Hi. Welcome to Knit with Hannah. I'm Hannah. I'm here today to talk about the knitting basics (intro)
Hi and welcome to Knit With Hannah. I'm Hannah. I'm here with knitting natter to help you learn to knit the easy way. Yesterday we
were talking about the knitting basics. What do you need fundamentally to get you started? OK, so, I'm going
to presume to start with you already have needles and yarn sitting by you. If you don't, don't panic
I'm just going to suggest that you find yourself a pair of needles, maybe five or five and a half
millimetres wide, and then a ball of yarn that is either Aran or worsted weight, also known
as medium, and that is... That means that you have yarn and needles that will sit quite happily
in your hands, as an adult a great place to start. It's not too big so it's uncomfortable and the
needles aren't too clunky, and it's not too small so you can't really see where you're going. You
need to see the stitches that you're knitting with and you need to be able to hold them comfortably
and get going. So, let's talk about this shall we? Knitting basics. Well to start with you need to put
yarn on the needle, and that's where we're going to start today. We're going to cast on. There are
so many ways you can go when you're casting on. There are books full of hundreds of methods of
putting stitches on the needle. I'm going to show you today my very favorite knitting cast on method.
I use it for pretty much every single project I do now. I don't switch to another one, not because
I don't know any more, but because actually this is a great foundation for when you're knitting.
It's ideal for so many things. Your stitches go on the needles and you can start knitting. OK let's
do that. Let's put stitches on the needles known as casting on. One step at a time - that means putting
the first stitch on the needle. You can do this in various ways and the most secure way so you
don't lose it half way through your knitting is to make a slipknot. I'm going to make a slipknot
like this: we're going to take a short end of yarn from the end of the ball. Just looking at that,
that's about 8 inches long. Don't worry about it. It just is a length, a small short length of yarn
and we're going to wrap that around our fingers, so, wrap it around your fingers near your tips,
and then again by your knuckles. Then take a single needle, and holding both of those ends of yarn, just
in my fingers, here, in the back, and I'm going to take hold of this needle, move it underneath the
first loop, and over the second loop. I'm going to pull that second loop through.That's created a
slipknot, and that means that if you tug on the short length it will just tighten the stitch
a bit. You're not going to end up with a loose stitch just hanging out the end there once you've
carried on knitting which means that that's the way to make it not so that, that stitch is
taut enough. OK I'll show you that one more time. I'm going to take the short end and wrap it
around the two fingers of my left hand by the tips, two fingers of my left hand by my knuckles.
Just take hold of both of those ends in the back of my hand there. Take the needle underneath the
first loop, and pull that second loop through, and we have it. The slipknot. That's the first stitch on
your needle. And now we're going to create more stitches, so let's do that now. We are going to
have the right hand needle sitting there and the left hand needle with the first stitch sitting
there. OK, I hold my needles as if I'm writing with them. You will find over time what is a more
comfortable way for you to knit. This is how I teach because this is the way I knit, so, if you've
already started knitting another way then you can try this. I've actually had students come to
me and say "I've never knitted like that before but it's so much more comfortable", so why not
just try it? They actually found it helpful to learn a new way to knit and it was easier for
them. So let's do this. We're going to put that right hand needle through that first stitch so
you've got kind of an 'X' at the end of your needles here. They are just both sitting through the needle,
through the stitch, and the right-hand needle is underneath the left one. So now the yarn that's in
your right hand... I'm holding it and I'm looping it around my little finger, and then underneath
the other fingers, and over the forefinger because it's the index finger here that's going to make
the difference. The index finger is going to help that yarn move around the right hand needle. That's what
we're aiming for. With every single stitch somehow this yarn needs to move around the right hand needle,
and then we pull that stitch through. That is a new stitch now it's on the right hand needle, but
we need lots of stitches on the left hand needle, that's how we're gonna start knitting, and this
is called casting on. So that stitch is now put onto the left hand needle. isn't that great? Now,
there are lots of ways of continuing, lots of ways of making new stitches. I'm going to show you my
favorite method and I have actually a playlist of cast on methods. You can try this one and
you can go and try others if you like, but just stick with one. If you need to watch these three
four or five times and just try it over and over again, then do. This isn't about getting perfect, it
isn't about learning everything about knitting all at once, this is about starting to knit, and
this is the simplest you can do. Now, for the next stitch we're going to take the right hand needle
in between those last two stitches, so we're not going into a stitch again, we're going in between
the last two, and we're going to take that yarn and again we're going to move it around the right hand
needle, pull that loop through, and we're going to place it on the left hand needle. That left
hand needle goes into it from the back. There. There you are. Same thing again: we just repeat what we've
just done. The yarn, the needle goes in between the previous two stitches, the yarn goes around, pull
that loop through, and you put it straight onto the left hand needle. We now have four stitches.
Needle goes in, yarn goes around, pull that loop through, and straight back onto the left-hand
needle. And now... You see I'm doing something there that's automatic. Before that stitch is even tightened up
I'm putting my needles straight in between them. Yarn goes around, pull that loop through, and it
goes straight back on the left hand needle, and I'm putting that right hand needle behind that stitch,
and then I'm just tightening it there. Yarn goes around, pull that loop through, straight back
on the left-hand needle, and in between to make the next one, and in between to make the next one.
On to the left-hand needle. and in between to makes the next one. There you are. I'll just show
you that one more time: yarn, needle goes behind the first stitch, in between the last and the previous
stitch, yarn goes around, pull that loop through, and it goes back onto the left-hand needle. And
we now have stitches on the left-hand needle. Now, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten, eleven stitches. That's enough. We don't need any more than that. Eleven stitches is fine.
This is adequate to make something like this. It can be that simple, and you can make a shorter
one, you don't have to make a teddy bear, scarf, you can make a shorter one so it's a cuff to
go around your hand, anything like this. So, let's start with that. It can be a bookmark. Let's make it
simple, so you don't have a whole needle full of stitches that can totally confuse you. Now, when
you have a bundle of stitches, that's called a row and this is what we call knitting rows. So we're
now going to use the right hand needle, and I'm going to hold the yarn in my right hand again, same
way. You see that? It's around my left, my little pinky finger on my right hand and, you can see
it's over the index finger there. So, I'm going to do what I did in the first stitch, remember back here?
I put that needle into the first stitch and this is called knitting stitch. We put your needle
into the first stitch, yarn goes around, pull that loop through, and this time we're actually going
to push the stitch off of the left-hand needle. We've knitted a stitch. Do the same thing
with the next stitch. We're going to put the right-hand needle into the front of that stitch,
yarn goes around, pull that loop through, and drop it off of the left-hand needle. We've knitted another
stitch. Yarn goes into the, needle goes into the stitch, yarn goes around, pull that loop through,
and drop that stitch off of the left-hand needle. We've knitted another stitch. Needle goes into the
front of the next one, yarn goes around, pull that loop through and drop it off of the left-hand ,
needle. In, round, pull it through, and drop it. In, round, pull it through, and drop it. In, round, put
it through, and drop it. In, round, pull it through, and drop it. In, around, pull it through, and drop
it. Now, if you're curious about how I'm holding the needle, you can go and watch a video from
last week about how to hold the needles. If this is uncomfortable for you, you could try holding it up
here, and using your little right, your forefinger, your index finger to hold it like that. I don't
find that very comfortable, and you'll find out why if you can watch last week's video, but,
there are many ways to hold the needles. All of my demonstrations are showing me holding it like this.
I find this really comfortable, it's really useful for my hands and so I can see what I'm doing as
well, because they need... The stitches end up on top of my thumb as I get more and more stitches on the
right hand needle. I can see the knitting. I can see what's happening. I hold it from above, then you're
hiding what you're doing, so just take a method that works for you, that works for your hands.
Look at that. All of the stitches have moved from the left hand needle to the right hand needle. We've
knitted a whole row of stitches. So now what do we do? Well, we switch the needles over, so that
they're back on the left hand needle. We have an empty needle and we're going to do exactly what
we've just done. We're going to repeat. We're going to knit every single stitch on this row. We go in,
around, pull that through, and off. In, around, pull it through, and drop it off. In, around, pull it through,
and drop it off. In, around, pull it through, and drop. In, around, pull it through, and drop. In, around, pull
it through, and drop. In, around, pull it through, and drop. In, around, pull it through, and drop. In, around, pull it through, and drop. And this
is why people start to love knitting so much, because it's a repetition. It's a rhythm. It almost
feels like music, and in a way it's yogic, it's meditative meditive so it feels like the rhythm
is there and it's just going to keep you going, it's going to keep you going, and then you switch over to
another hand and you knit, and you knit, and you knit, and you knit, and then it's all on the right
hand needle again so you switch it over, and it's that rhythm that keeps you going. You know the
rhythm is gonna get you! So, work out what you want to knit. Do you want a knit a bookmark? Do
you want to make a little coaster for your cup of tea every morning? Do you want to knit a scarf for
a teddy bear like this little chap here? He loves his scarf! Do you want to knit yourself a little
cuff? We can sew a button on it so it looks extra special. Just decide what you want to knit and
then work out how long it has to be. I'm giving you a bit of leeway here so you don't have to follow
my instructions exactly. We put stitches on the needle and we've started to knit. You decide where
you go from here. Congratulations! You've learnt the knit stitch and now you can keep on knitting and
create more fabric, and these are just a few ideas. I have a little cuff here. That's keeping me nice
and warm actually, and I've just sewn a button on it. There's a teddy bear scarf. Would you, do you have
a teddy bear in the house that needs a scarf? And what about this one? This is a lovely mini tassel
scarf I created for myself, and it is actually quite warm. Lovely and long; it's one ball of yarn long, so
I just kept knitting all the way through a ball of yarn, and I made sure I had enough at the end to make
two tassels. The easy way to do that is to actually make the tassels first, and then you can just
keep knitting as long as you keep going, until you finish the ball of yarn. Next week we will
cast off, which is all about taking the stitches from the needles and securing them so it doesn't
all unravel. That's just what we need. Once you've finished knitting, come back and join me next week
and we will do that together. Do hit the button to subscribe so that you're here and you know when
next week's video is appearing. That's casting off next week. I'll see you for that. Bye for now. Happy knitting. (outro)