Knitting Tutorial - Casting On

Last year, my grandmother passed away (not due to COVID-19 virus). And she was an avid knitter. I had never been into knitting but it was something we shared. She had given me yarn before passing away and once she was gone my family decided to hand her yarn down to me. I was very grateful. To have this connection with her still was an amazing gift. Unfortunately, I didn't know a thing about knitting. And though I used some of this yarn to crochet. Some yarn just works better for one craft versus the other. So I decided to learn how to knit.

My grandmother already had a scarf started so I started working on that first. However the tutorials I am going to share this month are going to go in order so you can start and finish a project. So the first step to knitting is casting on. Now depending on a certain pattern you can do this a number of different ways. I found one video that have a few different option and it can be handy to anyone who wants to try the different styles and see which fits. I recommend the video below. I watched this one also and tried to learn the way she did it. It didn't work that well for me but I could see it working for others.

The one I learned and found the easiest to pick up was called a Long Tail Cast on and that's the one I am going to talk about. There is no right or wrong way that I can tell. Again this may depend on the pattern. I also want to quickly mention that unlike crochet, knitting takes two hands, so it is very difficult for me to take photos to show how to do this cast on. I tried and they really didn't turn out great. So hopefully with my comments and the video will be enough to help anyone trying to learn.

To start the Long Tail Cast on, you want to make a slip knot (just like crochet), leaving a long tail on one end and the working yarn on the other. Once you have this you want to focus on your thumb and forefinger of your non-dominate hand. Hold the needle in your dominant hand (the one you right with or crochet with). You want to hold your fingers in a way that makes it look like you are showing someone the measurement of an inch.

You want to take these two fingers and go under the yarn and bring them to the needle. Then lift your fingers up so that the yarn forms a loop around your fingers. Finally, you will want to hold the ends of the working yarn and the tail in your remaining three fingers. (Note this is not how she shows in the video, it is just an alternative.)

Once you have this you want to start casting the stitches on. You notice four strands, two around the thumb and two around the finger. You want to take the needle and go under the first strand (on the outside of the thumb, and go over the next two strands, and pick up that strand. Once you have that you want to go back through the loop on your thumb and pull tight. You must repeat this per stitch.