Learn How To Knit (courtesy of FreePeople.com)

How To Knit Through The Back Loop (courtesy of LionBrandYarn.com)

To knit through the back loop, you’re going to be inserting your right-hand needle from the right to left, into your stitch. Instead of knitting through the front, such as this, you’re gonna be knitting into this back section.

You’ll yarn over, and complete the stitch as normal. This creates a twisted stitch, so, let me show you a normal knit stitch, as compared to the twisted stitch. So, as you can see, it sort of leans a little more…the left side is slightly more elongated because of the twist.

So, here’s knitting through the back loop again. Insert your right-hand needle into the back of the stitch. Then, yarn over, and complete the stitch as normal. And, that’s knitting through the back loop!

How To Block A Sweater When Knitting (courtesy of KnitPicks.com)

How To Untwist Knitting Yarn Skeins (courtesy of PetitPoix.com)

How To Knit Socks (courtesy of LionBrand.com)

I’m going to show you how to knit on double pointed needles – it’s not as hard as it seems!

I’ve already cast on stitches on one needle, as you can see. I cast on 12 stitches. So, we’re going to divide them now, into 3 needles.

So, we’re just going to knit 1, 2, 3, 4. That’s your first needle.

You take your next needle and you knit 1, 2, 3, 4.

You take your 3rd needle and you knit 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now, it looks like a mess! But, what you have to do – this is the hardest part – is, you’re going to join them, And just like on the circular needles, you have to make sure that all of the stitches are facing the same direction…inward.

So then, you push those stitches down. You take your 4th needle, and you pull, with the tail, and start knitting. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now, you’ve got a free needle. You’re gonna take that up again. Drop the tail, and knit 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now, you have a free needle. You’re gonna push those to the end. And, with your free needle, continue knitting, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now, you’ve gone a whole round, and you want to put a marker – I always just use an extra piece of yarn, a different color, so that will show the beginning of the row.

And then, you take your free needle again, going into the 2 stitches from the tail, and go 1, 2, 3, 4. And you just continue going round and round until you’ve gotten it as long as you want it to be. It’s that simple!

You can use a technique called stranded color work to knit with 2 different colors in the same row, or to create complex patterns. Fair Isle knitting is a type of stranded color work where you use traditional shetland island motifs and color gradients to make beautiful, shimmering patterns.

There are a number of ways to do stranded color work. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to knit in the round, while holding one color in each hand. Your right hand will throw the yarn in the english or American style, and your left hand will hold the 2nd color in the continental style.

For each stitch, you knit one strand of yarn while the other is carried behind the work, creating a strand or “float”. You usually use finer yarn for this, because floats will cause your fabric to be much thicker. Keep the floats fairly loose. Tight floats will cause your finished fabric to picker.

When in doubt, err on the side of floats that are a little too loose. Also, don’t get discouraged. Remember that blocking out your finished piece will really even out your stitches.

1) Decide which yarn will be held in each hand, then stick to this decision throughout your color work project. Knitters usually hold the background color with the right hand, and the contrast color with the left hand.

2) When knitting in the round, follow the chart in your pattern from right to left. Color work charts usually try to use a single color for less than 5 to 6 stitches in a row, in order to keep the floats manageable.

3) If your color work pattern has teeny, tiny motifs, you don’t have to worry about the next part of this tutorial. If your chart has longer, single color stretches, you may want to wrap your floats, by bringing a floating yarn over or under the working yarn in the middle of a long color stretch. Try to have no more than 3 stitches between wraps, and make sure to alternate any wrapped stitches with regularly knit stitches.

4) To wrap a float made out of the left strand, the first stitch of the color is knit normally. The next stitch you’ll want to wrap. Put your needle into the stitch and under the yearn on the left hand. Proceed to knit your stitch with the right color, per as normal. You have essentially lifted the left-hand color over the right.

5) To wrap a float made out of the right strand, pretend to knit with your right hand, wrapping the right hand color around the needle, as if to knit, but don’t knit it! Immediately after that, pretend to knit with your left hand, by picking up the color in the left hand with the right needle tip. Then, unwrap your right-hand color, and bring the left color stitch through. Do not weave 2 stitches in a row, and be sure to put an ordinary stitch in between, or the weaving won’t work.

Backwards knitting is a technique that you can use to avoid purling on all of your rows. So, if you don’t like to purl, you might want to try to learn to do this.

But, you knit to the end of your row, and then, normally what you would do when you get to the end of your row is turn your knitting, and then start working all your purls on the opposite side. So, instead of doing that, is, stay on the right side of your work – keep all of your stitches on your right-hand needle – and then, start by going from left to right, in back of your stitch, wrap your yarn counter-clockwise, and then pull that stitch over and then off the right-hand needle.

So, go from left to right in back of that stitch, pull your yarn counter-clockwise around, pull your stitch over and off your right-hand needle. I know we’re taught to panic when stitches start falling off of our right-hand needles, but in this case, it’s ok – I promise!

Pull that new yarn through, and your old stitch off the right-hand needle. And, from left to right in the back, wrap your yarn around counter-clockwise, pull that new yarn through on your left-hand needle, and then pull the old stitch off your right-hand needle.

And, you just continue this all the way across your row until you’re done. And then, what you would do is go back again and just knit your next row. And that’s all there is to backwards knitting!