FAQs that kids learning to knit will ask you
When kids first learn to knit, there are a lot of questions that might come your way. You can teach your kids to knit whether you know how to knit or not. I gathered all the questions my kids asked me in their first ever knitting lessons to share FAQs that kids learning to knit will ask you! I hope this list helps your new knitter!
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Knitting is a skill that comes with a lot of new information. There’s choosing the yarn and supplies, then reading a yarn label and pattern to figure out all out. But there are a ton of other FAQs that kids learning to knit will ask you, as well.
I’m a homeschooling mom of 4 who designs knitting patterns, and I get so excited when my kids first show an interest in learning to knit. I have two knitters in the house and two who don’t knit yet, but there are other knitting related activities we do together.
Ever since teaching my girls to knit in our homeschool lessons, I’ve been keeping track of their questions in my phone’s notes app.
I’m so glad I did, because I never would have thought to answer them all by myself if I just hopped on and wrote a blog post. These knitting questions are directly from my girls when they learned to knit at 5 and 7 years old.
Hopefully reading through these will prepare you for some questions coming your way if you’re also teaching your kids to knit!
>> Our homeschool’s favorite knitting picture books
FAQs that kids learning to knit will ask you
1. How can I tell how many rows I knit?
When first learning to knit, your child is likely knitting garter stitch. That means she’s knitting every row on straight needles. So, she’ll want to count how many horizontal bumps there are tall. Each bump is actually 2 rows together.
2. Which part of the first stitch do I pick up?
The first stitch is a tricky one for new knitters. There are two important things to remember for this:
- Knit the first two stitches for your new knitter each row until she is skilled enough to do it herself.
- When you start a new knit row, make sure that your yarn is behind the needle by pulling up and over the needle. If the yarn is in front, it’s going to pull the whole stitch down and you’ll actually be seeing the stitch from the underside, which has two legs to it. 99% of the time, an extra stitch is caused by knitting that first stitch twice.
If you want to learn to knit alongside your children, head over to my YouTube playlist here!
3. How did I get an extra stitch?
Again, this is commonly a first stitch problem! If it looks like you have 9 stitches when you should have 8, check if the first stitch on the needle from the current row was knit twice in the bottom. There’s not a super easy fix to a first stitch mix up from previous rows and you’ll just have to unknit back until you find the mistake. So teach your kids what a stitch looks like and check their work after each row for a stitch count until they learn!
4. What was the last stitch I did?
Whatever loop that the yarn is attached to on your needle, that’s the last stitch you made. If it’s in the middle of a row, you want that needle to be in your right hand. If you have an incomplete row on your left needle and you knit it back onto the right needle, you will have missed some stitches and started knitting backward.
5. How do I tell if it’s ready for an “off jumps Jack?”
This refers to the sing-songy rhyme from the book Annie’s Swiss Cheese Scarf. We love this book in our home, and repeating it through a knit stitch helped my girls remember each step. “Off jumps Jack” is when your stitch has been wrapped and is ready to hop off the left needle. If it’s not properly wrapped you’ll drop the stitch.
6. Can you do too many “once around the backs”?
Again, this is part of the rhyme I spoke about in question #5. If you haven’t read that one, I recommend doing that. Going once around the back can be done twice in what’s called a yarn over, but isn’t something a new knitter needs to know yet. One “once around the back” is what we’re looking for.
7. I let go of my knitting. Which needle did I have in which hand?
When you’re knitting each row you want your working yarn to be at the end of the previous row. You’ll hold the full needle in your left hand with the working yarn closest to the right needle. Make sure that if you’re using single point straight needles, that the needle isn’t backwards. You want the working yarn to slide right off that needle point, not on the needle’s stumpy side.
8. Does my stitch look right?
It’s important for knitters to understand the anatomy of a stitch. If you’re just keeping track of the number of stitches on your needle, you might have taken a wonky way to get there and end up with holes or twists in your stitches. Hence, a Swiss cheese scarf scenario. Print out a coloring page of close up knit stitches for your kids, or have older kids label the parts. Whatever you do, they should know what a stitch looks like so they can learn to self-correct mistakes.
9. Ready to learn the purl stitch!
That’s great! If your knitter is ready to move onto the purl stitch, she’s probably excited to knit more than the bumps, called garter stitch. My daughter wanted to knit a swatch in stockinette stitch (knit on the right side, purl on the wrong side) to make a Christmas card. If you know how to knit, the best way I taught my daughter was to let her knit a row, then pass it to me to purl a row, then she knit another row. We did that for about an inch before she was ready to do it herself.
Now to my question I asked my daughter a week into learning to knit: What’s your favorite thing about knitting?
“If you knit something for a long time, you can make something very big. And saying the “out jumps Jack” words.”
Teaching kids to knit is so fun! If it’s frustrating, take a break and try again in 6 months. Knitting is a skill, but it’s also a hobby. And it’s important to enjoy our hobbies, even as kids! As I continue working with my girls to learn new knitting skills, and as I teach my toddlers down the road, I will add more knitting FAQs.
Teaching kids to knit:
- 10 benefits of teaching kids to knit
- What’s the best time of year to teach kids to knit?
- What I did before teaching my kids to knit
- Why teaching kids to knit matters to me
- How to teach knitting in homeschool
- Our homeschool’s favorite picture books about knitting
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