Day 1: Knitting Supplies

Hi, I'm Jen Lucas from The Knitting Circle, and welcome to day one of our Learn To Knit series. I'm so excited that you're going on this journey with me and I hope that you will enjoy knitting as much as I do. In this first lesson, we're gonna cover some of the supplies that you're gonna need to get started on your knitting journey. So let's take a look. Let's talk about the basic knitting supplies that you're gonna need to get started. So here I have just the most basic things you need in order to start and finish a project. These will be the supplies you need as you're practicing your stitches in this series. So, of course, you're gonna need some yarn and knitting needles, but you're also gonna wanna grab a pair of scissors and then a yarn or tapestry needle, and I'll explain a little bit more about this later. Let's go ahead and talk about the yarn first. So when you're picking out your yarn, especially if you're just starting out by picking out some yarn to practice with, you're gonna want to look for a yarn that's solid in color, relatively light. I wouldn't go with anything too dark when you're just starting out, just so that you can easily see your stitches. And you're gonna wanna look for a smooth yarn. So you can see here this yarn, it stays in smooth. There isn't a lot of fuzz or little hairs or anything coming off of it. So this will be very easy to work with. As we're practicing, you'll be able to see your stitches easily. There's some information on the yarn label or ball band that you're gonna find helpful, especially when you're just starting out. The first here is the symbol, which you'll find on many yarns that you'll find at a big-box craft store. And you see here, it says, medium or four. That refers to the weight or thickness of the yarn. So yarn comes in all different weights or thicknesses, from super thin cobweb lace all the way up to jumbo, which is very, very thick, and you have to use very large needles to work with that yarn. We're looking for something right in the middle, which is a four, which is worsted weight. This is a very common weight of yarn. You can knit just about anything with this weight of yarn, hats, sweaters, even some nice house socks. So you're gonna wanna look for a yarn that's sort of not too thick, not too thin, just right. I recommend a number four or worsted weight. And then on the yarn label, it will tell you the recommended needle size. And as we're working through this series, and we start talking about knitting from a pattern there's a little bit more that goes into choosing your needle size beyond what's recommended on the yarn label. But when we're just starting out, you're just looking to buy some yarn to practice with, just go ahead and take a look at the label. Here, it recommends a U.S. size eight or five millimeter. So those are the needles that you would wanna get to practice with. As you start knitting you may find that you knit a little bit tighter or a little bit looser. So sometimes you need to change your needle size. And again, when you're following a pattern, you may need to use a different needle size than what's on the yarn label. But this is a great starting point if you're just picking out some yarn to practice with. So now that we've talked a little bit about our yarn, let's go ahead and talk about the knitting needles. So here I have some knitting needles. These are a single point knitting needle. And these are, when you're thinking of a knitting needle, this is probably what you're thinking of. And they're called single point because, well, they have a single point here. So one end has the point, and so we'll be working our stitches with the points. And then the other end of a single point needle typically has some sort of stopper that's permanently affixed to it and that allows your stitches to stop here. So they won't fall off the other end. So they come in different lengths. These are 10 inches, which are pretty common length for single point needle, but you can find longer ones, and sometimes you can even find slightly shorter ones as well. But there are different types of knitting needles. So in addition to the single point needle, you might also see something called a circular needle, which I have here. It's called a circular needle because you can knit in a circle with it. So, circular needles are great for any kind of knitting. If you're knitting something in the round or in a circle, something like a hat, where you just wanna knit around and around and around, you would want a needle like this because you would be able to bring your stitches together and then knit around. But these circular needles are also really great if you are knitting, flat, back and forth. If you're knitting something like say, a dish cloth, you can still use these fixed circular needles. And they're called a fixed circular needle because the cord is fixed to the needle. So you can either work back and forth or in the round. A lot of people, including myself, do like to use the fixed circular needles when knitting flat, back and forth in rows, because as you're working, the stitches sort of start coming onto the cord, and it takes a little bit of the weight off of your wrists as you're working. And so you can find these at any big-box store, just like the single point needles. So you would either wanna get yourself a pair of the single point needles or a circular needle. And these all come in the same sizes as the other needles as well. The other type of knitting needle you might see is a double pointed needle, and they look like this. They typically come in a set of five, and they're called a double pointed needle because there's two points. There's one on each end. So these are great for a lot of different things. When you're knitting in the round, in a circle like this going around and around for something like a hat, these needles can be really great. You do need to be a little bit careful with these because, as you're working, if you have too many stitches on the needle, they can sometimes slip off the other end. Also, if you're working on a very small number of stitches, you can use these like regular knitting needles and knit back and forth with them, but they have a lot of great uses in knitting, and as you move through your knitting journey you may find yourself needing some double pointed needles. So the other thing that you're gonna need is a pair of scissors. And this is to cut the yarn when you're finished with the project, or if you were changing colors or something like that, just any kind of scissor will do. You can even use kids craft scissors. Any kind of scissor will cut into your yarn. I like this particular pair because the ends are nice and sharp but it also sort of has this little protector that goes on it so that I can just throw this in my knitting bag, and I don't have to worry about it poking or cutting my project. And then we have the tapestry or yarn needle. So after we've used the scissors to cut the yarn, when we've completed our project, we'll have some ends or yarn tails hanging off of our knitting project. And so, we're gonna need to do something with those ends to finish our project. And so you get a yarn or tapestry needle so you can put the yarn through the eye of the tapestry needle and then weave that end into the fabric to sort of hide it away and tuck it in. And so there's all different types of these yarn or tapestry needles. This particular one is metal. You can also find them in plastic. You'll find ones that have a different size, eye here. Depending on the thickness of yarn, you may need one that's larger or smaller. And then they also come with a straight tip or bent tip. I personally liked the bent tip. I think it's easier to work into my fabric as I'm weaving in the ends, but that's really a personal preference, but you are gonna wanna get one of these yarn or tapestry needles. Typically at a craft store, you'll find that they come in a set of three or five and have different sized ones. So you're gonna need that too. So those are the things that you absolutely need to have in order to start your project, or even if you're just practicing your knitting stitches. But there are some other things that are gonna be really nice to have as you're moving forward. There's lots of little notions and helpful little tools that you can have in your knitting. But I'm gonna talk about the main ones that will be helpful to you. And the first one is a tape measure. So as you're working on some projects and following a pattern, sometimes a pattern might tell you that you need to knit to a certain length, you need to knit until your piece is 20 inches long or something, or if you're making a scarf and you wanna know how long it is, you might wanna measure that. So I really like these retractable tape measures. This one has both inches and centimeters on it, and then you just hit the button to retract it and then it'll stay nice and neat in your knitting bag. The other thing is stitch markers, and these are really great. Again, as you start working on some knitting patterns, you will find these helpful for lots of different reasons. And there's all different types of stitch markers that you can find. These ones are plastic, but you can find them in metal. You can find people that make handmade ones with beads. There's all different kinds of stitch markers. But these are useful because you can either place them on the knitting needle. So if you had stitches on the needle, you could actually slide this on and have it in between stitches, and it could be marking a place in your knitting. For example, if you were doing some sort of stitch pattern and you wanted to mark every 10 stitches or something, these are great for that. But also sometimes when you're working a project, you may wanna know which sides the right side or the wrong side, and we're gonna talk a little bit about that in another video. But these are also great 'cause you can just open it up because it's like a coil or safety pin, and just attach it directly to your knitted fabric in order to tell which side is the right side or the wrong side, or how many rows you've done, you can use these for all different kinds of things. So you can find these at the craft store online at your local yarn store. And like I said, there's all different kinds of stitch markers that you can find. The next thing is a point protector. And this is something that's nice to have, especially when you're a beginner, it's not necessary, but the point protector is just as it sounds, it will protect the point of your knitting needle. So this purple one here is great for any type of knitting needle, but a lot of times, for a single point you'll use this. And you can just stick it on the end of your needle when you're putting your knitting away. Especially when you're a beginner, it can be very frustrating that you put your knitting down and you pick it back up and you have accidentally pulled the knitting needle out of the knitting, and then all your stitches are just hanging there. It is definitely fixable when that happens, but it's a frustrating thing to have happen. So if you have some of these point protectors and when you set your knitting down, you can just stick one on, it'll make sure that your stitches stay on the needle. So, you have some like this, where they're just individual. And there's different size point protectors. So depending on which type of needle you're using or the size of the needle, you have ones with different hole sizes to use. And then there's also some that are like this, where there's two holes in it. This you could use for straight needles too, but I like to use these for the circulars, 'cause you can just stick both points right into it, and then all your stitches would just be resting along here and it would protect them from falling off the knitting needle. So again, point protector is not absolutely necessary, but it is something that's very nice nice to have. And then the last thing is a needle gauge. And these come in all different sorts of setups. This one's plastic. You can also find them in metal, and you'll see all these holes here. And what this allows you to do, is it allows you to determine what your needle size is. And so this particular needle here, it's written right on there that it's a U.S. size nine, 5.5 millimeter. So we can go ahead and check that, we stick it in the nine, we see it fits into the nine hole. It goes right through, but you can see, it won't go into the one above it. So if you have a knitting needle where you can't read what it says, sometimes the size will wear off over time. Sometimes the knitting needle, doesn't say on the knitting needle, what size it is. It's great to have one of these so that way you can measure it, and so you know exactly what size needle you're using. And these particular needle gauges typically do... This one has like a little bit of magnification. So when you're measuring your stitches you could see them easily, but a lot of them will come with some sort of ruler as well, so that you can measure your knitting as you're working. So those are the main things that you're gonna want to have when you're starting your knitting journey. There are a lot of other knitting tools and notions that you can buy for knitting, but these are sort of the main ones that you're gonna want to have when you're starting on your knitting adventures. Now that you know what supplies you need, you're ready to get started. I look forward to seeing you back here for day two, where we'll cover some of the basic terminology that you'll find in knitting. I'll see you again soon.