Beth K runs her knitwear pattern brand Things Beth Makes. Her patterns are deceptively simple and Beth inspires me all the time with her energy and enthusiasm for knitting. There’s no one I would have thought better to give beginners some tips when it comes to starting their knitting journey!
If you’re just starting out or you have learned the basic stitches and want to move on with knitting patterns, Beth shares her most helpful advice for beginners.
Guest Post By Beth K
Hi! I’m Beth, the knitter, designer and teacher behind things.beth.makes. I learned to knit from my Grammy when I was about 5 years old and I have been making ever since. I always made adjustments and modifications to patterns as I went, as I never seemed to fit into the standard sizing offered. When 2020 hit and I had nowhere to go, I started digging deeper into my knitting creativity and started publishing patterns. At the end of 2020, I published my first pattern – the Comforted by Cables pillow cover. And I just kept going after that!
These are my favorite tips, tricks, and patterns for beginning knitters. Hopefully, there’s a little bit of something for everyone here.
- Never let anyone tell you what you should and shouldn’t be able to knit as a beginner. Want to knit a colorwork sweater? Go for it. Start with socks? Do it. Only comfortable knitting garter stitch scarves? Amazing. Have at it. What I’m trying to say is that there is no right or wrong path to knitting growth and success. It all lies in the knitter’s mind and how adventurous they want to be. Will starting with a colorwork sweater rather than a garter stitch scarf have more bumps and missteps along the way? Absolutely it will. But if that’s who you are and what you want to knit, that’s the path you should choose. Anybody who tells you otherwise will only hold you back.
- Each designer has their own style and their own way of explaining the stitches and flow of their patterns. Find the designers whose styles work best for you and stick with them. Don’t feel bad if the pattern everybody is knitting doesn’t click for you. That doesn’t say anything about your abilities or your smarts. Some designers just aren’t going to be for you, and that’s ok.
- Don’t be afraid to try knitting socks. I waited 30 years to knit a pair of socks and now I can’t stop. I’m obsessed with them. So much so that they dominate my design time. Two patterns that are perfect for the beginning sock knitter who doesn’t want to bite off too much are the DK Goldbrick and the Goldbrick Lite (fingering weight version). These are simple stockinette, cuff-down socks knit with a heel flap and gusset. The original patterns are great if you want to stick with a single color and stockinette, but they also include a step up with instructions to modify the pattern for a striped ankle sock version.
- Once you’ve learned to knit simple, stand-alone cables, don’t hesitate to move on to complex cables. Complex cables are just a series of simple cables that have been combined over multiple rows. If you can break these cables down into individual parts, you can knit any cable. The Ferrian shawl is a great way to learn about these building blocks. You’ll work stand-alone cables to create diamond shapes, but you’ll also work intertwining cables to connect the diamonds. Neither are terribly complex, but you’ll be learning to read both the cable instructions and your fabric to understand how to combine cable stitches.
- And this last tip is the soapbox I will die on: anybody telling you Continental knitting is better than English knitting is just a snob. Plain and simple. Learn to knit using as many techniques as possible so you have the right tool for any pattern you want to knit. For example, if you can hold your yarn in your right and left hand, you can knit two-handed for stranded colorwork. Once I realized that little trick, I started knitting colorwork all the time because it simplified the entire process for me. If you’d like to give stranded colorwork a try, my Oshen Rising cowl is a great place to start. It is knit in the round with a looser-than-normal tension to begin with, and, most importantly, short floats.
The most important thing beginner knitters should know:
There are no failures in knitting. If you can think of mistakes as an opportunity to learn, you’ll never hide another project in the closet (ok, maybe not never, but a lot less frequently!)
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