Totally new at this! :)

How-to Questions
1

Hi there!

I’m 26 years old, and in Dallas, Texas waves I’ve been wanting to learn how to knit for a few years now, and I always chickened out because I don’t know anyone “IRL” to teach me. Well, today I went out and bought a beginners kit, with 2 sets of needles, a book, and some other doo-dads that I’m not really sure are for yet :lol:

I found the site after google searching… and I’ll say straight off, Amy’s instructions and videos are MUCH more helpful then the book. I like her “long tail” meathod of casting on…

Where I’m running into trouble is after I cast on however many stitches the tail will allow me too, then transfer the needle to my left hand to start a row of knitting stitches, the cast on stitches are really tight… I can’t really get enough room to manuver the needles and end up losing stitches I think… Logic tells me to not “pull so tight” when I do the casting on, which would theoretically end up in looser stitches, bu then it ends up being irregular and looks… ‘weird’ haha… (technical term for ya :wink: )

Im using size 8 boye needles, the kit also came with size 6’s … I haven’t tried those yet…

Any idea where I’m going wrong here?

Thanks for any tips :slight_smile:

2

Welcome to knitting, and to www.knittinghelp.com !! :waving:

You might want to try casting on over two needles held together. Then when you’re ready to start knitting, pull ONE of the needles out and you’ll have much looser cast on stitches to work with.

3

It’s okay if your cast on is irregular. After practicing for a while, it’ll even out.

But knitqueen’s suggestion is good… What you could do is hold the two size 6 needles together, then start knitting with the 8s. And the larger the needle, the easier it is to see the stitches and how you make them.

sue

4

the two size 6’s worked :slight_smile: after the cast on row, I transfered the whole thing to an 8… that was… interesting haha… next time I’ll try your suggestion to just start the knitting rows with the 8…

the other problem I’m having is I keep accidentily sticking the needle -through- the yarn… but I have a feeling thats because its cheap yarn :lol:

Thanks guys :slight_smile:

5

Even expensive yarn can be easily split with a needle tip. It has to do with how tightly it’s spun, not the price.

sue