Well before you can knit, surprise surprise, you have to get some stitches onto the needles first.

So ‘cast on‘, the first thing in knitting made totally confusing. Fair enough, there might be more than one way of doing things, but, really?!, some actually like it complicated? Like starting with a slip knot… no need for that you know. I like it when i pick up the yarn and needles and off i go, not when i need to let go of all my stuff, make a knot, then take only one needle and put it through the loop and blah blah blah…

Simples – take your yarn, the thread, with the end bit facing you and stretch it across your left hand, take a needle or two, and do the cool loopy thing… and ta-dah!

Or… i might need to explain a little bit more.

Honestly, it only briefly sounds bizarre, it’s actually very simple. Do it a couple of times and it will (should) set in your memory and you’ll be able to do this even when shitfaced.

All you need to remember – the end bit of the yarn needs to sit on you thumb facing you, not the other way round. The first step is different, somewhat harder perhaps. You will always begin by creating two stitches in the same time, the rest of the stitches will be added one by one.

I’ve heard people complain about this way because they don’t know how long the tail should be. Fair enough, it can be too long and it can be too short. If it’s too short – not a problem, start again, adjust the length a bit. Same goes for when it’s too long… doh!

However, i have two ways how to deal with the left-over tails:

1. If it is a little tail, i just tend to knit it in along with the main thread, that secures the corner and once i’m done i don’t need to come back and weave in the loose ends.

2. However, if the tail is a decent length, for certain projects, it can come in handy when i need to sew my knitted pieces together. Like two pieces for the jumper – front and back, rather than using a separate thread to sew them together (and in this case you have 2 loose ends to weave in afterwards) you can use the tail that’s already attached to one piece.

Simples (:

i-a