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Dear knitters, have a nice day, my name is Kateřina Chocholáčová and I would like to introduce you to the basics of knitting and crochet. Today I'm going to teach you how to knit a pattern, which is the absolute foundation of any knitting larger projects. We knit a pattern whenever we need the knitting to be a certain size, such as a sweater size, a hat size for a certain head circumference, and when we don't care how wide or how long the product will be. Here we have four samples in four different yarns. I knitted them myself according to the manufacturer's adjustment bands. Each sample should be 10x10 cm. You can see that each sample is a little bit different. Here, for example, the width is about 10.5 cm, here the width matches, but here we're almost at 12 cm. You can see that it's very important that we knit the pattern, because if we knit according to the pattern and count on the pattern being 10 cm, we'll end up with 12, so at 80 cm we'll have 16 cm extra width, which of course is quite a lot for a sweater size. So we take the yarn. There are usually several indications on the yarn adjusting strip, such as the size of needles recommended by the manufacturer, how many stitches and how many rows we need to knit to get a 10x10 cm sample. There is the weight and there is the yardage. Here on Alaska yarn from Drops it says that there are 70 metres in a 50 gram ball. This is also very important. We can roughly deduce how much material we will need. We will cover this in the next lessons. This is 100% wool. Clean, shearable, very good quality and nice material. Suitable for both knitting and then wet felting. We'll deal with that another time and another place. There is more information to be read here, but we have found out the most important one, namely that we should knit a pattern that is cast on for 17 stitches and 22 rows. Here on this gauge we can then also see how wide the pattern has become and how many rows we still have to knit. There is both a metric system and then measured in others. If we have American patterns, this will also come in handy. So we'll take the needles. I always recommend knitting on circular needles for projects that are not in the round, such as sweaters, scarves, etc. Circular needles have the huge advantage of being short. Compared to long needles, if you're knitting a heavier knit in a thicker yarn, you don't put as much strain on your hands, forearms, wrists, and especially your elbows. Anyone who knits for a long time, knitting with thicker yarns, knows that after a while the hands start to hurt a lot, especially when we already have a piece of sweater and we have to pull the weight of the sweater with the lever. That's why I always recommend circular needles. These are circular needles from Addi, which is a German company. They are very high quality needles with a perfect transition between the hoop and the needle and a very nice soft hoop. This rope is 80 cm long, the ropes are always measured from tip to tip, this means that the rope itself is about 60 cm long plus 10 cm for the needles. This is the classic standard length of 80 cm. 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... The yarn must always be loosened, as the cast on will unravel and continue. 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... Always cast on two needles to avoid having a very tight edge afterwards. Only if you are knitting on very thick needles, very thick yarn, you can cast on only one needle. We'll get to that again in later lessons. We cast on 17 stitches and knit the first row. The first rows are always knitted in the knitting stitch, which means that the pattern will not twist and roll. The same way you knit in garter stitch at the edges, that is, knit there and knit back, so that the edges don't roll up, so that the pattern is nice and straight. We then use this method to knit the shawl. If you skip these garter stitches and start knitting a plain stockinette right after the edge stitch, it will cause the scarf to curl inwards, it will make a roll, the scarf will be so unpleasant, it won't be straight. This is a very good way to prevent that. Here you are knitting what is called a plain jersey, that is, plain there and plain back. You can see that the ridge here looks the same from the wrong side and the right side, this is because you are knitting knit there and knitting back. So knit the first row, knit the edge stitch first, slip the last stitch. Again, this is to make the pattern neat, and then it has other functions that we'll figure out later. So knit and purl. Slip the last stitch before working, turn the work over, leaving the yarn behind. Again, knit back over, knitting the edge stitch and just slipping the last stitch. Again put yarn in front of work and slip stitch only. Turn again, knit again in the same way. Knit the first edge stitch and slip the last edge stitch. Work again, slip yarn before working. This knitting of the edge stitches, which are then worked over two rows, as seen here, is very important. First of all, the edge is very neat, it is very easy to sew the two pieces together, because there is a nice gap for sewing the knitting together, the knits can also be sewn together in this way. We will also learn in later lessons, it is not necessary to knit the stitch first and last. The row would be untidy, stretch out, and create a bump. This is the right way to knit the edge stitch. That is, the first edge stitch is knit, the last edge stitch is slipped. You can see it nicely here, too. So, here we have the first two rows or four rows in garter stitch and now we're going to continue in stockinette stitch. The first stitch is the edge stitch, this is always not counted in the pattern, it is not shown, the edge stitch is always the same. Then knit three stitches, where we will knit the first and last three stitches to make this garter stitch strip. And now we will continue to knit and purl these stitches on the wrong side. This time we actually knit the whole row, and the last stitch is only knitted off again. Turn, knit the edge stitch, knit the first three stitches, a garter stitch is formed, and the next stitches in the pattern will be knitted purl. The pattern is always knitted the same way so that we can compare each pattern with each yarn. Even if you don't feel like knitting the pattern, get over it, knit it, you don't have to feel sorry for using up a piece of yarn. It's very convenient to save these samples, make a little note of them for when you return to the yarn, even years from now. You don't have to knit a pattern anymore, you use an existing pattern and you will know exactly how many stitches and how many rows you used for 10x10cm. Here I've knitted over the purl, now knit the last three stitches again, creating a garter stitch, slipping the last edge stitch. I turn the work, edge stitch, three stitches, and now you can see that there is that plain stockinette here. On the RS it appears as a knit, on the WS we see the stitches appear as purl stitches. Knit the last three stitches, slip the edge stitch, turn the work and knit the pattern in this way. Edge stitch, knit three stitches, purl the rest except the last three edge stitches. Slip the last stitch. At the moment we can measure approximately the size of this pattern. The sample comes out to almost 10 cm. Once you have worked the whole piece, proceed as follows. If you have the instructions, it's easy. We read that for example size L has a piece of 80 cm, here we have a pattern that measures 10 cm, therefore the pattern will fit 8 times in the piece, and then we multiply 17 stitches by 8 to get the figure we use for casting on stitches. This may all look a bit complicated, but then the pattern makes it very easy to work out the size of a product. That is, if we are casting on a child's hat where the child has a head size of 40 cm in circumference, we use the 10 cm pattern size of 17 stitches, multiply by 4 and cast on that number of stitches at the start of the hat. I think that knitting patterns, even when we don't feel like it, is really very important. One more time. As soon as we start each project, you'll see the payoff. Even if we have the exact pattern, we still need to knit a sample. We are never able to knit the same product in two or three knits, we each tighten differently, we each knit in a different way, and it can always be in the order of a few inches, which can make a big difference in the overall size of that product. Thank you for your attention, I think there will be more lessons to follow which I'm sure you will find interesting. The yarns we've used here are sold on the e-shop www.katrin.cz as well as in the brick and mortar store. The location of the bricks and mortar shop is listed on the e-shop website, as are the opening hours, as well as the contact details and you can write or phone for any advice. Thank you for your attention, I look forward to seeing you next time.
Translated from English to English by artificial intelligence. If you find errors in the text, please accept my apologies
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