Not an expert, so I need a lot of help

#1

My grandmother taught me to knit only last spring, and so I didn’t learn much about knitting. She showed me out to purl (which I thought was knit), and now, after 5-6 scarfs, I’m really needing some help to improve my technique. The videos helped me learn how to do the knit st, but even after doing about 10 rows of it, it looks exactly the same as the purl stitch to me. :frowning: And, when I try to do stripes on a scarf, they always end up looking badly.


As you can see here. I was wondering if there was any way to knit a scarf with stripes with out having this happen? :??

At the same time, I was also wondering how to knit the letter “R” into a scarf as well.

Again, I am fairly new to this ‘game’, but I thank all who will try to help me. :slight_smile:

#2

You’re doing a garter stitch… knit every row (or purl every row). This stitch pattern creates a fabric that looks the same on both sides. That’s why both your purls and knits look the same.

Here’s a little practice for you. Cast on oh about 20 stitches. Knit one row, Purl the next. Repeat for 5 to 8 inches.

You’ll soon see the difference between your purls and knits. The side that you knit on will be smooth and the stitches will look like little "V"s. On the purl side, it will be bumpy and the stitches will look like little bumps.

#3

What you are doing right now (which looks GREAT…nice and EVEN!) is called “Garter Stitch”. This happens when you knit BOTH SIDES of your work, because the back side of a knit stitch IS a purl stitch. If you knit the front and purl the back (“Stockinette stitch”), you will have a bunch of V’s instead of V’s alternating with bumps. Stockinette will give you the knit-looking fabric that you are familiar with.

Keep watching Amy’s videos! You’re doing a great job!

(Looks like Silver & I were posting at the same time! :lol: )

#4

And, P.S., there are several ways to knit a pattern into your scarf. One would be to knit the main work in knit (well, stockinette) and knit the R in purl sts (or some other alternate stitch), OR you could try intarsia or fair isle for an R of a different color. Amy has great videos for those color techniques.

#5

Kelly’s right. You need to understand that k and p are opposite of each other. That is, the back of a k st is a p and vice-versa. So whether you knit every row or purl every row, you’re going to end up with the same thing. If you knit one row and purl one row all the way up your scarf, you’ll get what’s called stockinette st, which is what we are used to seeing on the outsides of sweaters. It does tend to curl, though, so you could knit 5 st on every row for the first and last 5 st of each row, whether it is a knit or purl row.

The bumps of different color occur on the purl side when you change colors. On the knit side they look like a smooth transition, though.