by Eleanor O'Donnell

Created on: March 12, 2008

Learning to knit is more straightforward than a lot of people realise. Though it takes time, care and practice to become accomplished in the art, getting started on your first scarf or baby's blanket is as easy as can be.

Start by purchasing a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool. Needles come in all different shapes and sizes so you're best off asking the shop assistant what a good sized pair is for a beginner or someone knitting the item you've chosen to knit (I'd recommend a scarf or baby's blanket for your very first project).

To start your knitting off, you need to form a slip knot and hook it over your left-hand needle if you're right-handed or your right-hand needle if you're left-handed. If you're not sure what a slip knot, check with a friend or search the internet for a diagram before you begin. A slip knot is simply a knot that can be slipped over something and tightened.

Next you need to "cast on" so start by holding your needles loosely in your hands like you would hold a pair of chopsticks. Now you need to loop the wool over the top of your needle in front of the slip knot and push the needle through this stitch from the inside. Hook this new loop round and over the top of the right-hand needle you should have two stitches on your needle now.

Carry on in this manner to cast on the rest of your row. Remember, when determining how many stitches you need, that you can bunch the stitches up whilst knitting to create an item longer than the length of your needle. For a simple scarf I'd recommend casting on 40 stitches.

When you're happy that you've cast on enough stitches, you can begin to knit. Push the needle without any stitches on it into the stitch at the end of your row of stitches (push the needle in from front to back). Now hook a loop of wool over the point of the needle that's protruding through your existing stitch and use the needle to pull this loop back through your work to produce a new stitch that will start the row on your empty needle dropping the stitch you've just used from your other needle.

When you've done this to every stitch along one needle, you'll find you've created a knitted row along one of your needles and are left with a whole new set of stitches along your opposite needle. Now all you do is switch hands and repeat the above step until you've created as many rows as you require for your project. Easy! If you want to take a break at any time, just make sure you finish a row then push your needles into your ball of wool to stop the stitches coming off while not in use.

To finish your item, or "bind off", you just together two stitches to produce one using the same method as above but forming only one new stitch for every two you drop (so 30 stitches turns to 15 on as you knit over to the other needle). Repeat until you have just one stitch remaining then slide it off your needle, snip the remaining wool so it's a few inches long, push it through the last stitch and pull firmly to create a knot.

Learn more about this author, Eleanor O'Donnell.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.