by Katrina Chapman

Created on: July 02, 2008   Last Updated: July 12, 2010

Understanding the knit stitch is pretty easy once you understand some basic things. There are two basic stitches in knitting the knit stitch and the purl stitch. The knit stitch is 99 percent of the time what you learn first, and if you're like me you learn how to do it incorrectly.

Let me first explain how knitting works. Knitting is a series of loops of yarn pulled through one another. The loops are kept "live" by being on a needle making rows of loops. These loops are called stitches and a row can be anywhere from 2 to 2,000 or 2,000,000 stitches depending on how wide you want your knitted item to be.

You make these loops by placing your working needle through a loop already on the needle and pulling a new loop of yarn through. The working needle is the one in your dominant hand. The following instructions are for a right handed knitter. I'm doing this for two reasons. One over 90% of the world is right handed. Two I'm right handed and therefore don't know how to give directions to a left handed knitter.

There are two needles used in knitting the working needle and the needle you're knitting off of. The working needle would be the one in your right hand. To make a knit stitch you insert the working needle into the first stitch on the non-working needle from front to back and left to right. The needles should make an X. You then loop the working yarn, the part coming from your ball, around the working needle and pull the loop through the stitch on the non-working needle. Slide the this stitch off the non-working needle leaving the new loop on the working needle. You have now created one knit stitch. Repeat these directions until you reach the end of the row. Switch hands with the two needles, putting the empty one in your right hand and the full one in your left and do it again.

Sounds complicated when it's all written out like that but it's not. If you follow the directions to the T you'll be making rows upon rows upon rows of knit stitches, which is called garter stitch. To make sure that what you're doing is in fact knitting you need to look at the stitches on the working needle before you switch hands and turn the needle around. Look at the stitch under the needle. If it looks like the stitch on the needle is wearing a scarf you're doing it right. If it looks like he's wearing a noose you're purling. That's a completely different article.

If you are a visual learner I would suggest searching for how to knit videos on Google. I'm sure you'll find tons of information. There are a lot of good sites with videos out there to get you going. So go grab some yarn and a set of needles and knit, knit, knit!

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