My first ever project was a garter stitch scarf. But once I started knitting other things, I learned that the fiber content and weight of my yarn was really important. Unfortunately, I learned these things the hard way. Nowadays, I take yarn substitution seriously. You don’t have to use the same yarn the designer used, but you do need to understand how using a different yarn will affect your final project.
When you’re just getting started out, it makes sense that you’d try to avoid spending too much money. As a result, it’s common to start with free patterns. There’s just one problem: a lot of free patterns are free for a reason. How can you tell which free patterns are worth the time? Look for an established designer who offers one or two free patterns as a way to get to know their designs.
Stitch markers serve so many useful purposes. For one, they’re great for knowing when one round starts and the next begins so you know when to work which round of your pattern. But they’re also helpful for knitting lace and casting on large numbers of stitches. In both of these scenarios, if you place a stitch marker at consistent intervals, you’ll easily be able to see if your stitch count is off.
When I was a beginning knitter, I struggled a lot with perfectionism. Over the years, knitting helped me learn that a lot of mistakes really aren’t a big deal. In fact, most people don’t even notice the mistakes that seem really obvious to me. When the mistakes really do need to be fixed, most of them can be fixed quite easiliy.
Even the most experienced knitters know that there are always new things they can learn. Whether it’s colorwork or new lace techniques or brioche or intarsia or or or, there’s always a new technique or skill to tackle.