Knitting and Crochet 101

Lesson 1

Yarn, needles, hooks, and how to hold them

Dillmont begins her knitting chapter with a simple definition worth keeping: knitting consists of loops, or stitches, formed by means of a thread and two needles, and because those loops hang together in unbroken continuity, the finished fabric is elastic and warm. Crochet makes its loops with a single hook instead. Everything in this course is a variation on that one idea, so your first job is not speed. It is choosing tools that let your early loops come out even.

For yarn, Dillmont advises threads with a slight twist, and the same advice holds today. Start with a smooth, medium weight yarn in a light, plain color, because dark and fluffy yarns hide your stitches just when you need to see them. Match the needles to the yarn: she warns that the right thickness depends on the thread, and that a loose knitter needs finer needles than a tight one. The printed band on a modern ball of yarn suggests a needle and hook size, and that suggestion is a good place to begin. Buy one ball more than your first project seems to need.

Holding the work matters more than beginners expect. Dillmont describes the English and French position, yarn carried over the right forefinger and the work held lightly, and the German position, yarn over the left hand, which many knitters find faster. Riego's generation used the word pins for needles, and both books warn against big arm movements. Keep the needle tips close to the work, let the yarn slide through your fingers so it feeds at a steady pull, and rest your hands often. A relaxed grip today becomes even stitches all winter.

Lesson 2

Casting on, knit, and purl

Casting on builds the foundation row that every later stitch stands on. Dillmont, who calls it the formation of the first row of stitches, lists four methods, and Riego gives the friendliest one for a beginner. Make a loop on one needle. Knit a stitch into it without taking the loop off, pass that new stitch back onto the left needle, and repeat. This knitted cast on is easy to undo, easy to count, and it grows at exactly the pace of your learning. If your edge feels tight, cast on over two needles held together, as Dillmont describes, then pull one out before you knit the first row.

The knit stitch itself, which Dillmont calls the plain stitch and calls the easiest stitch and the first a knitter has to learn, goes like this. Put the right needle up from below under the front of the first stitch on the left needle. Carry the yarn from right to left under the needle point, draw it through the loop, and let the old loop drop off. One new stitch sits on the right needle. Work slowly across the row, then turn the work and do it again. The smooth side of plain knitting shows neat rows that look like little braided columns.

Purl is the same stitch worked from the other side. Riego puts it plainly: in knitting, the pin is put up the stitch, but in purling it is put down, and the wool should be in front of the needle while you purl. Bring the yarn forward between the needles, put the right needle down through the front of the stitch, wrap the yarn around it, and draw the new loop back through. When knit and purl stitches share a row, move the yarn forward to purl and back to knit every time. Riego also teaches that the first stitch of every row should be slipped, which gives your work a tidy edge. Count your stitches after the first few rows and again whenever the work feels wrong, because a mistake caught at row three costs seconds and the same mistake caught at row thirty costs an evening.

Lesson 3

Ribbing, garter, and stockinette

With knit and purl in your hands, three classic fabrics are already yours, and telling them apart is the real lesson here. Garter stitch is the simplest: knit every row. Because each row leaves a ridge of purl bumps on both sides, the fabric lies flat, feels squishy, and looks the same front and back. It is forgiving, it hides small unevenness, and it never curls, which is why the next lesson builds your first scarf from it.

Stockinette, called stocking stitch in our old books, alternates the two stitches: knit one row, purl the next. Dillmont explains that plain knitting shows a perfectly smooth, even surface on the right side and looks quite different on the wrong side, and that smooth face of stacked V shapes is stockinette. It is the fabric of sweaters and stockings, but it has one honest fault a beginner should know before it causes tears: the edges curl. The sides roll toward the purl side and the ends roll toward the knit side, so flat pieces usually need a garter or ribbed border to behave.

Ribbing mixes the two stitches inside a single row, most often knit two, purl two, repeated across. Stack those columns row after row and the purl columns sink while the knit columns stand forward, making an elastic fabric that pulls in narrow and stretches wide. That spring is why ribbing finishes cuffs, sock tops, and hat brims. Before any real project, knit a swatch of each fabric, about four inches square, and measure how many stitches and rows you make per inch. That little square, your gauge, is how you make things that actually fit.

Lesson 4

Your first scarf

Your first finished thing should be useful, quick enough to complete, and kind to mistakes, and a garter stitch scarf is all three. Choose a soft medium or chunky yarn and needles to match. Cast on about 24 to 30 stitches for a modest width, slip the first stitch of every row as Riego teaches, and knit every row. Stop and admire the ridges forming. A scarf for an adult usually runs about as long as the wearer is tall, but a first scarf can be shorter and still be a real scarf. Keep the yarn band, because it holds the fiber and washing information.

Work in short, regular sessions and count your stitches at the end of every few rows. The count should never change, and when it does, the usual causes are friendly ones: an extra stitch made by wrapping the yarn over the needle at the start of a row, or a stitch that quietly slipped off and laddered down. Learn to rescue a dropped stitch by catching it with a crochet hook and climbing it back up the ladder, loop by loop. Small accidents fixed calmly teach more than perfect rows do, and garter stitch hides the evidence beautifully.

Finishing is a skill, not an afterthought. Cast off as Riego directs: knit two stitches, pass the first stitch knitted over the second, knit one more, pass the older stitch over, and repeat to the end, then cut the yarn and draw the tail through the last loop to fasten it. Thread the two loose ends onto a blunt needle and weave each one back and forth through the edge stitches so it disappears. Wash the scarf gently, lay it flat to dry, and wear it or wrap it for someone you like.

Lesson 5

Crochet: chain, single, and double

Put the needles down and pick up one hook. Dillmont says to hold it between the thumb and first finger of the right hand, resting on the second finger, in the same manner in which you hold your pen. Start with a slip knot on the hook, then make the chain that begins almost all crochet: take up the thread with the hook and draw it through the loop already there. That throwing of the thread around the hook she calls an over. Chain stitches should be loose and even, like a row of small ovals, because every later stitch must find a home in one of them. Make your first chain a full hand span long and pull each loop up to the same height, checking that you can still slide the hook through every link without forcing it.

Single crochet is the short, sturdy stitch. Insert the hook into a chain, draw the thread through so two loops sit on the hook, take up the thread again, and draw it through both loops. Work across the chain, then make one chain stitch and turn, as Dillmont directs, beginning each new row with chain stitches to keep the outside edge from contracting. The fabric that grows is dense, flat, and strong, good for bags, washcloths, and the centers of squares.

Double crochet adds one step and gains height. Wrap the thread around the hook first, insert the hook into the next chain, draw a loop through so three loops sit on the hook, then take up the thread and draw it through two loops, and again through the last two. Riego walks through exactly this stitch in 1846. One honest warning about names: these old British books call our single crochet a double or French crochet, and our double crochet a treble, so in Lesson 7 we will learn to translate. In this course, single and double always mean the modern American stitches taught in this lesson.

Lesson 6

Granny squares and joining

A granny square is crochet worked in rounds from a tiny center ring outward, growing corners as it goes, and it turns scraps of yarn into blankets one small square at a time. Dillmont's own crochet square begins with four chain stitches joined into a round, and her hexagon works the same trick with six sides: the shape grows because extra stitches are worked into the corner stitches. The classic granny square follows that logic. Join four chains into a ring, then work clusters of three double crochet into the ring, separated by chains, with wider chain spaces where the four corners will be.

On the next round, work a three double cluster into each chain space, and at every corner work two clusters with chains between them into the same space, which keeps the square flat and truly square. Change colors whenever you like by fastening off and starting the new color in a corner space. Aim for squares that match: same hook, same number of rounds, same yarn weight. Lay each finished square flat, ease it into shape with your hands, and let it rest. A square that is a little larger or smaller than its neighbors will cause trouble no joining method can fully hide.

Joining is where the blanket appears. Lay all your squares out first and arrange the colors until the whole thing pleases you, because rearranging costs nothing now and a great deal later. Then join them with a blunt needle and yarn, sewing through the back loops only for a tidy ridge, or crochet them together as Riego's table cover in squares was joined, working a row that catches both edges at once. Join squares into rows, then join the rows, weave in every end as you go, and finish with one plain round around the whole blanket to pull it together.

Lesson 7

Reading an old pattern in modern terms

Sooner or later you will meet a pattern from our teachers' century, a shawl from Riego or a coverlet from Dillmont, and it will look like a message in code. Part of the difficulty is vocabulary. Needles were pins, yarns had trade names like Berlin wool that no shop has sold for a hundred years, and needle sizes followed the wire drawer's gauge, as Riego notes, not the millimeter sizes printed on modern needles. None of that means the pattern is broken. It means it was written for readers who shared a world we have to reconstruct.

The translation method is patient and mechanical. First, rewrite the pattern in your own words, one row at a time, expanding every abbreviation and every repeat. Riego tells us that many ladies copied each row of a pattern onto its own card to keep from confusing one row with another, and that trick still works beautifully on paper or in a notes app. Decode the repeat marks as you go: she explains that the star shows where the repeated part of a row begins, and that stitches written inside parentheses are worked as many times as the pattern says, to save useless repetition.

Second, check the arithmetic before you trust the words. Count the stitches each row should begin and end with, and make sure increases and decreases balance the way the author claims. Third, swatch. Work the stitch pattern in a modern yarn of similar weight, measure your gauge, and let the swatch, not the old numbers, set your cast on. Old terms for crochet need the same care, as you saw with single, double, and treble. Translate slowly, keep your notes with the project, and the next Victorian pattern will read twice as fast.

Lesson 8

Final project: a hat or a blanket square

Choose the project that fits the time you honestly have. The blanket square is the gentler road: make one excellent granny square from Lesson 6, or one garter or stockinette square edged with garter stitch so it lies flat, at least eight inches across. That square is not a sample. It is the first square of a real blanket, and everything you learned about even tension, square corners, and woven ends shows in it. Make it in colors you would happily live with for the twenty squares that follow.

The hat is the bolder road, and Riego's books are full of caps worked both flat and round. For a flat version, measure the head, check your gauge from Lesson 3, and cast on enough stitches to go around with a little stretch in reserve. Work two inches of knit two, purl two ribbing for the brim, then stockinette until the hat reaches the crown. Shape the top by knitting two stitches together across the row at even intervals, repeating those decrease rows until few stitches remain. Riego's own term for that decrease is exactly knit two together. Draw the yarn through the last stitches, pull snug, and sew the back seam neatly. Check the hat on your own head before the final decrease rows if it is for you, since a crown shaped a little early or a little late changes the fit more than any other step in the making.

Whichever you chose, finish it like a maker. Weave in every end, wash the piece gently in lukewarm water, and lay or ease it into its final shape while it dries. Try the hat on a real head or lay the square beside its future neighbors. Then do the thing this course has pointed at from the first lesson: give it away, or honestly promise its blanket or its wearer. Handmade things finish twice, once in the making and once in the giving.

Sources

The Books Behind This Course

This course is taught from classic texts that are free for anyone to read. Every stitch and method in the lessons traces back to one of these books, and both are free to read in full at Project Gutenberg.

• Knitting, Crochet, and Netting, by Eléonore Riego de la Branchardière (1846), Project Gutenberg
• Encyclopedia of Needlework, by Thérèse de Dillmont (1886), Project Gutenberg

Graduation

You made something warm

You started with a ball of yarn and a pair of needles, and you finished with stitches you can name, fabrics you can choose on purpose, a scarf or square or hat with its ends woven in, and the skill to read patterns written before your great grandparents were born. Keep a small project in a bag by your chair. Congratulations, and may your rows stay even and your gifts be worn for years.

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