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The technique of getting started with double-pointed needles is the same whether you’re using
a set of three or four needles, or if you’re casting on a bunch of stitches, or only a
few.
So I’m going to show you the basics of getting started with double-pointed needles.
I have deliberately left this a mess so that we can unravel it together.
I’ve cast-on stitches over three needles, I’m going to use the fourth needle to knit
with.
And when you’re casting on your stitches on your dpns, you can either cast them all
on to one needle, and then slide them over to the other two or three, or you can just
cast them directly on to the needles. The three or four needles.
Okay, I’ve made sense of this now, and I have my needles in an H.
My working yarn is over here on the right needle, and this needle over here on the left
side is the first stitch I’m going to knit.
When I use this yarn to knit this stitch, it closes up the circle.
All of my stitches are straight and not twisted, and all of the knots are lined up on the inside.
Now, I’m being very careful and checking all of this on the table, because I don’t
want to pick it up and have it get twisted.
We’re going to keep things on the table for as long as possible.
Since this is my first stitch, I’m going to turn it around like this and scoot that
stitch close to the tip of the needle.
I’ll grab my empty needle, you always have an empty needle to knit with.
And like I said, you can have stitches cast on either three or four needles.
Put that needle in the stitch wrap it, and now you can pick things up off the table because
they’re not going to get twisted anymore.
Before you pull that stitch through, give it a good tug. We want to minimize the gap
between the needles.
And then you just go on with whatever you pattern says. I’m just going to do some
plain knitting.
Then when you get to the end of the first needle, you will have an empty needle in your
left hand.
You want to put that empty needle in your left hand in your right hand, give your work
a turn.
Your working yarn is here, and your next stitch is always to the left of the working yarn.
So this will be my next stitch.
I’ll show you this one more time.
Empty needle in my left hand. I’ll put that into my right.
Here’s my working yarn, my next stitch is always to the left.
And that’s the technique.
Like I said, whether you’re working with three needles or four needles, dpns come in
sets of five usually so that you can have four needles set up with one extra one to
knit with.
Whether you’re casting on 100 stitches or just 8, the technique is the same across the
board.
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