Keeping me in stitches or Knitting Terminology 102

Let's talk stitches - YAY! HOORAY! I know. They're exciting. They're also intimidating, hard to interpret if you over think or over simplify them, and sometimes cause headaches. BUT, that's okay because once you conquer a stitch no one can take it away from you...hmmm...that sounds like we're going to war...maybe I should rephrase that.

Back to they're exciting - your basic stitches are knit and purl. If you knit every stitch or purl every stitch the pattern will look the same - all bumps. Did you know that? I always though purl would be something hard, but it's just the same stitch worked from the front of the set rather than the back. Also, if you knit OR purl an entire project it is garter stitch.

This link has good photos and instructions for these two stitches. The instructions could be a tad bit better...

One thing that everyone seems to leave out of the instructions is that once you loop your new stitch it transfers to the opposite or empty needle. The stitch you just worked into needs to be pushed off the end of the original needle or dropped. (She tells you about the drop but not about what to do with the new stitch. I guess you'd figure that out eventually, but if someone tells where to put the new stitch it gives you confidence. We don't need panic attacks while learning to knit!)



This is a picture of the garter stitch pattern that you get from all knit or all purl stitches.



This is a photo of the right side or front of a stockinette stitch. Stockinette is 1 row of knit followed by 1 row of purl for the entire pattern. The combination of the knit and purl rotation gives the "chevron" style appearance. Many retail sweaters will use this stitch. (Go check your closet. It's alright!) The opposite or wrong side of the project will look the same as the photo above. Therefore, it will appear stockinette on one side and garter on the other.


Now, for the moment we've all been waiting for - the revealing of a secret...hold on to your seats!

Once you learn these two stitches you have the base for all other knitting designs! Yep! Now you can take over the knitting world with your own creations!

To help you own your way, this link gives you a small library of stitches and patterns derived from them. It has photos and a short pattern note at the bottom of the page. (K = knit and P = purl.) What are you waiting for? Get started!

Just one request - please share your project photos with us. We can't wait to see what you've created!