Starting your first project
Now you understand the basic knit and purl stitch, you can now spend hours browsing on the internet looking for a simple project that is easy for a beginner. You could try our
Project Search facility which lists lots of patterns available and grades them by ability , so select the category called Difficulty and selecte "Easy"and browse through the patterns shown or try joining
Ravelry, a knitter and crocheters forum which lists hundreds of patterns ( free and to purchase) and also lets you filter patterns by ability. An enormously wide choice of patterns can be found on
Drops, here the patterns are free and listed in a variety of languages. Our Project Search will list all the materials you will need to make that particular project, so you can cost up the project before you start.
As in any crafts you need some tools - the beginner needs only some knitting needles and some yarn but first choose a pattern. Each is discussed below.
Selecting a pattern
Most designers of knitting patterns will indicate whether the pattern they have written is for beginners, intermediates or advanced knitters. This might be indicated in text or the number of dots or numbers of wool icons etc. Normally the fewer dots means it is easier.
So for your first project, choose an easy pattern and maybe choose a pattern which features only one or two stitches and a basic shape ie no decreases or increases. Also for motivational purposes, do choose an item you would like to finish and wear or use, this will encourage you to persevere and complete the project.
Patterrns will indicate the yarn knitting weight required (more about knitting weights later) and most recommend a specific yarn. The sample garment/item photographed will be made in the recommended yarn, so if that is the look you are after, then follow the recommendation until you have done a few projects and you will become more confident about swapping and changing yarns.
Knitting needle size will also be indicated by the pattern.
Knitting needles
As a beginner, it's no worth spending a lot of money on expensive needles until you have completed a few projects and decide you like knitting and will keep up with it. So if you do not have any wiggly old aluminium needles from your Mum or Granny, then try borrowing from friends or try charity shops, they will be available cheaply at most charity shops.
Once you have decided to take up knitting, then bamboo and wooden needles are very easy on the hands and wrists, you do not get so much annoying clicking with the non metal ones. Plastic and metal are also available, you may find you have a particular preference once you have tried a few different needles. There are some lovely expensive needles about from different woods, but just think about if you have kids who sit on things without looking or if in fact you are like that, then replacing them is expensive. Its safer to keep knitting hidden away out of reach of kids when its not actually being worked on and I recommend point protectors to stop accidental eye pokings!
Choosing a yarn
Hmm.. where to start, there is so much gorgeousness around, wool, cotton, silk, cashmere, alpaca... I could go on for hours.
Again, for your first attempts you could just buy a couple of balls of cheap yarn, you can find odd balls in charity shops or cadge some left over yarn from a knitting friend.
The first consideration when buying a yarn is its knitting weight ie its thickness or ply. 4ply is thinner than double knit, chunky is thicker and you can also buy super chunky, the thickest yarn. All yarn is sold by actual weight, mostly usually 50g hanks or balls or 100g and the length will vary. A 50g hank of very fine yarn such as a laceweight ( thinner than 4ply) will be very much longer than a 50g ball of double knit. A 50g hank of laceweight could be anything from 200m - 400m and 50g of double knit from 70m - 130m.
Descriptions of
knitting weight is different in the US - see
Glossary for different descriptions.
Your pattern will indicate what knitting weight yarn is required or if it not clear on the packaging, then the
tension it knits to is usually indicated.The tension is a measure of the number of stitches or rows a yarn will knit up on the recommended needles over a 10cm square of knitted up fabric.
For example a double knitting weight yarn would knit around 22 stitches by 30 rows - see
our table on the glossary which shows average tensions for different knitting weights. Tension is very important in getting a good result. People's tension can very quite a lot, so if you knit loosely, you will use more yarn than recommended but more importantly, the garment will turn out bigger than expected. Equally if your tension is too tight, the garment will turn out smaller than expected and not fit very well.
A lot of people skip making a tension square but normally this is because they will already know if they knit to tension or not. So to avoid spending hours makingsomething and then having to pull it out and redo it, create the tension sqaure first and see if you need to adapt your work.
If you regularly find that your square is less than 10cm by 10cm on the recommended stitches and rows, then try using needles which are 1 or 2 sizes up. So say the pattern says use 4mm needles, then try 4.5m or 5mm and see if you get closer to the 10cm x 1cm sqaure. If your square is larger than expected, then try needles one or two sizes smaller.
Now you know which knitting weight to use, choose the shade you like - this may take some time or you may be quite definite on which shades you like and don't like,in which case the choice is made quickly.
Yarns come in solid colours or with tweedy flecks or there are twists of two shades but the most popular in recent years are the variegated yarns. Giving an an interesting colour change effect without swapping yarns, there are lots of variegated yarns about, see
Manos del Urguay Silk Blend as an example (they are sometimes also called space dyed).
One other aspect you may want to bear in mind is that items made in chunky yarn will knit up a lot faster that thinner yarns, so if you want results fast, look for chunky knits or small items.