I am teaching myself to knit and it seems I have all the “moves” down but it’s now coming out correctly.
I have been using the long tail cast on method but when I start to knit my 1st row they look like purl stitches. What am I doing wrong? I’m using the American method b/c I can’t seem to get the German method.
I’m very confused and frustrated!
Long tail produces what looks like purls.
Doesn’t sound like you’re doing anything wrong.
I find the bumps produced by the long tail cast on don’t really look that much like purl sts. But the back of a knit stitch is a purl, so when you finish a knit row and turn it to do the next, you’ll be looking at purl sts. Just knit the next row, and the next… and you’ll have garter stitch.
I’ve knit row after row and it all looks like purl bumps. I don’t get it. How many rows do I have to knit before it looks like a knit stitch?
It sounds like you want to have stockinette stitch. In that case, you have to knit one row, then the next row you purl the whole row, then the next row knit, then purl and so on.
When you knit every row (when knitting flat), you produce garter stitch, which look like purl bumps. When you knit a row, then purl a row, you get stockinette stitch- little Vs, which is what you probably mean by “knit stitch”.
Also, just so you know, you are knitting English, not “American” and the other method is called Continental.
http://www.free-knit-stitch.com/knit-stitch1-20/2.stockinette.JPG
THis is what stockinette stitch will look like. YOu knit a row, purl a row, etc.
http://luckoftheirish.typepad.com/photos/yarn/garter_stitch.jpg
If you knit each row, you get garter stitch like this pic.
HTH
If you knit every row it will never look like “knitting” if you are thinking of the flat vee like stitches that are common. You must knit a row and then when you have the stitches on the left needle to begin a new row and the purl bumps are facing you you need to purl that row. (When the flat side faces you, you knit the row.) You must alternate knit rows with purl rows to produce “knitting”. The result will be one side of the fabric will be the vees–aka stockinette stitch (st st), and the other side will be evenly bumpy all over–this is called reverse stockinette (it’s just the back side of st st)
If you knit every row you will get a fabric that looks the same on both sides. This is called garter stitch and is useful for a lot of things. A nice flat stitch that is more like the bumps the reverse st st gets, but they will be in rows or ridges.
If you were knitting in the round, like a tube, and you knit every round you would get st st automatically because you would always be working from the front side. It’s like magic. And if you want garter stitch in the round you must knit a round, purl a round.
Ah ha! Now I get it. I’m trying to get the little "v"s and it all makes sense now. As I was practicing today I figured that had to be it b/c it seemed like every other row would be “backwards”. Now it all makes sense! GREAT forum.