How to knit

If you're excited about learning to knit, you might want to get started on a jumper straight away, or a multi-colored project. You'll be able to make projects like that soon enough, but it's better to start with something simple to get the hang of basic knitting techniques.
When you knit, you use two needles to create a piece of fabric from a strand of yarn. You do this by knitting stitches: pulling loops of yarn through other loops using your knitting needles. It might look complex, but it becomes much less intimidating once you've knit your first stitches!

When a knitting pattern tells you to ‘cast on’, it means adding stitches to your needle to get started! There are many ways to cast on knitting stitches, but the way we demonstrate here is nice and easy:

Once you've gotten the hang of casting on stitches, knitting stitches is a breeze: it's almost exactly the same!
Hold your needles so that the stitches are on your left needle. Insert your right needle in the way shown in the video above. Wrap your yarn around the needle and pull it through. Keep the loop of yarn on your right needle, and pull the other loop off your left needle. The stitch has been knit, and transferred to your right needle!

If you look at your work so far, you’ll see that when you knit, the front of the stitch looks like a V, while the back looks like a horizontal bar. With purl stitches, you can flip this around, so that the stitch looks back to front.

Purling is the same as knitting, but you insert your right needle at a different angle. Watch the video carefully to see how!