearls. It's just playing with those stitches and changing them around and seeing what happens. It's just a combination of the different stitches. So let's take a look at what exactly a knit stitch looks like. Now we'll go back to our swatch, and we'll look at what we have. A knit stitch. Is this stitch right in here? It's this little V that we form when were knitting, and the Purl stitch is what is on the other side. It's that little pearl bump on the other side. Originally, when we started out our swatch, we just did knitting. So we have pearl bombs on each side of our knitting, which makes that garter stitch, and you'll notice by just knitting on the edge each time. As you're making your swatch, you'll have that garter stitch that goes right up your knitting as well. The garter stitch is super helpful because if you just do knitting, knitting tends to roll. If it doesn't have anything holding it in. Now here's an example of just knitting, and you can see that that end just rolled right up without that borders Ditch on there. It just tends to roll, so you want to add the garter stitch to avoid the rolling. Now let's take a closer look at what happens when you start playing with those knit and Purl stitches. So here's our Gorder fabric down here, and then you can see here. This is Purl stitches and then knit stitches, Then Purl stitches and mitt stitches, Purl stitches and knit stitches and processes. That's all it is for a certain amount of rose and then you switch and you go net Purl knit , Purl knit, Purl knit and look what happens. You start to create this basket weave look, that's the only thing that's changed is where you put the Purl stitches and where you put the nets ditches when you start to play with those knit and Purl stitches, Here's where you can tell that it matters. How many stitches you cast on when we cast on this watch. We cast on 36 stitches. 36 is divisible by 49 times. So if you wanted Teoh, if you did four stitches of pearl and four of net and four of pearl and four of neck you could do nine patches across. And then when you flip your piece over after now, here's where you can make up your pattern. This is the freedom of knitting, and this is the freedom of learning how to net with without really having to follow that pattern. You can just make up whatever you want to dio. So here I needed 123456 rows. So let's say you do four Purl stitches for knit stitches for pearl, for net all the way across nine times, and you do that for six rows. Then you would switch and do the opposite. Put your nets over your pearls and your pearls over your nets and do that for the for the same amount of rose so that your squares turnout even, and you will make a basket stitch just that easy. Simple, simple. So now, for some of the other stitches that we have here, I'll include patterns in in the class that you can download some of the patterns, but let's take a look at another stitch if we wanted to. Actually, I'm gonna come over to a Purl stitch. I mean, I'm gonna come over to a rib, a rib stitch. Now here's where we can go back to Those nets and pearls were still stacking the knit stitches over the Purl stitches, and that's what's creating that ribbing. So essentially, what you're doing when you're doing a basket stitch is your creating a very wide rib, and then you're switching it up so that the fabric stays flat. In this example, if you continue admits and pearls, you'll get that ribbing that goes throughout your fabric. So what I'd like you to do next is just play a little bit. Play with that knitting and see what you can create. Now you can you can go as far as you want to go here. If you just go until you run out of yarn, you'll probably end up with a scarf and a very interesting scarf. Were you congest? Play until your content and then you can start to pick out a pattern. What we've learned so far is that by reading are knitting. We can learn how Teoh alternate those mitts and those Purl stitches to create a design within. Within that knitting and a pattern is not difficult to read. It's just a simple matter of looking for where the stitches are in the row and then in the columns, take a moment to download your pdf that's attached to the class. It's the Knitting Stitch reference and how to read a charted knitting pattern. On the Pdf, you'll find knitting symbols. These are the symbols that indicate if something is a knit stitch or something is a Purl stitch. The nets stitch symbol is a box with a vertical line, and the Purl stitch symbol is a box with a horizontal line knit stitches, air very orderly. They line up nice and straight and stack equally a straight in there. Rose reading and knitting chart and reading your knitting are exactly the same. Knit and Purl stitches are identified by their symbols in the chart, so let's take a look further in the pdf. This is a single stitch chart. The pattern name is the stuck in that stitch. The arrow right here indicates the starting point in your graph, so the first stitch that will do is a net sketch. This number one down here indicates that there's Onley one stitch in the repeat pattern, so we'll just keep knitting for its many stitches, as we want. When it's time to go to the second row of our knitting, I will read the chart from left to right where the number two is indicated. The number one down here indicates that we read the first row from right to left. The second row is left to right. Okay, so let's go look at a little bit more complicated. Stitch. This is a multiple stitch chart for the moss sketch. It has a to stitch repeat for symmetry. We know this arrow indicates this is where we're starting our first row and our first stitch. This will be a knit stitch and then a Pearl sketch. Then when we come back up to the second row, we're gonna read from left to right, and we'll alternate those stitches. So we put a net over a pearl and a pearl over a net, and that will create the moss stitch. So let's go look at the second page of this. Pdf here we have the stocking at Stitch. It tells us a little bit about it and what we're gonna do on the Rose. Then we have the stitch chart and an illustration. This is for the front side of the stock in it, Stitch where all of our stitches air knitted the reverse side of this document stitch is when everything is pearled. So here's our chart in Here's our illustration. Now, if we wanted to mix the stock in that stitch with the Purl stitch in a little bit different way, you could pull some of those Purl stitches to the front side of your stock Annette stitch and create Garda ridges. So here this is a six pattern repeat step First stitch. First row of the repeat is a net. So you admit across second row, you pearl third row unit, just like in stock in that stitch. But then on your fourth row, you're going to knit right over your third row, and that's gonna pull your pearl bumps to the right side of the fabric, then your port pearl. Then you'll net. And what that does is give you a ridge that will run right across your stock in that stitching so you can repeat this every six throw you could change and very how often it it comes into the front side of your knitting. Whatever you'd like to dio, here we have the moss stitch, which you talk to the front of the pdf about Here is our illustration of what the moss stitch looks like. So here you can see we have a net and then a pearl and a knit and a Purl knit a pearl and it a pearl and net. And then we come up Purl knit Purl knit so you can see how that alternates and gives you a different texture in your knitting. All right, so let's go to the third page, and here we have a double moss stitch. The Onley difference in this one is that we've taken in the chart. We can see it where now We just were repeating the same knit Purl pattern in two rows and then alternating in rows three and four. So if you look at the illustration, you have to knits on top of each other than to pearls than two minutes to pearls and then same thing up here, and you can see how that varies the texture in your knitting. We also have a two by two rib, which will look like this in that chart, your knitting to and pearl into and knitting to improve Ling Teoh. And what that does is it creates a little elasticity in your knitting so that you can create the rib that goes along the bottom of a sweater or along the cuff or of the cuff of a sleeve or around the brim of the hat or the cup of a sock. So that gives you something a little bit different that we have the four by four checks. This is where we have four nets, ditches and then four Purl stitches. You do that for four rows, and then you alternate and you'll have four Purl stitch it for knit stitches and four Purl stitches, and this is what the illustration looks like. Then we have the and a lesions stretch. In this example. We're going to do three stock in that stitch rose. Then you'll do a pearl and it a parole and net and then back to your three stock in that stitches, and what this will do is it will put pull a little ridge in between. See how your net stitches stay knitted, but here you'll get a little bumps of this. In this situation, you'll get a little bit different texture in your knitting, so use this ditch dictionary as a reference and play with some of those stitch patterns. Practice reading your chart, adding some of these two years Watch by playing around with this and by trying different things. You're really increasing your skill level, and you're increasing what you can create in your knitting. So practice for a little while and then come back and I'll show you how to cast off and bind off your knitting 9. How to Bind-Off: never turn a place that you're ready to bind off your knitting. It's very easy to Dio You want to make sure you're starting on a knitting, bro. So if you have any pearling left to do, go ahead and finish that pearling, and you can tell here that I haven't done several knitted rows. But I would suggest that you do several knitted rose to finish this off, and then, in order to bind off, I'm gonna go ahead and net one stitch net a second stitch, and then we're going to take the back stitch and bring it right over that first stitch. Then you'll get another one. Don't do the same thing again. Bring that right over that for a stitch, and you'll just keep doing that until we're right to that end. So let's go ahead and it combined off the row. Okay, Once you get to that last very last stitch, you'll have the last stitch on the needle. You want to go ahead and lift that yarn up, and then you can. If you're working with wool, you can just break it right here. And that's the best thing to do with with walls just go ahead and break it right off, or you can cut that. If it's an acrylic, you might need to cut it and then you'll just pull this right up through that last stitch. And there you go, you bound off your swatch. Now you'll notice that mine rules a little bit. The reason it does that is because I only have two stitches of garter stitch, and this piece has not been blocked yet. Blocking means that you simply put your knitting into water and you wash it. Now I know that might sound a little bit scary, but won't is like hair. It is hair, and when you wash it and dry it, you can set it just like you do with your own hair. So if you think about when you take your shower and you blow dry your hair and you might flat iron or naturally dry it or whatever it does, it's going to end up in a certain way. You can do the same thing with your swatch. Let me show you an example of what I'm talking about. So this watch you can see it has just I don't even think it has any garter stitch the top in the bottom, but this has been washed in water. Now in the water. All you have to do is take a container of water and add a little liquid dish detergent to it. Then put your piece in and you don't wanna swirl it around or squish it. You just want to soak it in the water and let it sit for about 1/2. Now were war. Um, if you let it sit for an hour overnight, that's perfectly alright, then come back to it. Squeeze it out. You'll feel the wonderful feeling of the wool, squeeze it out and then lay it flat to dry. When you lay it flat dry, that's when it gets its shape. So now you want to always follow these same washing instructions when you're working with your piece after it's been finished. So this if I have this is a scarf. I want to wash and dry it the same way. If I give it to a friend, I want to give my friend the washing instructions so that they don't accidentally felt there won't. Now is a good time to pause the video and bind off your swatch 10. Conratulations! You are a Knitter!: that's all there is to knitting you now. Know how Teoh, make a slip stitch cast on your stitches form units stitch form you Purl stitch correct any of your mistakes. You can also then rearrange Earn it and you're Purl stitches to create patterns and you've learned how to read your patterns and read your knitting as you go along. And then you've also learned how to bind off your stitches. So congratulations, you are now in inner.