How to Knit: A Beginner's Step-by-Step Guide

Are you interested in learning how to knit? Then you'll soon be in very good company. Knitting is a craft technique that appeals to all ages and skills, and just so happens to be a healthy hobby. It's meditative, creative, and eco-minded. Not to mention it delivers the thrill of creating a special, one-of-a-kind item with your own two hands.

If you're committed to picking up the practice, there are a few things you'll need: a pair of needles, quality yarn (in a hank, skein, or ball), and a project that's best matched to your skillset. If you're a beginner, start with something easy and small in size such as a headband in garter or a winter shawl in stockinette stitch. As you progress in skill, you can add signature touches to your knit items like unique knitting stitches, cabled embellishments, or finished trims.

In knitting, there are two basic knitting styles: the English method and the German/Continental method. The only real difference lies in how the yarn is held. With the English method, the working yarn is held in the right hand; with the German/Continental method, it is held in the left. While both methods produce equally fine results, we're using the German/Continental method in order to take you through the step-by-step instructions and teach you how to cast on, knit, purl, and cast off here. Master the method, pick a project, and let your fingers fly.

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Make a slip knot by looping the yarn into a pretzel shape, leaving a tail end at least three times the width of what you are knitting (for instance, if your scarf is 8 inches wide, you'll need a 24-inch-long tail). Slip the knitting needle through pretzel shape as shown, and pull the yarn ends to tighten.

To begin knitting, you will need to create a foundation row of stitches on your needle by "casting on." Drape the tail of yarn over your left thumb and the working yarn (ball end) over your left index finger. Use your other fingers to catch yarn lengths in left palm. Insert the needle upward through the loop on your thumb.

With the needle, catch the working yarn that's on your index finger, and pull it through the loop on your thumb. Remove your thumb from the loop. Keeping yarn ends secured in your palm, reposition thumb, and tighten a new stitch on right-hand needle. Repeat these steps until you've cast on the required number of stitches.

Hold the needle with cast-on stitches in your left hand. Wrap the working yarn around your left index finger, and hold it in back of the left needle. Insert point of right needle from front to back into the first cast-on stitch on the left needle, opening up a stitch. 

Catch the working yarn with the right needle. Pull the yarn through the opened stitch. Slip cast-on stitch off the left needle while holding your middle finger against the second cast-on stitch to ensure it does not also slip off. The stitch on the right needle is the newly formed knit stitch. Continue knitting across the cast-on row. When you have emptied the last stitch from the left needle (completing a row), exchange needles, returning the needle with stitching to your left hand.

The purl stitch differs from the knit stitch in two fundamental ways: The working yarn is held in the front of the project instead of the back, and the needle is inserted from the back to the front instead of from front to back. Hold the needle with cast-on stitches in your left hand. Wrap the working yarn (ball end) around your left index finger, and hold it in front of the work. Insert the point of the right needle, from back to front, into the first cast-on stitch on the left needle, opening up a stitch.

Lay the working yarn over the needle from front to back by moving left index finger downward. Push the working yarn from front to back through cast-on stitch. Slip the cast-on stitch off left needle while holding your middle finger against the second cast-on stitch to ensure it does not also slip off. The stitch on right needle is the newly formed purl stitch. As a purl stitch faces you, it looks like a grain of rice; its reverse side looks like a V.

If you drop a stitch while knitting, don't panic; it's simple to retrieve it with a crochet hook. With the knit side facing you, insert the crochet hook, front to back, into the loop of the dropped stitch.

Use the hook to catch the first horizontal "ladder," and pull it through the loop to the front.

Repeat until all ladders have been pulled through loop. Place the stitch back onto left-hand needle, with the right side of the loop on the front of the needle. To pick up a stitch dropped on a purl row, turn your work around, and follow the directions for picking up a dropped knit stitch.

These necessary steps keep stitches from unraveling once they're removed from the needle. Knit two stitches. Insert left needle into the first stitch; lift this stitch up over second stitch and off the needle.

Continue knitting stitches in this manner until all stitches have been cast off. Cut the working yarn, leaving a 6-inch-long tail. Pull the tail through the last stitch to secure.

Use a yarn needle to weave tail ends of yarn through backs of several stitches, picking up only surface loops.