Tips for Newbs #3: The Beginner Knitter's Toolkit Part I

I was going to write about the use and relevance of stitch markers, but then I figured, what would be more helpful than an intro to stitch markers? A guide to the beginning knitter's tool kit! This is part one of an indeterminate amount of posts on the subject, so be sure to check back.

When you begin knitting, you'll find that there is a lot of accoutrement to choose from. Obviously you'll need needles and yarn to start, but then you find out that you need to keep track of about a thousand other variables: measuring your needles and gauge swatches, keeping track of stitch count when you're making something or working a particular stitch pattern, counting your rows - to name but a few! So here are a few pointers to get you started.

But first, get a beverage. This could take a moment!

Needles

Obviously! But what sort to get? Obviously, you don't want to lay out your hard-earned cash on some very fancy needles when you're just getting acquainted with the craft. What if you don't get along with knitting very well?

When I began my knitting odyssey, I bought a pair of size 10 short needles designed for children - one was red, the other blue, and they were both capped off with a very cute plastic kitty head. The purpose of different coloured needles was to help identify which side of the knitting was which while beginning, and it didn't hurt that they were very cute! The short length made it easy to work on small swatches to start with, and the diameter - 6mm - is a good, middle-of-the-road size for understanding how the needles work - not too small and not too big (I can't imagine anything more discouraging to the newbie knitter than tiny, tiny needles... it would take days to knit a decently-sized swatch!).

After that, I bought more, in various sizes - mostly large. They were colourful acrylic, some lightly coloured and see-through with glitter on the inside. I found out that a see-through needle looks very cool, but can be confusing since you can see all of your stitches from both sides (it looked like there were twice the stitches!), but a darker, more opaque colour worked fine. They do have a tendency to be squeaky and for the stitches to stick and not move freely - though I think this was partly the material, partly my tight-knitting issues at the time. Not all plastic needles are created equally - some work better for the individual knitter than others. It's a matter of personal preference - but I did find Daisy Needles to work very well as they are light-weight and smooth, and every size is a different colour, so you can tell them apart at a glance.

Wooden needles work well, too - I do recommend starting with bamboo (Clover Takumi is a great brand - lightweight and very smooth with enough traction to keep the stitches on the needle, so no worry about them slipping off), though I myself pine for a pair of rosewood needles (they look so pretty but are also sort of pricey).

As for metal needles, the stand-by is aluminum - what my grandmother used. The surface of aluminum needles tend towards a matte finish, so stitches won't go flying off them (same with wood), but personally, I find the noise they make as they rub against each other to be most irritating! I'd use them if there were absolutely no other needles in the world, but I favour nickel-plated. They have a fairly slick surface, which is why they are known for fast-paced knitting, but this property may not work so well for the beginner knitter. If you want to give them a whirl, I suggest the KnitPicks range - they're fairly inexpensive. Unlike, say, Addi Turbos, which are ridiculously addictive but kind of pricey (but oh, so good).

Needle Sizing

Here is a handy dandy list of needle sizes - it lists the diameter in millimetres (mm), then the US needle size, then the Canadian/UK sizes for easy conversion and identification.

When you're just starting out, I recommend a range from size US 7 - US 11. Like I mentioned earlier, beginning with very small needles may be discouraging. If it takes you a couple of days to knit a swatch when you begin, what impetus is there to keep going? I began with size 10, but if you're practicing with a worsted weight yarn - which is pretty middle of the road - size 8s are the way to go, as it is the needle size most recommended for that weight. (We'll talk more about the relationship between needle size and yarn weight in an upcoming post.) As you keep knitting, you will want to branch out to other fibres, yarn weights, and needle sizes, and will add to your collection with those things in mind.

Plenty of big-box crafting stores, such as Hobby Lobby or Michael's, offer needles not just in individual pairs but in packages of several sizes. (This is an example of the acrylic needles I mentioned earlier, in a three-size pack. They are a fine way to start out and experiment with needle sizes.)

Straights vs. Circulars

A couple of the needle types that I've linked to are circular, not straight, as you might be used to seeing. Straight needles are single-length with a stopper on one end, and work well for smaller pieces of knitting, like a scarf, or the front part of a cardigan. Circulars are comprised of two needle tips, about 3 - 5" in size, joined together by a flexible plastic cord. The cord holds the majority of the stitches, and come in a range of sizes from 16" (good for hats) to 60" (good for large pieces of knitting, like large lace pieces and afghans). You can find these as "fixed" (the needle tip is permanently joined to the cord) or "interchangeable" (the needle tip screws onto the cord, so you can change out length of cord depending on the project). While you may want to begin on straights - they are fairly straightforward to use, if you'll excuse the unintentional pun - a switch to circulars is fairly natural. They have advantages - one, you can knit circularly, without having to seam up fabric. Or you can knit back and forth like normal, being able to knit longer widths without having all of your stitches squished up on a straight needle. They are also friendlier on your wrists and hands, since on a larger piece of knitting, the resultant fabric will sit in your lap or on your work surface, not putting all of the weight onto one hand or another. And a final advantage that pretty much sealed the deal for me is that you can't lose one needle when you put down your knitting! It can be economical, too, to buy a kit of interchangeable needles. It's certainly something to think about when you move from beginning to intermediate knitting.

DPNs

AKA, double-pointed needles. Newbs, we will come back to this one! I remember when I began knitting, one of my knitting buddies, Sarah, mentioned "DPNs" in a chat and I was like, "whoa, whoa, back up. What?" ...now they're one of my favourite things. But back then, the idea of having your seamless knitting hanging from three or four other needles while you worked with one? It blew my mind. It might be doing the same to you. So for now, know that they're out there - we'll get back to it!

Yarn

Yarn choice is a little trickier - what you use depends on many variables and what sort of projects you're hoping to complete. When you are beginning, there is no sense in cultivating yarn snobbery! Acrylic has come a long way from the scratchy, squeaky, human-made fibre of yore. (My personal favourite is the Hobby Lobby in-house brand, "I Love This Yarn" - it is ever so soft and works very well for all sorts of projects.) It is non-allergenic and comes in a variety of colours, and it is inexpensive. I'm not going to lie to you - knitting can become a pretty expensive hobby once you get going, mostly because of fibre choice and the nature of Stash Addiction (where one cannot help but keep buying yarn for this-or-that project, or because of the "Ooh, Pretty!" factor, or any number of reasons, that turns a small collection of various yarns into a bona fide Stash). Which is why it pays to not be terribly choosy when you are beginning! When you're learning how to cast on, or how to tell knit from purl... do you really want to be wasting forty bucks worth of Mongolian cashmere? No, ma'am! You want to save better quality and luxury fibres for when you can appreciate them.

Having said that, wool can be pretty affordable if you know where to look - the aforementioned Hobby Lobby/Michael's type store does carry wool, and there's always KnitPicks. Wool has a bad reputation for being scratchy and yucky - I think many of us might carry sensation memories from woolen goods in our childhoods. I know I do! But wool is a workhorse. Small imperfections can be blocked out (yes, we'll talk about that later, too!), it has excellent stitch definition which is great for pattern work and lacy knitting, and it is very warm - it can even keep you warm when it's damp. Though it needs a little special care when washing, you can find superwash wool that can be machine-washed and is softer than regular wool (it won't felt, but that is one of its advantages).

Some folks do have wool/animal-protein fibre allergies, so if you count yourself amongst that number, I do recommend sticking to acrylic or perhaps cotton when starting out.

Thus concludes today's Tips for Newbs! In the next issue we'll discuss tools for determining gauge and needle size, the use of tapestry needles, stitch markers, and row counters. (Can you feel the excitement? Can you?!)

To Do List; Tips for Newbs #2!

Just so I can keep afoot of my own projects, here's a list of What Needs To Be Knitted, And How I Can Achieve Those Goals (Finally):

* Anna's GloveMitts

I need to take a gauge measurement of what I got knitted before we found out the resultant gloves were going to be ridiculously over-sized, recalculate the pattern based on actual measurements, and metaphorically rip the band-aid off by tearing back that knitting and starting anew. Which actually won't take that long - there's something psychological about size 1 needles and sock-weight that makes a small project loom large.

* Mel's Mittens

Need to consult my notes and figure out what I need to do next on Mitt #1. My stumbling block here is mostly the thumb, as up until now all but one of my mitt projects have been thumb-less, so the body of the thumb is the issue here. I don't want them to stick out weirdly like they were especially made to help one hitch a ride.

* Rachel's Cardigan

Finish neckband, sew neckband on, detach myself mentally from the project, fold it neatly and present it to Rachel without openly weeping.

* Gloria's Mitts

Finalise stitch-count (incorporating the cables), map out the pattern on graph paper, steel myself to do more ripping back, start anew, and knit them.

* Carolyn's Beanie

Swatch; adjust measurements from the same-styled beanie I made previously, make notes on said measurement, and knit it. Await delivery of the button she wants sewn on the side, attach it, hand over hat.

* Madelyn's Cabled Beret

Swatch, figure out how many cables, make notes, knit it.

That's about all I have in personal/gift projects, though once I've figured out how I want to do the Madelyn hat, I plan to add it to the store stock, as well.

And now...

Tip #2: The Long-Tail Cast-On

The long-tail cast-on looks tricky at first - and may certainly feel awkward - but once you get the hang of it, you have a faithful stand-by for easily casting on large amounts of stitches. I confess that when I first learned it, I wasn't able to get the hang of it from diagrams or descriptions; in fact, my husband figured it out and then he showed me, and it was only with a live example that I had my light-bulb moment and everything clicked into place. KnittingHelp has a video tutorial (even better, it's the first one listed on the page, so you don't need to go searching for it!). Some more resources for learning it are:

* a precise, cleanly diagrammed PDF-format tutorial at Butler's Country Knit Shop;

* a photo tutorial at Stitch Diva Studios (using a very large needle and small yarn, which I think helps allow you to see what's going on); and

* this great article about casting on at Knitty; the long-tail tutorial is at the end, but the whole thing is definitely worth reading for a primer on casting on.

When I do it, I make a slip-knot and then cast on over two needles or on a needle one to two sizes bigger to ensure an even foundation - not too tight, and not too loose. You will also have to make sure that your "tail" - the end of the yarn not attached to the ball/skein/cake - is long enough to accomodate all of your stitches and leave six to eight inches besides, so you have enough length to weave in your end. To help figure this out, you can cast on a fraction of the stitches you'll need (say, ten), unravel that yarn to the slip-knot and measure it. You'll know how much you need for that x amount of stitches and estimate how much yarn to spool out for your cast-on. (Or, you can be like me, spool out what looks like "a bunch", cast on 75% of your total stitches, and then find out you actually need a bit more yarn. Yeah, estimation tends to get me in trouble sometimes.)

The other thing you need to know about long-tail cast on is that if you have a lot of yarn left in the tail, sometimes you might end up knitting your first row with the tail instead of the yarn in the ball. I still do this from time to time... perhaps more times than I care to admit. So to keep yourself from unknitting your first row, it helps to hold the tail end in your non-dominant hand while knitting that first row (maybe even the first couple of rows... not that I know from experience).

Join me next time on "Tips For Newbs" for an inside look at Stitch Markers: What Good Are They, Anyway? You'll find out!

Knitter School: Diagonal Moss Stripe and... TIPS FOR NEWBS!

Forgive the terrible photography on this one - I think it's a combination of pinning the swatch out too tightly and the glare from my desklamp, and it turned out rather crappily, not showing off the stitch pattern to the best advantage.

It seems like January, in the Vogue Knitting calendar at least, is the month of diagonals (though in the February patterns there's a rather nice Parquet pattern that also relies heavily on diagonal shapes). I have charted this one, and will have the chart up soon.

I was thinking about what, other than photographs of swatches and slightly dodgy knitting charts, I could offer the knit-o-sphere. I check in with quite a few blogs (the list is to your right) and am always struck with the marvelous quality - and sheer quantity - of WIPs and FOs cranked out by some of the internet's most talented knitters, some of whom are also published authors (the Yarn Harlot has six books, two of which are on my knitting shelf - and Cosmic Pluto has a great book on sock knitting, to name two examples). I read these blogs and I feel, still, like a brand-new knitter (even though I know that I've amassed skills and knowledge that would have struck fear into the heart of actual brand-new knitter-me, back in the day). So, not only to reflect on what I do know, but to share with newbie knitters throughout the internet, I present...

I am not, nor am I sure I will ever be, a Master Knitter. I haven't joined a guild and have yet to attend the local Stitch N' Bitch group due to work hours and social shyness. I still tear my hair out from time to time over concepts and skill-sets that I feel I should know by now. But, with a growing library of knitting books and the internet at my disposal, I have learned a few things. Some were through trial and error; some were through constant repetition. Some things, you do a couple of times and suddenly it makes sense and everything is just gravy. (Other things you can try time and time again and feel like you might end up in a padded cell because it's just not going right, ever.) Some of the tips I'll impart might sound incredibly obvious, but maybe others could be the lightbulb moment you're looking for. It's not going to be in any particular order of importance; I haven't really thought out a game plan for these posts beyond scribbling a couple of ideas in my work book. So, without further ado, Tips for Newbs #1:

Take a step back from the Fun-Fur.

Novelty yarns are seductive. They have amazing texture, a visually dynamic appearance, and seem deceptively easy to use - it's just a little eyelash fringe... what's the harm, right?

The harm is, when you're a newbie - like brand-new, a just-born knitter - sometimes you can't tell knit from purl yet. Believe me when I tell you that although cute, fluffy yarns will hide a multitude of stitch definition sins, it will make it hard to see where you've gone astray... and don't even think of picking up a dropped stitch, friend - it's not gonna happen! Going wrong when you're a brand-new knitter can be discouraging at the best of times - when it's combined with a yarn that feels like a shag carpet or a thousand lashes of glitter in it, the discouraging feelings could urge you to quit. And you don't want to quit knitting! It's awesome!

I won't tell you not to buy a novelty yarn, ever (some ribbon yarns are quite interesting and don't bring on knitterly heartbreak), or to wait until you've knit a thousand swatches in some kind of matronly, sensible yarn - I just want you to benefit from the wasted hours and regretful tears of my dalliance with fun fur when I was just a wee novice. I still have a couple balls of that bastardly eyelash crap somewhere in my stash.

I will note that, when held double with a smooth yarn, eyelash/fun fur can make an interesting trim on a hat or some other accent piece (and it will be much, much easier to see where you've gone wrong), but by and large, it's just asking for trouble (and if you're thinking of making a cardigan out of it, just go and give yourself a time-out right now... I'll be waiting for you to get back). If you've ever tried to de-tangle a ball of wool and found yourself thrashing around, wailing about the injustice of knots (ahem), it's only about a thousand times worse to try and figure out how to un-knot eyelash yarn.

Join me next time for an important lesson about long-tail cast-on!