Yes good on you. I’m sad to say that your first item or two may be mostly a learning process but it’s great to hear that you are paying attention to the knitting! All I can say is try to understand how the wool actually sits in the different stitches, how a purl stitch works and is different to a knit stitch, how to fix mistakes etc, and work on your tension - not too tight, not too loose. Once you have mastered this with both knit and purl stitches you will be able to make almost every other stitch/technique. You’ll probably need the knittinghelp videos to show the exact specifics on some but once you have seen them, you’ll be able to do them easily.
Once you know how to knit and purl, I think that EVERY other technique will be easy after you have done it, say, ten times.
Knit front and back? Cable? Stranded colourwork? Knitting in the round/moving between DPNs? Yarn overs, knit 2 togethers, slip slip knit, knit through back loop etc.? Do it ten times and you’ll be sweet. Twenty times more and you’ll be getting pretty fluent at it.
I encourage you to make every new project you start include at least one new stitch or method. I have been knitting for about 6 months and consider myself more than intermediate, if not advanced. I can do lace, cable, socks, colorwork, DPNs, magic loop, on 2 circs, knit back and forth, English and Continental, etc. I’m not showing off because this stuff is not hard! You just need to try it, maybe have trouble the first two times, succeed with reference to the video or webpage the next few times, and then you’ll have it down. Don’t hesitate to try something new when you’re comfortable with what you’ve got. I promise you I found everything easy to figure out after knowing knit and purl, and I had no-one to show me, the internet can tell you about everything. God love Google.
One of my first few projects was a moss stitch scarf (British moss, that’s k1 p1, repeat…) - in English style - and by God it taught me to purl well, and to switch between k and p fluently. It looks fab in many novelty yarns as well!
The sole exception to what I just wrote is learning Continental if you knit English, or vice versa. That took a while, mostly on how to moderate my tension (just holding the wool consistently in a way I liked), just like when you first learn to knit at all. But I had the added advantage of knowing how a stitch works, how knit and purl are really the same stitch from different sides, etc.
But that’s all in the future… do I remember correctly that you are doing a ribbed scarf? By the time you have done one or two of those your knitting and purling should be fairly even so good choice!
Is that you in the avatar? Are you a trucker? I’m picturing someone at the truckstop noticing a big bearded guy, possibly with a pipe, parked in a huge Mack truck, knitting away, saying knit knit, purl purl, knit knit, perhaps with pink wool, and doing a double take.
Go mate go we need more male knitters so when we show our boyfriends a FO they will say great stitch choice… what gauge did you use? Do you prefer DPNs, 2 circs, or magic loop? Circs for knitting flat? What’s the fibre content? How did you block it? Nice colourway…
instead of ‘uh huh’.
BTW all a certain boy has passed the test, when I say check it out! My latest masterpiece! he has the manners and good sense to say Wow, cool! even though he doesn’t fully understand everything about it the way a knitter does. If I say ‘feel that… merino and cashmere’ he says ooh, soft. If it’s a complicated pattern he nods. ‘Neat.’
I don’t expect him to be able to discuss details, or even listen to me explain them (maybe in a perfect world) but occasionally, when I show off an FO, to look at it, make a comment (even if he doesn’t like it, to offer his opinion in a tactful way) - even if only two words - earns him brownie points. What do you reckon girls?
Sarah
congrats! I’m so glad you relaxed and just enjoyed it. It can get frustrating, but remember, its just 2 sticks & some string, hehehehe. Believe me, I wish I was knitting while my daughter went through the teenage yrs… I wouldn’t have 1/2 the grey I do!