As my friends and family all know, I’ve been knitting like a fiend the last few years. It’s proven to be a great way to relieve stress, multitask while watching TV, and create cute and thoughtful gifts for loved ones. I recently started holding a Stitch & Bitch at my place in SF to get my friends involved. While a few of them have basic knowledge of the craft, several others did not. I’ve outlined some YouTube tutorials for basic techniques I taught and resources to help the new knitter get started.

Here are some YouTube tutorials of some knitting basics:

• Long-Tail Cast On: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn4rcAnnS7U
• Knit Stitch: http://newstitchaday.com/knitting-101-how-to-knit-the-knit-stitch-for-beginners/
• Purl Stitch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkb0YyrzPWA
• Binding Off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4V4DSJ9hUE

• Ravelry has a great database for all types of user-submitted free patterns: http://www.ravelry.com
• Here’s a knitting glossary to help decipher the abbreviations in said patterns: http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knitting-glossary
• Here’s another good video “stitchionary” from New Stitch a Day for knitting and crocheting: http://newstitchaday.com/video-stitchionary/
• For more complicated patterns, I use the Stitchminder app for iPhone to keep track of which pattern row I’m working on: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stitchminder/id287491425