What did I do wrong? I cast on and followed the directions on the videos, but when I got to my marker, it was if I had knit on 2 straight needles. I have no loop… Anyone know what I did wrong??
ETA: I’m a continental knitter… does that affect how I join? All of the how-to’s show holding the yarn in the right hand, when I hold it on the left… :?? I’ve only done the cast on stitches and one row. Do I need to rip it out and start over???
After you cast on, take the needle end with the yarn on it in your right hand and knit the first CO stitch from the left needle. Keep going.
You probably switched hands so the yarn was on your left needle like flat knitting. It’s different in the round.
sorry to be slow, but what does CO stand for? I’m also always a stitch short when I practice joining. Should I be adding a stitch to start with when casting on?
I guess I need to start over, huh?? :??
CO is “cast on” – so “first CO stitch” is the first stitch you cast on.
When you finish casting on the number of stitches you need, you have a line of stitches; on one end is the first stitch you cast on, and on the other end is the last stitch you cast on, and the working yarn is coming out of the last stitch.
For flat knitting, you turn it around so that the needle’s in your left hand with the working yarn (and last stitch) at the point of the needle, and you knit across the row from the last stitch to the first stitch. For knitting in the round, the first stitch you knit onto is the /first/ cast-on stitch, not the last cast-on stitch, and you knit the same direction around the stitches.
(You shouldn’t be losing a stitch – joining just means knitting the first stitch of the second row using the first cast-on stitch rather than the last cast-on stitch so they make a circle. You don’t need to combine stitches or knit them together.)
The Advanced Techniques section of KH (http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/advanced_techniques/) has some videos for how to do circular knitting – you may find that helpful. I know I find it really really useful to be able to see what’s hapenning, rather than just trying to figure something out from another person’s text description. 
And knitpicks has some very good pictures - http://www.knitpicks.com/content/index.php/cat/knitting-in-the-round/
Ignore that she’s got the yarn in her right hand, works the same if you knit continental too. The main thing about knitting in the round is having the yarn on the right needle.
Here’s the video I made about joining in the round. Hope it helps!