So you wanna knit? Part four: casting on

Ready?  Good.  Let's go.
Grab your needles and your yarn.  Put on some good tunes.  Pour a glass of wine.  Let's cast on.

"Casting on" is how you get your stitches on your needles.  You are building a foundation to knit off of.  Your pattern will tell you how many stitches to cast on (CO).  Do what you are told.  If you are just playing around, it doesn't matter so much.  Try casting on 20, or in Knitting-ese, "CO 20".

The first stitch that you cast on is made out of a slip knot.  Have you ever made a slip knot?  Probably.  But maybe knot (sorry, couldn't resist).  It's easier to learn by seeing it, than reading it, so here are a few pictures that might help:

SLIP KNOT 101

1.  With the palm of one hand facing you, drape the tail end of your yarn over your hand from front to back.  Leave about a foot of yarn hanging off the back of your hand.

2.  Grab the tail of the yarn with your opposite hand and wrap it around your pointer and middle fingers one time so that it is hanging behind your fingers again.  Like this:

3.  Curl your pointer and middle fingers towards you and with your opposite hand, push a loop of the tail through the yarn that is wrapped around your fingers.  Grab this loop with your right hand and pull your left fingers out.  While holding the loop, gently tug on the yarn tail - the one that is "hanging loose" (not the one attached to the skein).  This will tighten the loop.

4.  You have just made a slip knot.  It is called a slip knot because it easily slips into a bigger or smaller loop, depending on how you tug it.  Play with it a little, and make a couple until you feel like you have the hang of it.  It becomes so second nature after a while that you do it without even thinking about it.  No luck?? It might be easier to watch a video. Try this one! Or just go to YouTube and type in "slip knot" - you'll find more videos than you'll know what to do with. There are lots of different ways to make a slip knot. You'll find one that works for your happy little fingers.

The loop of the slip knot gets put onto one needle. Then this needle is held in your non-dominant hand. This is going to be your working needle. You are going to add many more loops to this needle until you have as many as you need to start your project. This will be the foundation of your knitting, and what you are about to do is "cast on".

CASTING ON

Okay.  You already have one stitch "cast on" to your needle - the "stitch" that was created by the slip knot.  I am going to walk you through the "cable cast on" method. I like this method because as you cast on, you will also be learning the "knit stitch" (more-or-less)...so pay attention!  There are other ways to cast on, but we'll save them for later.

CABLE CAST ON:

1.  Hold the needle with the slip knot in your non-dominant hand.  (For me this is the left, so all of my pictures will illustrate right-handed kntting.  If you are a lefty, this link will walk you through how to do this in the other direction).  With your dominant hand, put the tip of the other needle through the front of the stitch, keeping the right needle below the left.

2. Next, wrap the end of the yarn which is attached to the skein around the tip of the right needle, from back to front:

Give this tail a little tug, almost so it snaps into place in between the two needles, and is snug against the first loop.

3. Now, with your right hand, bring the right needle from the back to the front of the left, carrying along the yarn that you looped around.  In other words, bring the yarn THROUGH the original stitch, back to front.

See what you've got?? You've got another loop.  Where do you think it should go??  Next to the first loop! 

4. So, with your right needle, pull a little to make the loop bigger, then slip it on to the end of the left needle.

Gently pull the tail to make this loop fit nicely next to its neighbor.  You never want to cast on too TIGHT.  The stitches should encircle the needle like your favorite old pair of broken-in-jeans fits your hips.

The next stitch will be made by repeating the above, but building on the stitch you just made.  The only difference is this: instead of inserting your right needle through the front of the stitch, you are going to wedge it between the first stitch and second stitch, like this:

Do you see the difference?  The rest is the same...wrap the yarn (which is connected to the skein) around the right needle from back to front, give it a tug, and carry it from back to front with your right needle.  Then tug on the loop and add it to the left needle, next to the first two. 

Do this over and over again, adding one stitch at a time, until you have "cast on" as many stitches as you need.  The stitches will stack nicely next to one another, and when you are all done, it will look something like this:

Congrats!  Practice makes perfect (hint, hint!).