- [Kristen] Today on How to Loom Knit,
we'll be working the garter stitch
and learning how to prevent curling in your knits.
We'll also have a pattern in here as well.
This is lesson 6.0.
Welcome to GoodKnit Kisses.
We're all about helping you stitch your love
and love your stitches.
Prevent knits from curling by combining knit and purl
stitches, and work the garter stitch.
We're working a garter stitch by working a row
of knit stitches and then a row of purl stitches,
to make this ridge here.
See this one in the back, here,
you've got a row of knits with those V-shaped stitches,
and then you have this purl bump along here,
and it creates these ridges.
You can even count by twos when you're counting your rows,
it makes it really easy, and you just count all the ridges
and say, "Two, four, six, eight," and so on, kinda cool.
If you make it with a u-wrap or an e-wrap,
either one, it will make the garter stitch look the same.
The only difference is it will be
a little stretchier with an e-wrap,
and your stitches will individually be bigger,
but it's actually pretty hidden.
And there's a neat little shortcut
to make it seem a little faster.
However, you can combine those knits and purls
on just the border, which is a great basic skill to have,
and you can use this for things like coasters,
like this one, all the way to a dishcloth or a blanket,
and then you can create this middle space here,
we call that the field, or the middle,
and do like a big stockinette area,
or you can make any number of other stitch combinations
and patterns, and then this border allows you
to not have curling on the edges,
while having fun playing in the middle.
So that's a really good thing to know.
In this video here, I'm gonna show you how to make this
with a couple of notes on shortcuts,
and then I'm also going to give you a pattern
for a dishcloth, so stay tuned, and we're actually
gonna have two patterns in one in this video.
What you're going to need is your yarn and your loom.
If you want to make the coaster, I'm working
with a super-bulky number-six-weight yarn,
and I need 11 pegs on a large-gauge loom.
This one, when you measure from center-peg
to center-peg, it's 5/8,
and I'm using this 24-peg, 5/8-gauge loom from KB Looms.
You can also use the Knifty Knitter or one just like it.
And then if you want to do the dishcloth,
you can use a cotton yarn, which is a number-four
medium-weight yarn, and then you're going to need 36 pegs
of a small-gauge loom.
This is a 3/8 size, center-peg to center-peg.
You're also going to need, for both of these,
of course your loom hook, and you can use a crochet hook
if you want to crochet cast on,
and then you're going to need a couple of stitch markers.
I'm just gonna use these nice little rubber bands.
You do wanna have two of them, and that's all you need.
You can use a row counter as well, if you like,
or just a scratch paper to kind of note those things.
The reason why I'm doing both of 'em at the same time
is you can choose your project.
You could even make the coaster first
and come back when you're confident
and make the dishcloth,
but they are made the exact same way,
and I really wanna teach you that, many times,
these patterns, you can use them on different looms
and make a similar fabric,
it just has smaller or larger stitches.
Let's begin.
For the dishcloth, I need to mention
that we're using the Knitting Board loom.
This is a premium knit loom, 72-peg.
You can use any other loom with 36 pegs that's small-gauge.
I just happen to be using this one
because the color works well on camera.
So let's go ahead and put our stitch markers on,
and I'm marking both of these looms at the same time,
so either one you're working on is great.
I happen to have some stretchy rubber bands,
and what I'm doing is marking the border edges.
Okay, so where these edges are, and I'm gonna get purl
stitches for the main part of our pattern,
because we're gonna be knitting this length
for quite a while.
These borders, when they're marked, it's really handy.
You can also just mark the innermost peg.
So you're going to cast on,
this loom here, one through 11,
and then if you're working on the dishcloth,
mark the first four pegs, okay,
and then count all the way to peg 36,
and then you're gonna mark the last four pegs
for your border here, okay?
Let's do the cast-on.
For our cast-on today, I'm using the chain cast-on.
You can use another cast-on if you want,
but I want you to see what the edge looks like.
It has this really pretty detail, combined with the knits
and purls it comes off really well.
So I'm gonna go ahead and do a little reminder
of what that looks like.
Just go ahead and make your slipknot,
and again, check our cast-on video down below
for more on slipknots and casting on.
And we're just going to start on peg one,
and start in the direction that you want to be working
your purl stitches, and you're gonna want a cast-on
that works all in one direction, not where we are wrapping
one way and wrapping back.
We want to work from right to left, casting on,
if you like to do your purls from right to left,
and then do the opposite if you are a left-handed knitter.
Okay, so go around the first stitch here,
put our slipknot on our hook and keep it loose.
You can also do this with just your fingers.
Yarn over and pull through.
And yarn over and pull through,
and go ahead and cast on all your stitches,
so 11 on the coaster or 36 on the dishcloth.
All right, so pause your video, and I will meet you back up
when you've casted on all of your stitches.
See you in a moment.
All right, so I'm gonna put that last stitch on,
and we're ready to begin.
Now, this is where you can decide if you want
to do e-wrap or you want to do a u-knit wrap.
I suggest, if you have enough yarn, do both.
You're going to make one sample in u-knit
and one sample in e-wrap, that's totally fine,
and that way you can have something to compare against.
Again, if you're gonna have e-wrap,
the middle part is going to have this field on it,
rather than this field.
This is a field of u-wrap-knit stitches,
and this is a field of e-wrap.
So we'll have a little bit different look to it,
but your garter will be a little bit bigger,
because this is a bigger stitch
and it's a little bit stretchier, so keep that in mind.
All right, so whatever knit stitch you're going to do,
go ahead and start working that.
You're gonna work all stitches all the way across your row.
And don't worry about any of the stitch markers,
you're just simply working all pegs, all right?
So go ahead and work all pegs, pause your video right now,
and I'll meet you back when you're ready.
Okay, as you come down to the end,
and now we just want to purl stitch,
so again, you just put your yarn below the loop,
and just pull upward, making a new loop,
take it off, and put it back on.
Okay, and so you're just gonna keep repeating this
all the way down to the end of your row.
So one full knit row and one full purl row
will make one ridge.
You wanna make two ridges for this particular pattern,
for the coaster, and you're going to make six of them
for the dishcloths,
so if you need to think about it this way,
that's how many purl rows you're making.
I'm gonna show you a shortcut.
If you are using the e-wrap stitch,
it's a really easy way to create
your knit and purl rows almost simultaneously,
because the yarn gets wrapped
and then you can knit it off as you go.
It's a fun, easy way to do it
if you want to purl right after you knit it off.
I'll show you what I mean here in a moment.
I'm coming to a finish on this, and of course
if you need a reminder on the purl stitch,
please click down in the links below
and you'll see that video for the purl.
Okay, so we're ready to begin a row,
and I want to go ahead and wrap this, like I'm e-wrapping.
Okay, just wrap all the way down.
I do this with my right hand.
Okay, then I come to the end, and normally I would knit off
and start knitting off all my stitches, one by one,
like that, but if you want to just knit off that first one,
bring your yarn to the front, you can purl that stitch
just as usual, and then come to the next stitch,
knit it off, and then purl right after.
So what that does is it just pushes that one stitch
down below, right before you get to it,
and then you can work the next one.
So it's not technically doing them at the same time,
it's not knitting one with new yarn
and purling one with new yarn,
so not stacked on top of each other,
the yarn is already there from the previous row below.
So we can just continue working it this way,
and make one ridge fairly quickly,
and then you will be ready for continuing on your pattern.
So continue doing this, pause your video,
and meet me back up after you've completed
two purl rows on your coaster
or six on your dishcloth,
and your six ridges will look like this.
All right, pause your video, and I'll see you in a moment.
You completed the first part of your edge,
and now we're going to set up for doing the field,
or the middle, with the two edges here.
So we've done this part, and now we're going to be working
on this part here.
So you should have the working yarn
at the opposite end as your original tail,
and if you're not sure if you just completed
a knit or purl row, you can always look
on the back of your loom and pull back your stitches,
and if you pull 'em back like this
and see a V-shaped stitch,
that means that you just completed a purl row,
because the opposite is this knit stitch.
If this little bump right here is just snug
right up against the back of your loom, or your peg,
and you can't pull it back like this
and reveal a knit stitch, then you have just knitted.
All right, so I'm going to go ahead and do one more knit row
and go all the way down, and then I'll show you
the purl row and how it's different.
All right, this is where we need to do the edge stitches.
We're going to purl the first two stitches on our coaster,
so all of the ones that are marked here,
or if you're only using one stitch marker on the innermost,
you're just going to purl until the innermost
and continue on that one, so one, two.
Okay, and then you'll continue knitting
until you get to your first stitch marker here.
So you just work all the way up
until just before that marker.
So if this is e-wrap, of course you're just going
to e-wrap that, then go all the way down,
and if you're doing the shortcut,
you can e-wrap till here,
'cause if you e-wrap down here,
then you wouldn't get that border stitch.
So remember, stop at this marker here.
You can go ahead and knit over,
just to kind of remind yourself,
and then when you get to this area, you can purl.
If you want to do your shortcut, it doesn't work as well
on here, because you're just gonna be e-wrapping
all the way down, like this,
and then you would do your stitches.
So now we're down here, and when we do our purl.
Okay, so if you're on the dishcloth,
lemme show you that one.
There's that last stitch.
And the dishcloth would just be working
these stitches here, these four stitches.
So put our yarn to the top part, and purl.
So of course these are smaller, and so that's why we have
a wider amount for our border here,
and then we did several more rows down on the bottom.
Okay, and then just continue working your knit stitches
all the way up until the next set of stitch markers.
So work all the way down to here,
and stop your knitting right here,
and work these as a purl.
All right, pause your video, and I'll meet you back up
at the end of that row.
Okay, so these are instructions for the middle.
You just completed one ridge,
which is one row and then your purl row,
which is the garter ridge in the beginning of the edge
and then your main field stitch
and then you're finishing with that purl.
So that is one set of ridges.
So we want a total of six here, on the coaster.
We've got one, two, three, four, five, six,
you can see that.
So you're going to be completing essentially 12 rows.
So a knit row, a purl row, and so on.
So continue until you have about three inches,
or if you wanna count that,
every time you've got a purl row,
it's actually about six within here.
You can use a measuring tape here,
and start working down here when you get to the three,
and this knitting edge here gets to the one,
then you've got it about where you need to.
That's for the coaster.
For the dishcloth, you're gonna work 28 ridges,
or actually 56 rows total.
You're gonna work about seven inches.
Pause your video and when we meet back up,
you'll have most of your knitting done,
and we'll do the final part of your pattern.
See you in a moment.
As you can see, we are ready to put on our final border,
and on the coaster, we're going to do two more ridges,
and on the dishcloth, we'll do six more ridges.
Now if you look at this, you might quickly see
that it looks like I actually have three ridges.
That's not the case.
Lemme remind you that this is actually the cast-on,
it's not actually your purl row.
So you had a knit row right after the cast-on,
and then you had a purl, and then a knit and a purl.
So make sure, if you are studying your knitting,
you want to account for what is your cast-on
so that you can try and make your ending border the same
as your beginning border.
Okay, so we've got our working yarn
on the opposite side of our tail over here,
and we want to go ahead and do a knit row,
a purl row, make that ridge,
and you're gonna repeat that over and over.
So two on the coaster, and six on the dishcloth.
Pause your video and meet me back up for the next part.
Once you've knit your border,
you need to set up for the bind-off row,
and all you need to do for the setup is just knit a row.
So go ahead and knit one more row,
pause your video, I'll meet you back up
and I'll show you the bind-off again.
You can also check out our bind-off video,
and we also weave in tails at the end of that video
as well, if you need a reminder.
Okay, pause your video and I'll see you in a moment.
All right, we're going to bind off.
You're going to start by working the first two stitches.
Knit one, and knit two,
and then we take the two and put it on the one,
and then knit off.
And then we move it to that empty peg,
and now we just repeat by working stitch two, peg two,
moving it to one, knitting off,
and moving it to the empty peg.
Just continue doing that until you have one peg left
and you're going to knit it one more time,
and I'll show you down at the end.
If you're working the e-wrap,
you can e-wrap these stitches as you knit.
If you're using the u-wrap knit, you wrap them as you go.
All right, pause your video, and I'll see you at the end.
All right, I'm on my last stitch, and I'm knitting over,
and then I'm just gonna wrap that one again,
and pull it off of the loom.
Cut my tail, and then I'm ready
to weave my tail in.
And I have a nice square for my coaster.
Well, this is what our dishcloth or washcloth looks like.
It's all stretched out from being on the loom.
We need to help it relax, and how you relax that fiber
is just to pull gently downward on it,
and you can see these V-shaped stitches start to pull in.
So these are really stretched out,
just pull downward and let them relax.
And once you do that for your project,
you kinda hand-block that,
you can go ahead and weave in the tails,
and then I would leave just a little tip of that yarn
out there on both of them, before you clip them off,
and then go ahead and block this.
You just wanna run it under some water,
and squeeze it out gently,
and then lay it out and let it just air-dry.
You can hang it over something if you wish,
and then it will get evened out.
Of course, this one has not been blocked,
so it's a little bit wonky right now.
Let's talk about fiber.
This one's made in cotton.
The dishcloth is best in cotton
because it can absorb that water,
lets you move it around and wash some dishes really well.
There's also some man-made fiber
for some scrubby yarn that you can add to this.
It kinda looks like eyelash yarn,
I think it's made out of nylon.
Anyway, you can add that to it or use that separately,
and that's totally fine, it helps make it more scrubbable.
But when it comes to the coasters,
I recommend using a wool or an acrylic
because they don't absorb the water,
and therefore it prevents from the wood becoming affected,
say if you have a sweaty glass with ice,
it's not going to have water come through
and ruin your top down below.
If you use wool, it's good for something that, say,
gets a lot of high heat on it.
Generally, coasters aren't gonna get that,
but if you set down something incredibly hot on a coaster,
the acrylic could melt,
if it's at a high enough temperature,
but a wool will absolutely not be affected by that.
So I hope that helps you today, and our next video
is going to be on the seed stitch.
I can't wait for you to see that lesson.
Be sure and click on the next video,
in the link description below,
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Thanks for joining us today,
where we help you stitch your love and love your stitches.
See you again soon!