This series covers several different knitting stitches using the Learn-to-Knit Afghan book by Barbara Walker. Whether you are a true beginner or an intermediate knitter, you can take your knitting to the next level working through the blocks in this book. About once a week I will be adding one new block to the blog with some of my notes. If you would like to knit along with us please feel free to leave your comments, questions, suggestions, and links to photos in the COMMENT section. You can also add a photo to our Flickr group or tag a Tweet with #WFAlearn2knit. If you are just joining us you might want to start with the introductory post.
Block Two: Striped Stockinette Stitch
Block One: Garter Stitch
Block Three: Basketweave
Getting Started Knitting
If you are completely new to knitting you can learn the basics of getting starting with our Newbie Knitting series. Once you have tackled the first few lessons there, you will be ready to begin your afghan.
How to tell the front and back of a knit stockinette stitch
One of the main points to take away from this block is the ability to see the difference between the right and wrong side of a stockinette stitch piece. Unlike the garter stitch, the stockinette stitch front and back is obvious after the first few rows.
The front side of your stockinette stitch will look like rows of neat little Vs. The back will look like a line of dashes.
Counting rows when working in stockinette stitch is very easy when you look at the front side. You can just count 1 row for every V. You can see that each color band is made up of two rows.
Stockinette Stitch Edges
The second thing you will notice while working with a stockinette stitch piece is that the edges like to curl. You can see in the photo below that even after blocking (which we will talk about later) my edges still want to curl towards the backside. You will find that many patterns that call for a stockinette stitch will also include a garter or ribbed stitch border to help counteract the curling effect.
The last thing I would like to make note of today, is the fact that the edge on the turning side of block when I went from front to back wanted to work up tighter than the edge where I was switching colors. Be careful. You don’t want one edge to be shorter than the other side, especially since we are hoping for neat little squares when we are done.
FYI – We are an Amazon affliate.
I started this square last night, and there is an error in my copy of the book. It states to add color D then knit with color B. It never actually says to do anything with color D.
I need to clarify what I’m supposed to be doing. Knit 1 pearl 1 with color B, knit one pearl one with color D. Then repeat, right?
Yes. You cast on and purl one row with B. Join D then knit one row, purl one row with D. Keep switching back and forth between the two colors every other row.
HTH
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