The Key to Understanding How Knitting Works

I love sharing educational information about knitting with you all. Sometimes I write it, and sometimes I find good posts from other people to share. This time it’s sharing a post that gets really deep into what is happening when you make a stitch and how yarn turns into knitting. This basic understanding of what a stitch is (that it’s just a piece of yarn, and how we manipulate it determines if it makes a knit or a purl) helps you understand that knit and purl are just the front and back of the same stitch.

You’ll want to read the whole post over at 10 Rows a Day, but I think it’s really important for new knitters (and others who might not have learned this when they were newer knitters) to understand what the stitches look like and how they’re made.

We call it “reading” your knitting, and it’s essential for noticing and knowing how to fix mistakes. It also helps you when your knitting pattern says something like “knit the knits and purl the purls as you see them.” If you don’t know what you’re looking for (or what you’re seeing) then you can’t follow this instruction.

Also once you intellectually understand that each stitch is a little piece of yarn, it feels a little less daunting to fixed a dropped stitch or another mistake in your knitting. And honestly, once you have the power and the confidence to fix mistakes — even if you have to rip out your work to do it — that’s when you start to gain the confidence to try new things, whether a new to you technique or a garment you’ve never knit before.

What helped you gain confidence or a deeper understanding of knitting when you were getting started? Have a tip you wish you knew when you were getting started? Let’s talk about it!

[Photo: 10 Rows a Day]

A few years ago I wrote a post that was full of patterns for knit mushrooms, but I don’t think I ever did a post that was knitting patterns with mushrooms on them, so today’s the day.

I love the Fungi Beanie from Jacki Bean, which calls for worsted weight yarn and uses duplicate stitch to add the mushrooms and other details. I think the colors she used for the design are tonal/multicolor so it doesn’t use as many colors as it looks like, but you can use whatever red, green, brown and white yarn you have in your stash for those details.

How about some mushroom socks? The Magic Toadstool sock form Stone Knits includes a ring of mushrooms around the leg, contrasting heel and toe and a little more colorwork at the toe for extra cuteness. As shown it uses four colors and comes in three sizes.

Or there’s the Fairy Ring Socks from Katie Green, which have mushrooms of two sizes on the legs, plus a bit of wavy grass. They have a contrasting cuff, heel and toe and some colorwork flecks in the body of the sock as well. This one is available in eight sizes to fit everyone from a baby to an XL adult.

This trippy cowl from Hunt Hand Knits looks like a lot of fun to knit. The Fungus Among Us Cowl is shown using four colors of DK weight yarn, though you can do it with as few as two if you’d rather.

Stitch some mushroom mittens with this cute pattern from Holly C Watson. This design uses three colors, and it’s shown with a self-striping yarn on the mushroom caps, which makes the colors change without you having to do any work. The pattern is charted but it’s a pretty easy repeat. The mittens are one size.

If you don’t feel like knitting mushrooms but still want to give your project a touch of the forest, the Toadstools Cardigan from Julie Taylor may be what you’re looking for. It’s stitched as a plain cardigan worked in DK weight yarn and sized for newborns up to 4 years old. The mushrooms are added with embroidery and the pattern includes the design, which you can trace onto water soluble stabilizer to stitch the mushrooms onto your sweater. Or anything else you want. You can find this pattern on Ravelry.

Have you read?