Learn to knit and get the creative juices flowing.
I still remember the moment I learned. I was six, and my grandmother sat down with me while my mother was busy with my new baby brother. She taught me to cast on and to knit, and that was that.
Being taught by a person is still the best way, and if you have someone who can show you, take the offer. Watching hands is worth far more than any written description, because most of the difficulty in learning is physical rather than conceptual.
If you have nobody to teach you
Video is the next best thing. For any specific movement, watching it done is enormously more useful than reading about it.
Look for videos filmed over the knitter’s shoulder rather than facing the camera. A mirror image is genuinely hard to copy.
Better still, find a local group. Most yarn shops run them, as do many libraries. Ten minutes with someone who can see what your hands are doing solves things an hour of reading will not.
What to start with
Needles around 5mm (US 8) in bamboo or wood – they grip the yarn slightly, so fewer stitches slide off while you are learning.
Smooth, light-coloured yarn in a medium weight. Light and smooth so you can see the stitches, which matters more than any other choice you will make.
A blunt tapestry needle for weaving in ends. That is the whole list.
The four things to learn
Casting on, the knit stitch, the purl stitch, casting off.
Everything else in knitting is those four in different arrangements. Garter stitch is all knit; stocking stitch alternates; ribbing mixes them within a row.
That is a day’s learning, and it is enough to make a great many things.
Your first project
Something flat where the fit does not matter – a dishcloth or a simple garter stitch scarf.
A dishcloth finishes in an evening. That matters: the first completed object is what makes you want to start a second.
Do not begin with a hat. Hats need correct gauge and are worked in the round, and one that fits nobody is discouraging.
What to expect
Uneven tension and ragged edges. Everyone’s first rows are like that.
It settles within a couple of projects without any particular effort, and no amount of unpicking speeds it up. Finish the thing however it looks.
The difference between people who knit and people who once tried is almost never aptitude. It is whether they got past the first uneven scarf.
