The #GreatSockKnittingJourney: Knitting My First Project Ever

I’ve had an itch to knit socks for years, and I finally took the plunge to learn how to knit! I am documenting my journey here on my blog, from research and preparation, through my beginning knitter projects, up through the process of sock knitting and refining my skills. If you want to follow along on my journey, whether for entertainment or to educate yourself along a similar path, you can subscribe to my blog for notifications when I post. My introductory post regarding this adventure can be found here, where I talk about my reasons for learning to knit, what tools and resources I plan to use, as well as my plan of action to make this goal happen. You can also follow me on Instagram @crowchetcreations or through the hashtags #crowchetcreations and #greatsockknittingjourney to stay up-to-date on my progress or share your own journey towards knitting your goal project.

Disclaimer: I have already knit quite a bit by the time I am writing this post (my first pair of socks is already done!) since I found I could knit faster than I could type. When you have 2 vacations and a cross-country move all in the course of a month, you have lots of time to knit in the car! I kept notes about the process of knitting so I can relay to you how the endeavor went from a first-timers perspective, but rest assured I made it out on the other side and would now call myself a sock knitter. If I can pick up knitting as a lifelong crocheter, so can you!

The Project

As I mentioned in my first post in this series (which you can read here), I decided to make the Pin Me Up Headband by @knitatude as my very first knit project. It’s free on Chantal’s blog, and it’s small, knit flat, and would allow me to practice a couple basic skills beyond just a gauge swatch. Not to mention it is so cute and makes the perfect stash buster!

Her pattern, however, is definitely not a tutorial for learning to knit as a newbie. It was filled with acronyms that were beyond me! So I made a knit swatch in preparation for this project so that I could not only make sure I had the right size of needles but also make sure I knew how to knit.

I knew I needed to learn the basic skills of the knit stitch and the purl stitch (the knit stitch’s companion/arch nemesis, you decide). YouTube was a big help for this swatch as well as other skills I have needed to learn since then. I originally learned a tiny bit of knitting when I was young, around the time I learned how to crochet, but it never stuck. As I learned how to cast on and knit, however, my muscle memory helped me a lot and I quickly got the hang of things (though of course I remembered incorrectly how to knit since it had been 15+ years, so I am glad that I started relearning from scratch!). I also learned how to purl in this swatch, which was nothing at all like I expected. I am knitting continental style, which means that I hold the working end of the yarn in my left hand just like I do for crochet. This made purling a bit tricky (more on that later). But my swatch taught me enough to move forward with my chosen pattern and make a headband!

Here are some things I learned before I share with you the skills I accumulated through this project. “Garter stitch” is when a flat panel is knit on both the right and wrong sides (this is how the headband is worked up). “Knit stitch” or “stockinette” stitch is when the right side of the fabric is made of knitting and the wrong side of the fabric is made of purling, making the characteristic “v-stitch” look that we recognize as knitting, especially on stockings or socks! When you work in the round, however, you can just knit on every row and you will get this texture- no need to purl!

The Skills

I was surprised by how many skills I picked up through this simple project! Technically, I learned how to do a long tail cast on and knit because of my swatch, but those skills are needed for this pattern as well.

The long tail cast on wasn’t too hard, especially when the pattern only starts with a couple stitches. Most of the headband is done in garter stitch, or knit stitches on both the right and wrong sides of the fabric. But the abbreviations in the pattern were totally new to me! KFB? K2Tog? These are pretty standard so it wasn’t hard to find out what they meant. A knit stitch is typically done in the front leg of the prior row, so a KFB (or Knit Front Back) is a way to increase stitches by working first in the front leg, and then again in the back leg of the same stitch. K2Tog (or Knit 2 stitches Together) is a way to decrease stitches by working into two stitches at once. Knitting seems like a completely foreign language when you are first starting out, but it is pretty easy to decipher, especially if you have experience working with yarn!

With a few increases at the beginning and a few decreases at the end, this headband was mostly knitting straight down my panel. It was a great project to learn a few extra new skills beyond just making a square coaster but where I got to practice knitting to work on my stitch familiarity and tension. By the time I got the the end of my headband, I was feeling pretty good about knitting as a whole.

I also learned how to finish off a project by binding off and weaving in my ends. Weaving in ends doesn’t seem like a new skill for someone who crochets, but since the stitch anatomy in knitting is so different than in crochet you have to weave your ends in differently to secure them out of sight.

I bound off this project in an Instagram Live video over on my account, @crowchetcreations, that you can still find there. It was so fun to finish off my first knitting project with some of my online friends cheering me on and talking about this new-to-me craft!

The Difficulties

While this project was not nearly as intimidating as I anticipated, there were definitely some headaches along the way. First and foremost, trying to purl was a mind-boggling experience during my swatching. People always say that purling is just knitting backwards, but really you are knitting backwards and mirrored to actual knit stitches. It was so fiddly to purl with my yarn in my left hand at first so it was really slow. And while knitting felt comfortable with my muscles, purling felt totally foreign and awkward. I was very glad to find that my first knitting project did not have any purl stitches in it so I could take a break. It was a beast though, mentally and physically. Even though I was doing it right I struggled to make my fingers and the yarn make it happen (don’t worry, it gets better with practice. Just not on this project!)

One skill that WAS part of this headband was the long tail cast on. And while I didn’t have to cast on very many stitches, it took a little bit of practice before getting the hang of it. It reminded me a lot of the magic ring in crochet. Everyone holds their yarn a little bit differently and you really have to find out what method works for you and your brain. I watched a variety of YouTube videos until I found a method of holding and manipulating the yarn that worked for me. And all of a sudden the cast on just clicked! Learning how to make a magic ring in crochet was exactly the same in my experience.

One thing that is not such an easy fix is learning appropriate tension. Since my muscle memory is still being strengthened, my stitches aren’t quite even. And I have learned that even the most experienced knitters have discrepancies in their knitting tension. Blocking helps a lot with making the final piece look more seamless and regular. But I found that specifically the first and last stitches of my rows on this headband were much looser than all my other stitches. As I continued to work this flat panel, the previous rows would even out and the edge of my headband looked alright, but I still felt like my stitches should be more even. It is a common issue for new knitters to have their first and last stitches looser since these stitches collect some of the extra yarn from the other stitches in the row and so all of the looseness gets pulled into the last stitch. Some of that is fixed with practice and time, and some of that is little tips and tricks to get my tension more regular. I will definitely be continuing to work on my tension!

The Learning Opportunities

One of the things that helped me the most in this early stage of knitting my first real project was watching lots of different video tutorials on YouTube. This way, you benefit learning from a variety of makers with decades of combined experience- all for free! And while repetition is really useful to get the hang of a new skill, learning from different people also helps to solidify what you are practicing. As I mentioned above, your brain and hands may work differently than for another knitter, so while one video may not be helpful you may find that the next one is exactly what you needed to make something click. So keep watching video tutorials! Many knitters also have Reels on Instagram or TikTok accounts on which they show quick tutorials, so you can learn from a variety of platforms too.

Something else I learned through this project is that I need to be looser on my needles. It is really easy to pull too tightly on my stitches and make it hard to maneuver my stitches. In knitting, you need a balance between the stitches sliding easily down your needle for ease of stitching while also not moving so much that you lose control of where they are going and they slide off. A lot of that is related to the composition of the fibers and needle material and how they interact. So experiment with your yarn and needle choices to find what works for you! Also, if you are a new knitter, just relax and try extra hard to not stitch too tight. After just this project, I could still feel myself knitting too tightly, so I need to practice this!

After making myself a headband, I had enough left over yarn to make another headband for my baby girl, Georgia. I just increased fewer times and made a slightly shorter headband. I have experience adjusting patterns for crochet so once I knew the stitches I was using it wasn’t hard to make a smaller version of this headband. Now we match! So I guess you can say the Pin Me Up Headband was my first *two* knitting projects.

While learning to knit can seem really intimidating, I was surprised by how quickly I could understand what I needed to do. I attribute that to all my years of crochet experience. But you don’t need to be an advanced crocheter either! As long as you know how to read patterns, practice new skills and jump right in, you will be able to knit in no time.

I would love to have you join me on my knitting adventure to learn how to go from zero to socks here on my blog or on Instagram @crowchetcreations or through the hashtags #crowchetcreations and #GreatSockKnittingJourney. I would also love if you share with me your own progress as you try knitting for the first time so that we can cheer each other on! Happy crafting.

XO, Emily