Knit Stitch versus Purl Stitch

Hello beginning knitters, I'm Michelle Bernstein with The Knitting Circle. By now you've learned how to make a knit stitch and how to make a purl stitch. But the more important thing is, how do you know which one's which? How do you know how to read your knitting? Let me show you how to figure out what's going on. When you learn to knit, you learn to make knit and purl stitches. I like to think of the knit stitches, these little V's, as a V-neck sweater. And I think of the purl stitches as a bumpy, pearl necklace. And that's how I remember which one is a knit and which one is a purl. Well, why do they make those? Let's find out. Here we are, let me find my yarn. And I am about to knit a stitch. When I go in and knit, I'm pulling the yarn through and the old stitch falls back behind. And that means that the front looks like a V and the back has a little bump on it, which is a purl. Because the back of a knit stitch is a purl and the back of a purl stitch is a knit. So here's another knit stitch. I'm going in and the yarn goes around and I pull it through from back to front, which makes the old stitch fall in back. And I have a V in front and that old stitch head is on the back and that's my purl bump. Now if I'm purling, I go in and I pull the yarn from front to back and the old stitch head is falling in the front. And that gives me my purl bump in the front. So again, I'm making a purl stitch and the stitch head falls to the front. And that gives me the purl bump. So let's look at the front again for a second. I can clearly identify these as knit stitches and these are knit stitches in my ripping and these are purl stitches. So the back of all this knit is reverse stockinette or all purl. Well what happens when you knit every row? It looks kind of like that. Here this is down here and that's garter stitch. What's the difference between the garter stitch, with the bumps and the reverse stockinette or all purl fabric? The difference is that on garter stitch, even though it looks all bumpy, in between, you've got the knit rows which sent that purl bump to the back. So it is taller and looser here than the all purl fabric here. And that's the difference between your knit stitch and your purl stitch. So that's how you can tell the difference between your knit stitches and your purl stitches and why they're that way. I'm Michelle Bernstein with The Knitting Circle.