Look up knitting on instagram and it can feel quite overwhelming. There are many talented knitters out there making sweaters, tank tops, socks, blankets, baby clothes and even stuffed animals. Where do you start? What do all these words mean? It’ll take forever to figure all this out!

Here’s the thing- something like knitting is only as complicated as you make it. There are many levels to knitting, from beginner to advanced and you can start anywhere you’d like! For some, this may be making a simple, easy hat with chunky yarn that knits up quick. 

For others (like me for example!), you can start with something quite difficult and complicated to jump in head first like a lace blanket with fine yarn! Look at all those stitch markers!

My goal here is to help you understand the basics enough to get started and the rest of my blog will have other posts to help you dive deeper into other topics if you choose to continue along your knitting journey. 

The first step

The most important thing to remember as you get started is you may not like knitting. And that’s okay! We want to start with something basic and easy with minimal money spent out of your pocket to find out if you actually like it or not. 

Back in 2017, I worked in a call center next to three different knitters. One, in particular, was such a fast knitter and she was knitting sweaters. Sweaters! I think it was the first time I had seen anyone do it and I spent 8 hours a day next to her, watching these pieces grow. I had no interest in a basic hat, I wanted to do that! I find it extremely important to note here, I didn’t finish my first sweater until 2020. I was too intimidated! Now, in 2024, it’s all I ever want to make, but I think it’s important we break this wonderful hobby down to it’s bare bones so you have a starting point and maybe, if you like knitting, you can deep dive into it with me and it won’t be so intimidating for you!

Getting started

You need a plan. What do you want to make? Something simple to dip your toes in, or something complex to dive right in? In my blog, I hope to have information on all topics you may need to reference if you want to dive right in to any level of knitting. Make sure you explore my other posts and you may find some useful information here. 

Search for a pattern- the internet is a vast place with millions of patterns available. I started in Pinterest! Maybe you want to make a scarf- do a search on Pinterest for a free scarf knitting pattern. You’ll find all sorts of trendy scarf patterns that will typically be advertised as free. ravelry.com is also a wonderful resource, though that can be a bit intimidating when you aren’t sure how to navigate it. My suggestion would be to start with free knitting patterns you’ll likely find on blog posts straight from the internet. Know that the pattern you pick may not be what you end up making, but getting an idea of what you’d like to start with will help along the way. 

Materials. Now you’ve got a plan with a pattern, you need the materials to make it. Your pattern should have a materials section you can reference, but you’ll need yarn and knitting needles at the bare minimum, but there’s so many different kinds to choose from!

The pattern you chose should include a suggested needle size, and you can find these at most big box craft stores like Michaels or Joann. Same with the yarn, there should be a suggested yarn weight, and most pattern designers usually tag the specific brand they’ve used to create their pattern sample. Check out your local craft store or local yarn shop and see what’s available to purchase. I would like to note here that a local yarn shop would likely be a bit more expensive than Hobby Lobby, but the help you’ll get there will be unmatched- bring in your pattern and tell them you’re a beginner and they’ll help you find the right yarn and needles to use. You may even make some friends while you’re at it! 

If you’d like to support me and this blog, please click the affiliate links to KnitPicks.com. They have, hands down, the best budget friendly yarns at the best price points. They sell everything from patterns, to needles and notions, to a wide variety of yarns. I have yet to be disappointed with any of my KnitPicks purchases and I would highly recommend them, which is why I decided to partner with them! 

When talking about the yarn, I mentioned yarn weight. Please reference the table below to see the different yarn weights and their symbols. 

To keep it as simple as possible, size 0 is the smallest or thinnest yarn, and 7 is the thickest. The smaller the yarn, the longer it will take to knit up, and the thicker, the quicker! You want to choose your yarn and needles to be somewhat consistent with each other. What does that mean? Thinner yarn will require a smaller needle than a jumbo yarn. Most yarn labels will also have a suggested needle range of sizes. If you choose a smaller needle with a thicker yarn, you’ll create a denser fabric. If you choose a larger needle with a thinner yarn, you’ll have an airy, drapey fabric. The fiber you choose will also contribute to the density of your fabric, but that’s a topic for an entire other blog post! 

The main thing I’d like you to take away when choosing your yarn is to choose something you like! This is why I would suggest shopping in person for this part. Squish the yarn, put it up against your skin and see how it feels. Find a color you love. If it works with the project you picked, great! If not, you can find another pattern that might work for it. 

I would also like to stress here to make sure you purchase enough yarn. Make sure you check the yardage necessary to make the finished object. If it’s a bigger project like a blanket or a sweater, you may need quite a bit of yarn and you don’t want to run out before it’s finished. Yardage is always on the yarn label. If you’re looking to make something that takes 500 yds of yarn, you want to make sure you get two skeins if there’s 275 yds per skein. You always want to make sure you get more than what the pattern calls for, just in case!

Casting on

Now for the fun! Starting! 

If you take nothing else from this post, please take this: the designer of the pattern is not responsible for teaching you how to knit. Designers have written a pattern for you to follow to make what they’ve made. That’s it! Make sure you read through the entire pattern before you cast on, and if you’re confused about something within the pattern, there is usually a way to contact the designer for clarification. If you don’t know a specific technique, it’s not their responsibility to teach you. 

Luckily, we live in the modern era with google and YouTube! Both of these are your friend and I suggest using them to your advantage as often as possible. Facebook can also be a good resource, there’s often knitting/crochet groups that are happy to help you out online, or local groups that meet in person you could join and make friends that may share their knowledge. Local yarn shops can also be a good place to ask questions.

Youtube search “knitting long tail cast on” or whatever cast on the designer of your pattern has suggested and get knitting! Your hands will feel awkward at first, know that they did for all the knitters out there. You’ll get the hang of it with practice. 

If you’re casting on a larger project, I would highly, highly suggest knitting a swatch. I have an entire post here dedicated specifically to swatching and more specifically, gauge. It’s very important to swatch and understand what your knitting will look like, feel like and how it will behave after it’s washed, or blocked. Please take the time to do this. If you don’t, you’ll understand why I stressed this point when you have a sweater five times too big or five times too small. I could talk about this topic for days, but for now, I’ll just stress the importance. It’s a lot easier to do a few swatches than it is to knit an entire sweater and have to unravel the whole thing. That heartbreak is something I hope I can save you from!

Finishing

Cut your yarn, weave in your ends and now what?!

Most patterns don’t specify that you should block your knits. Blocking is some fancy term that just means wash them. For most knits, you want to handle them as delicately as possible, which means hand washing. You can buy no rinse wool wash online or at your local yarn shops. Throw some of that in your sink, tub or some other reservoir, some lukewarm water and soak it for a while. Like some other topics in this post, there’s a deeper dive to this in another post, but it’s important to block your knits, especially garments. The yarn will really settle in and relax, it makes a huge difference in how your final piece will fit. This is also why it’s important to swatch and block your swatch- yarn can sometimes grow quite a bit after a bath and you don’t want to find that out after you’ve spent all that time knitting!

Luckily, you don’t have to do this every time you wear them. Wool is self-cleaning and unless you’ve gotten some hot sauce on your sweater, you don’t need to wash them until the beginning or end of the season. You want to wash them before you wear them all fall and winter, and before storing them for the spring and summer. 

Storing your knits is important, you want them cared for appropriately because small critters or bugs can ruin the fabric very quickly. Our knits are precious and I would cry if I found holes in my sweater because I didn’t store them properly! 

Take this time to reflect on the whole process. What did you enjoy? Was it the planning, the knitting, the final object? Would you like to do it again? I hope you found some enjoyment in the process, and if you didn’t, maybe knitting isn’t for you- and that’s okay! But if it is, I hope you’ve found this post helpful as a jumping off point to start your first project! This post is part of a series to help you get started and I’ll take a deeper dive into most of these topics in my blog. If there’s something I haven’t covered you have questions about, please leave a comment so I can cover it in my next post!