Day 2: Basic Terminology

Hi, I'm Jen Lucas. Welcome to day two of our 14-day learn to knit series. In this lesson, let's talk a little bit about the basic terminology that you'll find in many knitting patterns. I'm going to show you a few different swatches so you'll know what the different types of knitted fabric look like, and I'll also cover some general terms that you'll find in most knitting patterns. Let's get started. Let's talk about some basic knitting terms or terminology. There's lots of little words and phrases in knitting and when you're just getting started, sometimes they can be a little confusing. You're not really sure what they mean. So I want to take a look and sort of show you and explain to you what some of these most basic terms are. First up, you have the knit stitch and the purl stitch, which we will be learning in this series. The knit stitch and the purl stitch are the two most basic stitches in knitting and they're the foundation for just about everything else that you're going to do in knitting. So it's very important to learn those and we will be learning those in future videos. Another term or phrase you might hear is garter stitch. And this here, right here, is garter stitch. So garter stitch refers to this particular fabric, and this fabric is created by knitting all the stitches on both the right side and the wrong side of your fabric. So it makes this nice squishy fabric. It's really nice for any kind of project but here is my right side and here is my wrong side. So it looks the same on both sides and it creates this nice squishy fabric. Another phrase you might hear is stockinette stitch or sometimes it's also referred to as stocking stitch. And that refers to this fabric here which is when you think of knitting, typically, this is the fabric that you're thinking of. And this is created by knitting all the stitches on the right side and then purling all the stitches on the wrong side. So you can see that each side of the fabric looks different but this side, which would be the right side facing out, is typically what you'll think of when you think of knitting, and this is stockinette stitch. And so while showing you these swatches, I mentioned right side and wrong side, and that's something that's going to come up a lot in your knitting, especially when you're following a pattern. So the right side and wrong side refer to the size of your fabric. So here again, looking at the stockinette, this side is considered our right side and this is the wrong side. Sometimes you'll also see this referred to as the public side or the private side. So the right side is typically the part that would be facing out or up, or the public side, the part you're showing off on your knitting. And then the wrong side or private side would be the part that goes to the inside. So if you thought about this, like a sweater, this would be the outside of sweater. This would be the inside of your sweater. If this was a hat, same thing. So right side and wrong side is very important in knitting when you're following a pattern. It's always going to tell you, when you're working in rows, which side is the right side and the wrong side. So those are important to know. The next term is cast on, and we'll be learning how to cast on soon. And the cast on refers to where you're starting your knitting. So for these swatches, I've started them down here. There's hundreds of different ways that you can cast on or start your knitting, but cast on just refers to starting your knitting, putting stitches onto the needle so that you can start knitting. And just like we have to cast on, we also need to bind off or end our knitting, which I've done up here. Sometimes you'll see bind off referred to as cast off. But all it means is that your ending off your knitting up here. And again, we'll learn how to do this in this series. But in order to knit, you need to know how to cast on, which is just adding stitches to your knitting needle to start and bind off, which is taking all of your stitches off the needle to end your project. The next thing I wanted to talk about is English and Continental. English and Continental refer to the style of knitting that you might want to do. So English or throwing is the technique where you're going to hold the yarn in your right hand to knit. Continental is the method where you are holding the yarn in your left hand to knit. I'm going to show you in some of our videos, how to do both the English in the right hand and the Continental in the left hand. But you'll often hear people say, "Oh, I'm an English knitter," or, "I'm a thrower." That means they have the yarn in the right hand. Or someone might say, "I'm a Continental knitter," or, "I'm a picker." And that means that they hold the yarn in their left hand. Really, and we'll talk about this more in future videos. It's about finding that style that's right for you. But you will often hear people say which style of knitting that they use when they are knitting, either English or Continental. And there are other styles too but those are the two most common. And then the last thing I wanted to talk about is gauge. And gauge, you could talk about forever in knitting. There's so much information that goes into gauge. But when you're working in knitting pattern, you need to know what the gauge of your fabric is. And what that means is, how many stitches are you getting in an inch, and how many rows are you getting in an inch in order to create this fabric? Where this is very important is if you're knitting something that needs to fit like a sweater or a hat. If it needs to fit a body, especially, you need to know the gauge and you want to make sure that your gauge is matching what's in the pattern. And so you would take a tape measure or a ruler and you could measure your stitches and count, I have this many stitches, I have this many rows. And we have some other videos on this as well, but it's something that you're going to hear a lot when you're knitting, is the gauge. And this is very important again, if you are knitting something that needs to fit. When you read a knitting pattern, it will typically give you the gauge over four inches. So you might be getting... Here, we're getting, let's see, one, two, three, about four stitches per inch. So if you were looking at a knitting pattern, it might tell you that you're getting 16 stitches over four inches. So that's something that's very important to know about when your knitting projects, especially when they need to fit. But those are just some of the most common knitting terms. There's lots of terms and definitions to learn in knitting but if you can keep those straight, you're ready to get started. Now that I've covered some of the basic knitting terms, we're ready to start knitting. So be sure to come back tomorrow to check out our next video where we're going to learn how to cast on. Thanks for watching.