My First Knitting Project! [Scarf For Beginners]

Back in January I had a lightbulb moment and decided that I wanted to start knitting. I had had no previous experience with knitting and my nan was the only one in the family who could, she has now passed away. So I really was going into it blind. In this post I'll be going over my experience with knitting for the first time and any tips i'd give to other beginners. I feel there's a big stigma around knitting and its definitely seen as being an older generation thing. However I'm here to represent the minority of teens that enjoy this craft.

I'll start off by saying I didn't follow a pattern to create my scarf and I basically winged it as I went along. So how did I learn? I turned to Youtube, naturally. I found a really helpful video on how to cast on and another to create the knit stitch which was all I used to make my scarf. You can watch those videos here.

So I thought I'd keep it simple 

and start with a knit stitch scarf. 

I bought my wool from a local haberdashery and was advised on which wool to pick. Its a blue denim colour and you can see all its information to the left & right.

 I then bought corresponding 4 inch needles as recommended on the wool label. I started off with shorter knitting needles and then bought a longer pair to accommodate the width of my scarf. As you can see somehow I managed to bend one of my pink needles. 

I found casting on quite easy however I did do it a little tight making it hard to knit the next row. During knitting my first few rows I did start again about 3 times either because I wasn't happy with how it looked or I tried to fix a dropped stitch and just made it worse. (TIP: If you don't know how to pick back up the stitch just leave it and carry on! In the long term you probably wont even notice on a project like this).

I found as I progressed through the project I was dropping a lot less stitches and it was becoming easier to do whilst watching T.V or Youtube as I didn't have to focus on the stitches as much.

I really liked the pattern and look the knit stitch created, I also feel it's quite forgiving when it comes to making mistakes. 

One extra thing I picked up during the project was needle stoppers/protecters just to prevent my project from accidentally coming off the needle.

For this project I used nearly two whole bundles and therefore I had to learn to join on a new bundle halfway through.  This is the video I used to learn how to do it. I'm not sure if you can tell but there is a slight difference in colour where I have joined on the new wool. I think this is either due to how I knitted on the new bundle or and more likely they were different batch numbers which I didn't check on purchase. However in person it is pretty impossible to tell. 

I found knitting to be very therapeutic especially the noise of the needles together. I enjoyed creating something that was handmade and one of a kind and it was nice to be able to do something that didn't rely on technology or electricity.

Towards the end of the project I knew I would have a long way to go if I wanted to make a straight long scarf due to the size of the needles and the width I'd made the scarf. At this point it was suggested to me to turn it into an infinity scarf and thats exactly what I did. I continued making the scarf just a little bit longer to be able to wrap around my neck comfortably and then learnt to cast off. You can see the video I used here. I found casting off easier and neater to do than casting on. 

      To make it one loop I had to hand stitch the two ends together using the same wool. 

I really made it up when it came to this despite watching the video above. In hindsight I should of left a longer tail of wool to stitch with as I had to join more halfway which then became more difficult to stitch with due to the knot.

As you can see below I had some puckering at the join as I cast off with more stitches than I casted on with. You can also see where I started on the bottom half and finished with a lot less imperfections at the top.

So I persevered and after about two months I finally finished my scarf. I definately learnt a lot a long the way and I am no way saying it's perfect but I'm super proud of myself for sticking with it and to be able to say that I have actually been wearing it. 

*Drumroll for the big reveal*

As you can see once worn you really can't see its little imperfections and the joining blends right in. 

I'm so glad I discovered this craft and I've already started on my next project. 

I feel that knitting really has a stigma for being an old lady/Grandma thing to do but there's such satisfaction to be able to make something and I would really encourage younger people to give it a try.

Thanks for reading, why not get knitting! Sophie x