Introduction

Several years ago, a major New York City department store ran a humorous ad disparaging knitting as an activity for grandmothers. The response? Ardent members of New York’s Big Apple Knitting Guild took up their yarn and needles and staged a knit-in. To demonstrate that knitting isn’t an activity limited to the rocking chair set but rather is an alive and timely art, a group of knitters of every age and gender gathered in the store to spend the afternoon knitting. Designer and knitter par excellence Lily Chin designed, knit, and wore a shimmering slit-to-the-thigh floor-length gown — demonstrating that more than button-to-the-throat cardigans and stiff socks can come off the needles.

Sure, grandmothers knit, but so do movie stars, football players, doctors, and lawyers. They know what all knitters know or find out soon after getting into the groove of knitting: that knitting does more than just provide you with warm and cozy things to wear. Knitting stirs creativity, gives you an ongoing sense of purpose, teaches patience, and soothes the soul. Don’t believe me? Try it!

Now is a great time to learn to knit. Never before have knitters had so many lovely and imaginative yarns from which to choose and so many stylish and sophisticated patterns to work with.

About This Book

Beautifully illustrated books and magazine articles that explore and document knitting techniques and designs from all parts of the world are regularly published, and scores of patterns are available online from talented independent designers. You can find knitting activities of all kinds, from workshops, conferences, cruises, and camps to yarn shows, classes, and spa weekends. No matter where you go, plenty of fellow knitters are happy to share their love of knitting with you.

The purpose of Knitting For Dummies, 2nd Edition, is to put all the need-to-know information about knitting into one easy-to-read and easy-to-follow book. Although you can jump in anywhere you find a topic that interests you, the overall organization of this book progresses from basic to more advanced skills. To that end, each chapter is divided into sections, and each section contains important skill-building information about knitting, such as

How to cast on, and which of the different cast-on techniques are better for particular purposes.

How to read pattern instructions and charts.

How to combine knit and purl stitches for different effects.

What to do if you drop a stitch or inadvertently add one.

How to create different kinds of cables, lace, and more.

In addition, you’ll find lots of projects that enable you to practice and perfect your skills.

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you navigate through this book and easily follow the project and pattern instructions, we’ve set up a few conventions:

General processes are presented in step format, where the main instruction appears in boldface and any explanatory information appears in regular type below it.

Knitted instructions appear in the format common to many knitting books, using common abbreviations. They look something like this:

Cast on 26 sts.

Row 1 (RS): * K2, p2; rep from * to end of row.

Row 2 (WS): * P2, k2; rep from * to end of row.

Rep Rows 1 and 2.

We use this format for a few reasons: First, it’s the instruction format you’ll find in most other knitting books, magazines, and individual patterns. Second, it saves space. For an explanation of the abbreviations, go to Chapter 3.

To indicate the needle you carry in your left hand, we use the abbreviation LH. To indicate the needle in your right hand (the one on which you make stitches), we use RH.

Most patterns in this book call for worsted-weight yarn (exceptions are noted). Because companies frequently change their yarn lineups from season to season, you may not be able to find the exact yarn or colorway shown in a book pattern in your local yarn store, and that’s okay. You can substitute almost any other worsted-weight yarn in the patterns shown in this book that list it in the directions. Some reliable choices are Cascade 220, Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride, Lion Wool, Plymouth Galway, and Louet Gems Worsted. You can also run a search for yarns by weight on www.yarndex.com, an online database for finding yarns that meet certain criteria such as weight, fiber content, or color. Or ask the friendly staff at your local yarn store for help in finding the right yarn!

What You’re Not to Read

We’ll let you in on a little secret: You don’t have to read every word written in this book. Although you can pick and choose what to read on your own, we thought we’d make the task easier for you by helping you identify nonessential information. Text marked by the Technical Stuff icon and material that appears in sidebars is stuff you can skip without worry. This is where we put interesting tidbits, not need-to-know information.

Foolish Assumptions

In writing this book, we made a few assumptions about you:

You’ve never, ever knitted before and want to learn how because you’ve seen other people do it and it looks like fun.

You know the basics of knitting and now want to expand your repertoire to include some more complex stitch patterns.

You saw a pattern you liked, but the instructions that accompanied it were too hard to follow. Although you’re not ready to give up, you need help making sense of what appears to be an almost indecipherable code.

You’re looking for a hobby that’s relaxing, portable, and lets you create things that you can use yourself or give to others.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into six parts. Each one focuses on a separate aspect of knitting, but together they lay the foundation for successful knitting experiences at all levels.

Part I: Getting Ready to Knit

Part pep talk, part preparation, Part I includes all the stuff you need to know before you actually pick up yarn and needles. Here you can find information on the materials to have on hand (basically yarn and needles, but a few other things, too) and how to read pattern instructions and decipher charts. Consider this part your knitting foundation — you can’t really knit successfully without the information contained here.

Part II: Knitting Primer

We love this part and you will, too. Why? Because this is where you discover the basic techniques you need to know as a knitter: how to cast on, how to knit and purl, how to make increases and decreases, how to fix mistakes, and more. These aren’t just the things beginners use. Every knitter — even the most advanced — uses the skills introduced in this part again and again. The only difference is that more experienced knitters have this stuff down cold. And you will, too, with the easy-to-follow instructions and the practice opportunities you’ll find here.

Part III: Techniques for the More Experienced Knitter

Part III lets you take your knitting to the next level by showing you how to create more complex effects. Here you can find out how to knit stripes and cables, do lacework, and, with the discussions on Fair Isle and intarsia techniques, work more complex color patterns that use more than one color per row.

The cool thing about more advanced knitting techniques is that they use the basic techniques (those covered in Part II) with a little twist. Textured stripes? You simply vary knit and purl rows. Colored stripes? Just incorporate different colored yarns. Cables? Knit the stitches out of order. Lace? Make creative use of increases and decreases. Fair Isle and intarsia? Knit with two colors in the same row and weave in ends. Piece of cake!

Part IV: Making Garments

Knitting garments, even the simplest ones, takes you to a whole new level of knitting. First, making a piece of apparel typically requires either an assortment of shaped pieces that you later assemble or a single piece shaped with increases and decreases, such as a sweater knitted in the round. Second, you have to perform a variety of other tasks and skills, like blocking the pieces, making bands and buttonholes, closing seams, and more. This part tells you everything you need to know about making knitted garments, from how a sweater pattern is put together, to how you proceed through a typical project, to how to assemble and block your pieces, to how to add finishing touches. And then, so that you can practice all these skills, it includes several projects, including a baby’s layette.

Part V: The Part of Tens

Want to know what to do when your fingers cramp and your neck stiffens — or how to stop from kinking up in the first place? Have a birthday or holiday coming up and need ideas for quick gifts you can make yourself? How about tips for how to incorporate color successfully in a knitting project? You can find all this information in this part.

Part VI: Appendixes

We couldn’t fit all the patterns we wanted to include in this book in the various chapters without making them too long and too hard to follow, so we put all the extra stitch patterns in Part VI. In this part, you’ll also find a list of resources for knitters — things like Web sites, books, magazines, and knitting software.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, we use icons to highlight important information.

This icon lets you in on some secrets most knitters learn from one another. It also indicates special ways to make your project just a little bit better. You can get by without applying this info, but if you do take our advice, your project will be that much nicer.

If you see this icon, we’re pointing out hazards on the knitting path. Pay attention to these if you don’t want to find yourself in tangles.

This icon indicates information on the structure of knitting. It’s information that you don’t absolutely have to have in order to knit but that will facilitate mastery.

This icon alerts you to something you probably already know and that you’ll need to remember and apply in the project at hand or in other projects down the road.

Where to Go from Here

If you’re an absolute beginner, start at the beginning and read and practice your way through Parts I and II — the basics. Those chapters will ground you in the moves you need to know in order to progress to more complicated kinds of knitting. If you already know how to knit and purl, you’ll find plenty in Parts III and IV to build your skills and confidence.

Maybe you’ve had your eye on a pattern for a complicated-looking Aran sweater (those poetic combinations of twists and turns) but you’ve never worked a cable, or maybe you’ve seen a sweater with a knitted lace border but haven’t a clue how to read the chart for it. If so, head to the appropriate chapter and jump right in.

Bottom line: You decide where you go. And if you haven’t a clue, browse the table of contents or the index for a topic that strikes your fancy.