I think my beginner kit lied to me... Can someone help?

How-to Questions
1

Hi there! I’m very knew to knitting. My girlfriend taught me a little bit when I visited her at her dorm room, and it inspired to go buy some needles and yarn. After messing around and making a truly horrendous looking “scarf” (playing around with different stitches and learning the mistake of making extra stitches), a friend of mine gave me a Singer brand beginner’s knitting kit, which came with plastic needles, yarn, and an instruction booklet with patterns for a purse and a scarf.

I made the strap for the purse with no problems. It was easy. So I decided to move on to the purse body. That’s when the trouble started.

The pattern says to do K2P2 ribbing for one inch before switching to stockinette. But here’s the issue. It literally reads exactly like this:

K2P2 ribbing for 1 inch. (On the front side, K2P2, on the back side, P2K2).

This led me to believe that on the first row I knit two, purl two, all the way to the end, then when I turn it and start on the second row, I purl two then knit two. So essentially I purl the ones that had been purled and I knit the ones that had been knit.

It’s not looking right at all. And after reading the sticky about knitting the knits and purling the purls I’m coming to realize that the book may have lied to me. But WHY?!

This is supposed to be a book to teach beginners how to knit! Why would it blatantly lie like that? What could it possibly be talking about? Why would it say to P2K2 the back?!

It’s the second lie I’ve found in the book. The first one was on the page about casting on, it said not to count the slipknot as a stitch. Most everything else I’ve read disagrees with that.

I’m really confused and frustrated. I’ve already had to unravel and restart this purse 5 times. It took my forever to even figure out how to K2P2. And now I find out that I didn’t even do that right and I have to start all over again and the darn book lied.

Sorry this is so ranty. I guess my question is… Why does it say to P2K2 the back? What could it possibly be talking about?

Thanks.

2

i didn’t even know singer did knitting stuff. i thought it was all sewing…

oftentimes it’s a misprint, and there’s errata (corrections, notes) available on the web. i didn’t find any specific to singer knitting, only singer sewing, but they do have customer service:

1-800-4-SINGER (1-800-474-6437)
Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. C.T.

Please note that our toll free Consumer Affairs line closes at 4pm. Any callers that call between 3:30pm and 3:59pm Central Time will be notified that we will be closing at that time. Any calls that remain in queue will automatically be disconnected at 4 PM. If you prefer you may contact us at talktous@singerco.com.

Singer Sewing Company®
1224 Heil Quaker Blvd.
P.O. Box 7017
LaVergne, TN 37086

Customer Service: 1-800-4-SINGER (1-800-474-6437)
Customer Service Fax: (615) 213-0994

For assistance in Canada, please contact Consumer Affairs:
1-800-363-1958
Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 4:00 pm E.T.

Pour le service au Canada, s’il vous plait contacter le Service à la Clientèle:
1-800-363-1958
Lundi au vendredi, 08h30 à 16h00

i’d reference the specific kit, with any item numbers if possible, and ask if there are corrections and/or errata available. if there are, once you get them go through and correct your instructions, patterns, all right away. that would help a ton for future use.

3

Welcome to KH. How many stitches did you cast on? If you end with k2, then on the next row you’ll begin with p2. When you knit the knits and purl the purls, you do what it looks like on the side you are looking at now, the side facing you. If it looks like a knit (a V) then knit it and if it looks like a purl (there will be a bar across the stitch) purl it. As for the cast on, which method does the book demonstrate? In some cases the slip knot can be dropped off the end of the needle and in other cases it can’t.

4

The book taught the backward-loop method of casting on, which is the one my girlfriend taught me as well. The pattern said to cast on 20 stitches, but I wanted it a bit wider so I did 24 (and I included the slipknot in my count). I figured 4 extras would be okay since the pattern was a 4 stitch pattern.

5

20 and 24 are both multiples of 4. You’ll start and end the first row with k2, p2. On the next row you’ll start with k2. Sometimes books get things wrong.