Basics of knitting

Hi!

Here's a quick guide to knitting. I only use it to make warm socks and patches to replace heels, where the sock usually wears out and leaves a hole. I use crochet hook needles to sew the patch to the sock.

A yarn and knitting needles are required. Two for square forms, five double-pointed for cylinder knitting as in the case of a sock.

First step is to make base loops. Start by looping loose yarn around a thumb, put needles through, then pull the yarn from clew through. Pull thumb out of the loop and tighten loop on the needle by pulling on yarn. To correctly make remaining loops, think of violet yarn as the loose one and the of orange as the one attached to needle that is not from the clew. See the following images.

Direct link to image. Orange is on top. Click the link "read more" to navigate to full article.

Direct link to image. The very first base loop is done differently from the rest of base loops. Remaining ones don't require looping around thumb like in the picture. Instead put the loose end over thumb and the orange part is the part of loose yarn connected to needles.

Direct link to image.

Direct link to image. In this image the loop around the thumb from previous image is in green.

Direct link to top image, direct link to middle image (move needle along the shown line, under yard and loop the clew yarn, then pull thumb out), direct link to image below.

Direct link to image. This is a blown-out representation. Knitting loops are as small as needles make them.


Going forward things are pretty much the same. Turn around the needles, pull one out and continue knitting. The loose end will remain dangling as a tail.
I'm not sure if additional explanation is required. For a sock and a cylinder formation, just pull out a needle, take next one, put it together with the pulled-out needle and do the base loops further. Upon reaching last needles, just continue knitting with the free needle through the very first loop on first needle (transferring loops from full needle to the free one, always keeping same amount of loops per needle as in beginning with base loops). It will be hard at first to hold all five needles without dropping them and losing the loops, so some practice will be required. Of course that will only make a cylinder, not a sock. I'll add more pictures and instructions when I make my next sock.