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Knitting will give you years of pleasure once you've learned the basics. If you have never picked up needles and wool before, learning this skill won't be so daunting if you remember that you just have to learn three things to get going: how to get your yarn on to the needles, how to turn the yarn into stitches once it's on the needles, and how to get the yarn off the needles again.

Using medium-sized needles (4mm or 4.5mm) and a small amount of inexpensive yarn, this basic knowledge is enough to get you started on a scarf.

GETTING THE YARN ON TO THE NEEDLES, OR CASTING ON

First of all make a slip knot by forming a loop at the beginning of your yarn, leaving a thread of 5 or 6 inches. Pull the end of the yarn through the loop to form a new loop and slip this new loop on to one of your needles. Pull the yarn taut. This is now the first stitch of your knitting.

Holding the needle with the existing stitch in your left hand, take the other needle in your right hand and push it gently through the stitch to form an X shape with both needles, with the right needle below the left one. Now lay the yarn around the end of the right needle to form a new loop. Pull this loop back through the first stitch and transfer it from the right to the left-hand needle. You should now have two stitches on the left needle.

Repeat this process until you have the required number of stitches on the left needle. Don't make too many stitches the first time, about 20 will do.

The secret to learning how to knit with even stitches is to keep good control of the yarn. The recommended way to do this is to keep the yarn draped over the index finger of your right hand, under the middle finger, over the next finger and then looped around the little finger. However, that doesn't work for everyone. Try securing the yarn in several different ways until you find the one that is most comfortable for you.

TURNING THE YARN INTO STITCHES, OR PLAIN KNITTING

The casting on you have just done is essentially plain knitting, or the knit stitch. Take the needle with the 20 stitches in your left hand. Push the right-hand needle gently through the first stitch, keeping it under the left one. Wind the yarn round the tip of the right needle and pull it through the stitch to form a new loop. Move the stitch remaining on the left-needle over the edge of the needle and off. The loop on the right-hand needle is the new stitch. Repeat this process until you have moved all the stitches from the left-hand needle to the right-hand

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