Holding the Knitting Needles and Yarn

Transcripts

Hi, I am Toni Lipe with Toni's Design Studio. Today, we were talking about how to knit. Right now, I am going to talk about how to hold your yarn and knitting needles. It's very important to start good habits early in knitting. So, I did want to talk a little bit about that. There are several different ways to knit. There is continental. Mine is a self taught. A lot of knitters, I know, knit the way I do. We actually throw our yarn rather than scoop our yarn. So, that is the knitting method we are going to talk about today.

When you are knitting you need to hold your working needle. The knitting needle with the stitches attached to your ball of yarn in your left hand, this is, if you are right handed. In your right hand you hold the empty needle. Now, one important thing about knitting is the tension of the yarn. In order to have a nice even piece of knitting, your tension has to remain rather constant. There are several ways to do that but one way is to take your pinky finger of your non-working hand on your right hand and twist it around the yarn. Some people actually thread the yarn through their fingers and then you begin your knit stitch. So, this, your yarn will stay here and around your index finger the whole time you were knitting. So, it's good to get started this way. Take your right hand, twist your pinky around your yarn, put your next two fingers above the yarn and your index finger below it and that way, you will end up with nice even tension and you are ready to start knitting.

Next, we will talk about the knit stitch.