Crafty Belles

Now that knitting appears to you in all its exciting promise, let us get you started on your first project. Knitting is a craft and therefore needs a lot of practice before you can master it. Hence, it is very important that you pick your projects carefully and proceed step-by-step. The process of getting started on that first exciting project can be outlined as:

Step 1: Choose Your Projects Carefully: As a beginner, you must choose a simple project with that requires a low level of skill. Knitting can seem difficult and complicated if you try to jump skill levels. Mostly, scarves and mufflers are considered the best projects for beginners. If you’re feeling apprehensive about taking on a scarf then you can try your hand at knitting a small square piece with cotton yarn ad use it as a dish cloth.

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The invention of the knitting machine was crucial to understanding the social nature of knitting. Only with this invention did knitting-by-hand take on such a social character. Much like crochet or quilting, knitting-by-hand became a non-essential craft and therefore penetrated the sphere of social activity. Using a different system, machine knitting can produce patterns identical to the ones produced by hand knitting.

Even though knitting machines revolutionized the process, there is literally a twist you must beware of! While purchasing a knitting machine you must be very careful to figure out and understand the “twist”. The texture and tension of your finished fabric will depend on the twist of the yarn. When knitting with a machine, the yarn that you use and the degree of the twist are what decide the texture of your finished product.

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Knitting is a craft with a rich culture and history. What makes knitting unique as an art is the fact that just about anybody can learn how to knit! All you need to perfect this art form is dedication and practice.

Understanding The Process
The first step to any knitting project has to be the cast on. Start by making a slipknot on the needle, your first stitch. Continue to loop over the yarn and slipping the needle from under the stitch to create additional stitches. You can do this using a single needle or by using two needle, whichever you are comfortable with. Once the stitches are cast on to the needle, the next step would be to add another horizontal row of stitches to make the pattern grow. Create as many horizontal rows of stitches as you would need to finish your project. Once you are done with the stitches and have knitted enough rows, be sure to bind off the stitches to separate the fabric you have been knitting from the needle. You can experiment with stitches and combinations of stitches to create a new pattern for your fabric. If you are not that confident yet, then you can always look for free patterns in magazines and on websites for that perfect sweater, scarf, socks or bag!

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For a beginner, it can be difficult to understand the knitting literature you find in magazines or online. To decode the language used to describe a pattern can be tougher than knitting the pattern itself at times. In addition, the sight of so much jargon can definitely give cold feet and make knitting seem more complicated than it is. Therefore, I thought a compilation of knitting terminology could really benefit you. To this end, I present to you a short and concise glossary of certain important terms used in knitting.

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