Basic Stitches From Awful Writer

I feel myself an awful blog writer because I have not been writing as often as I should. This is mainly because I am in a different living situation then I was previously and do not have nearly as much access to the Internet and for that I am sorry. But I also have been trying to finish a project for every blog, but I cannot seem to make my fingers work fast enough for a project completed every day, well not when I have other things to do as well. So I am going to devote the next several blogs, with a few exceptions, to outlining pattern stitches you might come across or would like to try, as well as spotlighting new things in the knitting community.




There are 12 basic pattern stitches used, but I will only be introducing 3 of them today. These first stitches are commonly used and are probably well-known with many knitters. I am not trying to insult anyone’s intelligence and mean for this blog to be purely a technical reference to new knitters.



Stitch 1 – Garter Stitch

Finished knitting appears in several horizontal rows and can be worked using any number of stitches.

Row 1: knit

Repeat row 1 until knitting has reached the desired length, Bind off in pattern.



Stitch 2-Stockinette Stitch (st st)

This pattern creates a series of valleys or v’s and can be worked using any number of stitches.

Row 1: knit

Row 2: purl

Repeat rows 1-2 until knitting has reached desired length. Bind off in pattern. The knit side of st st is also known as the right or correct side of pattern.



Stitch 3 – Ribbing

This pattern creates a ribbing effect by mixing knit and purl stitches together throughout your pieces and is worked in multiples of 2.

Row 1: knit

Row 2: *knit 1, purl 1. Repeat from * across row.

Repeat these 2 rows until knitting has reached the desired length. Bind off in pattern. This pattern also has a right and a wrong side. The right side will be the knit side, where the pattern can be seen, while the wrong side will resemble garter stitch.





As you can see, none of these stitch patterns are hard to make. If you are new to knitting then I would encourage you to first practice these stitches in a tension square before attempting a pattern that calls for these stitches. For those knitters, who do not know, a tension square is a swatch of yarn knit up in order to test gauge and can also be washed in order to see how any knitting projects would fare before knitting. This is good to know because some yarns will shrink up in the wash. A tension square can be any size but gauge is usually checked using an area of 4 x 4. You can always undo these squares after you have finished them. I recommend, if you are planning on undoing the square, to take a quick snapshot so you can recall what a particular stitch looks like later. Although with the popularity of knitting today you can probably find pictures of these stitches online.