Learning to knit

The most helpful (and useful!) website has been Very Pink Knits on Youtube. I have found other videos and blog posts to be equally useful. But Verypinkknits is easy to understand.

PS In this post, I am referring to English knitting on circular needles.

A few things I found trouble-some:

Casting on.

Until now I have never heard of the "long tail cast on method." Once you get hang of it--it's pretty easy and I'll never look back. The video on Pink Knits is kinda confusing. Personally, I would just google "long tail cast on" and find something you understand. The beauty of knitting is that there is about a million ways to do the same thing. A good cast-on is essential for...

Join the round/first row.

this was hell. H-E-L-L! When working on circular needles is SO important to make sure all cast-on stitches are inward. Otherwise, everything gets all twisted. At about row 10, you notice your work isn't laying nice and neat and flat. There is really nothing more (or less) you can do except rip everything out and start at level 1. I stopped counting at rip-out #10.

I haven't gotten far enough to binding off and weaving in the ends. :)

Tools that are useful. Besides needles and yarn.

• row marker/counter. There are about a billion different types. But the easiest/efficient to use is this type
• Knitpicks is amazing. You will spend hours there. They are limited on colors, but you can find high quality fibers at a good price. The shipping service is a little slow, though
  
• Revelry.com. The boards/forums are little messy, but the pattern section is pretty cool
• yarn in a different color. When casting on 96 stitches...you can get distracted. So! After casting on say, 20 stitches loop some yarn, make a knot and place the loop around the needle to signify you have 20 stitches. That way if you have to let the dog out at 80, you can see, "oh, 80 stitches, cool" and not have to recount alll that.
• bamboo or wood needles. I tried plastic but I can't do it! It's like finding that pen or pencil...perfectly balanced and weighted. It really doesn't matter what needle material you use. But I find bamboo/wood to be the best.

See pt II.