Hi, I am Toni Lipe with Toni's Design Studio. Today, we are talking about how to knit. Right now, we are going to talk about the knit stitch. We have cast on our stitches and we know how to hold our yarn properly and our knitting needles. So, let's begin the knit stitch.
The first stitch, you will take your right-hand needle and you will slide the needle under the first stitch on the left-hand needle so that they crisscross like this. With your working yarn held in your right hand, you will twist this yarn or throw the yarn as some people say around your right hand needle only, so that the yarn rests between the right and the left needle. Then you will take your right needle and you will scoop that piece of yarn through the stitch on the left-hand needle and then pull that stitch off, and you have a new stitch on the right-hand needle. We will do this all across the row. I’ll knit a couple of stitches and I’ll show you again.
Take the right needle, slide it under the stitch on the left needle, take your yarn, wrap it around the right-hand needle so that it rests between the right and the left-hand needle, and then pull the right-hand needle through the left hand loop, and then pull that old stitch off the left-hand needle. This is called the knit stitch. Let's do a few more.
There is a little rhyme that I use to teach eight, nine years olds how to knit and it goes along with the steps we have gone through. Through the window, run around the back, out the door, off jumps Jack. So, you are putting your needles through the right, the left stitch, you are wrapping the yarn around and you are pulling the old stitch off of the left-hand needle and you have a new stitch.
So, you go in from the bottom, throw the yarn, scoop the stitch through. I will do a few of those slowly. As you are knitting, remember your tension so that your stitches look nice and even, through the window, run around the back, out the back door, off jumps Jack. One last time, your right needle goes through the loop on the left needle, your yarn wraps around the right needle and rests between the right and the left needle and then you pull that yarn through the left loop with your right needle and pull that stitch off.
It's a good idea to keep your stitches close to the points of the needles. Not too close that they would fall off but close enough that you don't have to struggle slipping the stitches off. So, there is a fine line there but do try to keep your stitches as close to the tips without the stitches falling off. It will make knitting go a lot faster and a lot easier. And that's how to do the knit stitch. We have knitted our first row.
Next, we’re going to talk about knitting at the second row.