Table of Contents
Introduction 1
What You Can Do In A Day 1
Conventions Used in This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 3
Icons Used in This Book 3
Chapter 1: Knitting Need-to-Knows 5
Why Knit? 5
Knitting your worries away 5
Gaining a feeling of accomplishment 6
Keeping your mind and hands occupied 6
Creating a one-of-a-kind piece 6
Sorting Out What Knitters Need 7
The tools 7
An understanding of the basics 8
Selecting Yarn: The (Quick) Consumer’s Guide 9
Fiber fundamentals 9
A weighty matter 11
Yarn packaging 12
Reading labels 12
Choosing a ball, skein, or hank 13
Picking Up Knitting Needles 14
Sizing up needles 14
Seeing what they’re made of 15
Grabbing Must-Have Gadgets 16
Chapter 2: Deciphering Patterns and Gauge 17
Reading Stitch Patterns 17
Deciphering common abbreviations and shorthand 18
Following written stitch patterns 20
Measuring Gauge to Get the Size Right 21
Considering what affects gauge 23
Making a gauge swatch 24
Measuring your gauge 25
Matching your pattern’s gauge 25
Chapter 3: Essential Skills: Casting On, Knitting, Purling, and Binding Off 27
Casting On 28
Now You’re Knitting and Purling 31
Getting a knack for knitting 32
Pushing forward with purling 36
Binding (or Casting) Off 37
Chapter 4: Basic Stitches You’ll Use Again and Again 41
Starting with Garter Stitch 42
Knitting and Purling Stockinette Stitch 43
Creating Box Stitch 44
Chapter 5: Applying Your Knitting Knowledge with Three Scarf Patterns 45
Ribbed Scarf 46
New skill: Switching from knit to purl and back again 46
Materials and vital statistics 47
Directions 48
Box-Stitch Scarf 48
Materials and vital statistics 49
Directions 49
Double-Wrap Garter-Stitch Scarf 50
New skill: The double wrap (and beyond) 50
Materials and vital statistics 51
Directions 52
Chapter 6: Oops! Fixing Common Mistakes 53
Stopping Mistakes or Catching Them Early 53
Dealing with Dropped Stitches 54
Finding and securing a dropped stitch 55
Picking up a dropped stitch in the row below 56
To make a knit stitch 57
To make a purl stitch 58
Rescuing a dropped stitch from several rows below 60
In stockinette stitch 60
In garter stitch 61
Ripping (Your Heart) Out 63
Ripping out stitch by stitch 63
Ripping out row by row 64
Chapter 7: Where to Go from Here 67
Taking Your First Steps 67
Visiting dummiescom 68
