How to Knit a Scarf for Beginners Step By Step/wool products

Hey, I'm Davina from SheepandStitch.com and today we're going to learn how to knit a beginner scarf step-by-step. So this tutorial is for total beginners, complete newbies. We'll go through all the steps together and it's going to be a lot of fun. So if you've always wanted to knit or you just need a little refresher, then this course is for you. And if you're already a seasoned knitter, then consider sharing this course with someone who has yet to experience the joy of knitting. Share the love and bring them into the knitting fold. Alright, are you ready to knit? Yeah? Let's get started. Today I'm knitting with two skeins of Jocked Marta the Merino, which is a super delicious merino yarn. It's a one-ply and a bulky weight, which means that it will knit up really quickly. Look how thick that is, right? And this is a beautiful color called Pearl and you can get these at SheepandStitch.com. And I'm also knitting with a pair of 10mm needles. Now the needles and yarn that you use can be anything that you have around. You don't have to use this particular yarn or needle. So the yarn that I'm knitting with is a bulky weight yarn and this is nice and thick. And I like this for beginners because you really have something to hold on to, right? You can really grasp this yarn and it's easy to manipulate. I would recommend that you use yarn that requires needles that are at least 5mm in size. Anything smaller than that is going to be kind of hard to manipulate for a beginner. So you want to stay away from yarns like this. This is a sock weight yarn and as you can see, it's really fine. I mean, look at that. It's going to be harder for you to knit with, so stay away from yarns that are really thin like this. You'll want something like a worsted weight or an Aran weight all the way up to a bulky weight like this or a super bulky weight. So the rule is bigger yarns are better for beginners. So what kind of needles should you use? The best place to look is your yarn label. So my yarn label tells me that the needles I should use should be between 10-15mm. So when you're choosing a needle size, look to your yarn label first and use their recommended needle size as a guide. So once you've got your yarn and needles, we're ready for the first leg of our journey, which is casting on! So now we're going to cast on. Casting on means that we're going to get our yarn onto our needles. Right now our yarn and needles are separate from each other, and we don't want that. We need to get our yarn onto our needles so that we can actually knit into it, right? Now obviously we're not just going to wrap our yarn around like that. That won't do. We need a way to make stitches onto our needle. So that's what casting on does. We're going to take our yarn first and make a slip knot. So we're going to go in 7 or 8 inches from the tail end of our yarn here, and then we're going to make a slip knot at this point. So I'm going to make a loop with my yarn like this. So again, no loop, and now we have a loop. So we'll make a loop with our yarn, and then we'll take the tail end of our yarn and go behind that loop. And then we're going to pick that strand of yarn through our loop. So here we go. Pick that through and then pull, and now we have a slip knot. So let's do that again. So again, I'll just undo that slip knot and I'll go in about 7 or 8 inches from the tail end and just make a simple loop like this. Then I'll take my tail end and go behind that loop that I've just made, and then just pick that loop through, pick that strand of yarn through and pull up, and now I have a slip knot. Alright, so now I'm going to take my needle, now our needle will make its entrance, and I'm going to put it through the slip knot that I just made. So now my slip knot is on my needle. But the slip knot is really loose, right? It's just kind of flopping around, it's not really staying stationary, so now I need to tighten it up. So I'm going to take these two strands of yarn and just pull them together and that will tighten up my slip knot. So now you can see it's sitting nice and snug, snug as a bug, on my needle. Perfect. Okay, so now this slip knot has made up my first stitch. This is my first cast on stitch. Pretty cool, right? But we need to cast on more stitches onto our needle because we don't want a scarf that is this wide, we want a scarf that's like this wide, right? So we need to start casting on more stitches. So what I'm going to do is take my finger and put it down on this first stitch here, my slip knot, because I don't want this to be rolling around, I want this to stay in place. Okay, so let's put our finger down and now we can start casting on. So what I'm going to do first is take my left hand and I'm going to make a gun shape. Then I'm going to go underneath that strand of yarn, so this is the strand of yarn that's attached to my ball of yarn, right? It's not my tiny tail here, I'm ignoring my tiny tail. So I'm going to take my left hand, make a gun, go underneath that strand of yarn that's attached to my ball of yarn, and then I'm going to turn it over to the left. So now you can see I've made a little loop on my finger. So I'm going to use my needle and just pick up that loop off of my finger and I'll drop it off onto my needle and then pull down. So now I've just made one stitch. I've cast on my second stitch right there. So let's continue doing this. We'll just cast on a couple more stitches. So I'm going to take my left hand and make a gun and go underneath that strand of yarn and then turn my hand to the left. You can see I've made a loop on that finger and I'm going to use my needle and just pick up that loop just like that. And then pull down. There we go! So here is our third stitch. One, two, three. Three stitches that we've cast on. Pretty cool, right? So we're going to continue doing this, making a gun with our left hand, going underneath that strand of yarn and turning it to the left. And then picking up that loop with our needle. Just like that. Then I'm going to take my hand off and just pull down. Now a thing to remember is that when you're doing this, sometimes it's going to get a little tricky for you to pick up that yarn. Sometimes the loop kind of travels up with your finger and it's off, right? That was a little close call. But if you find that you're having trouble picking up that yarn loop, you can kind of hold your yarn in place. Just kind of grab it in place and then let the needle pick it up off your finger nice and steady and then pull down. So as you get more comfortable doing this, you can go really, really fast. And when I do it, I'm just going like this. Really fast. Now the official name for this cast on is the backward loop cast on. And I find that this method is really good for beginners. It's much less involved than some other cast ons. So continue casting on stitches onto your needle and cast on about 15 stitches. And then we'll take stock of our stitches. So happy casting on. This is the first leg of your journey. Once you've completed this, then you've only got two more to go. So cast on your stitches and meet me back here. So now you've cast on 15 stitches onto your needle. Now let's take stock. So I'm going to spread out my stitches like this and take a look at the width of my stitches. So basically, if we start knitting now, our scarf is going to be this width. So if you're happy with this width, then great, we can start knitting next. But if you feel like maybe your scarf is a little bit too wide, maybe you want a narrower scarf, then you can take off some of these stitches. So let's say I wanted my scarf to be about this wide. Then I would just pop off some of these stitches just like this. Just pop them off the needle. Whoops! There we go. Gone, gone, gone. And now my scarf would be a bit thinner. Now let's say you wanted your scarf to be wider, then you would just cast on more stitches. So the width of your stitches is going to be pretty close to the width of your scarf. So let's say I want a really wide scarf. Let's say I want the same width as the scarf that I had in the beginning of the video. That was 22 stitches, so 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, and 22. So let's say I want a really wide, thick scarf, then I would cast on 22 stitches. And you can see here, that is a very big, wide scarf. But I kind of love that. I love the coziness of a big scarf. So I'm going to stick with 22 stitches. So now, let's move on to the next leg of our journey, which is the knit stitch. Very exciting. Now when we do the knit stitch, we're going to use our right needle, and we're going to go into our stitch, just like this, from the bottom to the top. So I'm going to push my needle in like that. Then I'm going to take my yarn and go from the back to the front of my needle, and then I'm just going to pull that strand of yarn that I just looped around my needle through the stitch on my left needle, and I'm going to push my needle through, and then push it off the needle. Just drop it off. So don't worry if you didn't catch that the first time, we'll go through this a couple more times and you can always rewind this video. So let's do this again. I'm going to take my right needle, and then I'm going to go into the stitch on my left needle and just push my needle through it, just like that. And you can make really big exaggerated movements, that's totally fine, because you're just learning the steps right now. Then I'm going to take my yarn and go around my right needle from the back to the front, and then I'm going to pull this loop that I just made on my right needle through the stitch on my left. So here we go, you can see that loop right there, right? So I want to catch that on my needle, so I'll push my needle through, and then drop that stitch off my needle. So now I've just knit two stitches, right? So as we knit our stitches, we're transporting them from our left needle to our right needle. They're kind of migrating over from here to here as we knit them. So let's keep going. Now when you hold your yarn, you can loop it around your finger the way I'm doing, but if this whole process is making you nervous, you can just grab your yarn. That's okay, you can just grip it like this, totally fine. We're just worried about getting the steps down, and then we can work on the finesse and the technique of holding your needles, but right now we're just worried about steps, so it's okay if you want to do a caveman grip. So we're going to go from the bottom to the top into our stitch, so just push your needle through like that. Then we'll take our yarn and go from the back to the front like this. Then we're going to pull that strand of yarn through our stitch, and then drop it off the needle. So you can repeat this to yourself as you go, right? Go from the bottom to the top, push, and then we'll take our yarn and go from the back to the front. Then we're going to pull that loop that we made through our left stitch, so we're going to catch that guy, push our needle through, and then drop it off our left needle. So that's all that there is to the knit stitch. Bottom to the top, yarn from the back to the front, and then we'll pull that loop through. Here it is. There's our guy. There it is. And then we'll catch that with our needle, and then drop it off our left needle. So don't worry if you feel kind of clumsy when you're first starting out. You can use all kinds of gripping methods. Most of the people that I teach will grip their yarn like this, and that's fine. Whatever feels okay and natural to you, just use that method. We really just want to get the steps down first, so going from the bottom to the top, using our yarn and going from the back to the front, and then picking up that loop there and dropping it off the needle. So these are all the steps that are involved in knitting. I just want you to get familiar with the steps, and then you can worry about how you hold your needles and holding your yarn in a way that is more efficient. All that kind of stuff. We can work on that later, but think of it like dancing. When you're learning how to dance, you want to get the choreography down. You want to get your steps down, and then once you have the steps down and you don't really need to think about it anymore, then you can work on technique and having a little bit more style and panache. When you're first starting out, you just need to know the steps, so it's the same with knitting. So work on the knit stitch, and you'll want to knit all of the stitches on your left needle, and once you've done that, then we can move on to our next step. So now I'm nearing the end of my first row. I've just got two stitches left on my left needle, so let's knit into these two stitches. There it is. Kind of tight there. I'm going to go from the back to the front, and then pick that stitch through, and then off the needle. And here's my last stitch. Oh my gosh. Here we go. Last stitch, and there we go. So now we've just knit our first row. Pretty awesome, right? Look at this beautiful first row that we made. So great. So now, once you've finished your first row, then we can turn our needle around. I'm going to take my needle and bring it to my left hand, and take my naked needle, the needle that doesn't have stitches on it, into my right hand. So that's what you do when you finish your row of knitting. You just always transfer it back to your left hand. Your left hand is for all the stitches, and your right hand is for your working needle, or your naked needle. So now we're going to do the exact same thing that we just did. We're going to continue knitting into our stitches. So bottom to the top, the yarn goes from the back to the front, and then we'll pick up that loop, push it through our needle, and then drop it off. So that's really all there is. We would keep on knitting. Now learning how to knit is a lot like learning a new language for your hands. If this is your first time knitting, your hands have never held yarn and needles and tried to manipulate them at the same time. It's a lot to get used to. So in the same way that when you're learning a new language, you wouldn't expect to be fluent in a day, you can't expect to be an expert knitter in a day. Even if you practice a lot, your hands need to get used to the rhythm of knitting, and that takes some time and practice. So don't be discouraged if your first couple rows are a little bit, you know, funny and maybe there are some weird holes in them. Just take the time to practice. So just give it some time and don't be too worried if you make mistakes. Practice and just have fun with it. And your hands are really smart. It'll find its way around your yarn and needles as you practice. Once your hands get used to holding your needles and speaking the language of your needles, then you can hold your needles in a way that's less clumsy. So how I hold my yarn is I'll take my right hand and this finger right here, the one that's beside my pinky finger, and I'll just grab my yarn like this and wrap it around my finger like this. And you can wrap it around once or twice, it doesn't really matter. Just find what works for you. I usually just go once like this. So I'll take my finger and then I'll just go around my yarn once like this. And then I'll use this finger, the one that's beside my thumb, I should really learn the names of fingers, but I'm just going to take the finger beside my thumb and go underneath that strand of yarn. So my hand configuration kind of looks like this. And then when I knit into my stitches, I just move my hand up. So I'm just going to move my hand up and then wrap it around my yarn and then go through my stitches just like that. So that way I'm not grabbing my yarn and moving my whole hand in that motion, instead I'm just moving my hand. So I'm really just moving my hand upwards. I'm going like this and catching the yarn onto the needle and then pulling it through in one really fluid movement. So I'll show you how I wrap my yarn again. Here's my finger, just wrap it around. And then I'll take this finger and go underneath that yarn. So that kind of gives the yarn a little bit of tension. And then when I knit, I just move my hand up and drop it off. I move my hand up and catch the needle with it and then just move it and pick it off like that. So when you're first starting out, do not feel bad about holding your yarn like this, going into your needle, going all the way around and pulling it through. That's okay. It is totally okay. You've got to learn the steps first and then you can work on how you want to hold your needles and all that kind of fancy stuff. So continue knitting until your scarf is the length that you like. And by the end of this, you'll be an expert in the knit stitch. Now if you like the look of this clean edge here, well it's really easy to achieve that. All you really need to do is slip the first stitch of every row. Basically, when you get to the first stitch of your row, instead of knitting it as you normally would do like this, you would just put your needle into it as if you were going to knit and then just drop it off the needle. And then continue knitting the rest of your stitches. That's all there is to getting a nice clean edge to your knitting. So here we go. I'm nearing the end of my row here. And here's my last stitch. And now I'm going to turn my work around and on the first stitch of this row, I'm going to slip it. Go into the stitch as if I were going to knit it and then slip it right off. And continue knitting. And that's all there is to getting that nice clean edge. Just slip the first stitch of every row. Hey! So look at my scarf. It is super long. Look at the sea of knit stitch. Oh my gosh. I love this. I can't wait to wear this out. So now I'm ready to cast off my stitches. What casting off means is getting your knitting off of your needle so you can actually wear this out in public. You don't want to be walking around with a pair of needles attached to your scarf. That's kind of weird. Good conversation starter, but still kind of weird. So we want to get our scarf, which is so ready to be worn, off of our needles. And that's what a cast off will do. Now what we're going to do is we're going to knit two stitches. So we'll go one, knit one, and then we're going to knit two. Alright. Perfect. So now we're going to take our left needle and go into the first stitch that we just knit, just like this, and we're going to bring it over this second stitch. So here we go. I'm just going to drop it, and you can see my second stitch is right here. I'm just going to drop it over the second stitch. So I've just cast off one stitch now. I only have one stitch left on my needle. The other stitch has been cast off right here. And you'll see this as we continue moving on. So now I've got one stitch on my right needle, and I'm going to knit another stitch. So in order to cast off, you always need to have two stitches on your right needle. So I'm going to take my left needle and go underneath that first stitch, and then I'm going to bring it over my second stitch here. So I'm just going to go over, there it is. So now I've brought it over, and now I once again have one stitch on my right needle. And my second stitch has been cast off right here. So let's do that again. We would basically work across our whole row like this. Once again, I have two stitches on my right needle, and I'm going to bring my left needle into that first stitch. And if you're worried about both of your stitches falling off your needle when you bring it over, you can always just tighten that second stitch by pulling on your yarn. And now your stitch here is really tight against your needle, and when you pull your second stitch over it, it won't fall off because you're pulling really tight on this yarn. So there you go. So we would continue doing this. Knit one stitch so that you've got two stitches on your right needle, and then go into that first stitch that you just knit, and bring it over the second stitch. And that's all there is to casting off. Two stitches on your right needle, bring your needle into that first stitch, and then over your second stitch, just like this. And if you're worried, you can always use your hand to grab a hold of your stitch so it doesn't fall off as well. You can use any kind of method that you want that makes you feel comfortable. And now you can see that as we've cast it off, look at this! This is the edge of our knitting, and it's being cast off of our needle nice and safely. It looks really beautiful on this nice edge here. And that's what's happening as you cast off. You're binding off your stitches so that they are secure and they won't unravel. So cast off all the stitches on this row, and meet me back here when you have one stitch left. Here we go, we'll knit up this last stitch, and perfect! So now I have one stitch left on my row, and you can see the rest of my row has been cast off and it looks so great! Oh my gosh, I can't wait to wear this scarf. So now we have one stitch left on our needle, and what we're going to do is we're going to get out our scissors. So I've got a pair right here, and I'm going to cut off my tail end, but I'm going to leave like five or six inches, maybe seven inches of my tail end, and then I'm going to cut it off just like that. Wow. Okay. So now I'm going to bring my tail end right here, and I'm going to bring it to the front of my needle like this, and then I'm going to take my stitch, that last stitch, and bring it over that tail end of my yarn, and then just pull it through. And I'm going to pull tightly on that, and now I have just cast off my scarf. Can you believe it? My scarf is off the needle, and now we can wear this out into the world, except for one last thing, which is this little yarn tail right here, and the yarn tail at the very beginning of our work. We need to weave in this end so that it's nice and neat, and it's hidden into our scarf. So we're going to do that next. So here is my tail end, and I want to weave this into my scarf so that it's secure but also kind of invisible. So I'm going to use a tapestry needle for this, and you can get this at most craft stores. It's pretty inexpensive and very handy. So if you plan on doing any more knitting, you'll definitely want to invest in a tapestry needle. So I'm going to take my tail end of my yarn and push it into the eye of this needle. There we go. And now we're going to weave in this tail end into our work. So the great thing about this fabric is that it has all of these little bumps in it, which makes it great for camouflaging things like your tail end. So I'm going to take my needle and go into a little bump that's close to my tail end, this corner where I'm at, so I'm going to go into one that's close by, and I'll pull it down so it's pretty even, and then I'm going to move into this next little bump to the left of it, and then I'm going to go down one of these bumps. So I'm just kind of going up and down, and I'm not pulling really tightly. I'm just keeping the same tension as the knitting. So I'm going to go up one into one of these bumps, and then I'm going to go down into one of these bumps. So I'm going to go in about five or six times. That's pretty good. Maybe I'll go in one more time here, and that's pretty good to me. So after I do this, I like to stretch it out a little bit so that I know that the tail end isn't stretching the fabric or it's not pulling at it, and that looks good to me. So let's look on the other side. It looks practically invisible on this side as well, and that looks pretty nice. So the whole point of this is to hide the tail end and also to secure it in place. So now I'm going to take out my scissors and just cut off that little tail end. So now you can wear your scarf out into the world, keep warm, and enjoy. And that is how you knit a beginner scarf. Thank you so much for watching. If this video helped you out, then consider subscribing to this channel for more knitting tips and tutorials. And hey, visit sheepandstitch.com to drool over yummy yarn, knitting kits, and our ever-popular pattern tutorials. Okay, that's it for me. I'm Davina of sheepandstitch.com. Have a great day, and happy knitting!