Knitrospective - 5 tips I wish I knew when I started knitting

I was taught to knit by my grandmother when I was quite young. I was given a pair of straight needles, much too long for my little hands, and squeaky acrylic yarn. The stitches were cast on for me, way too tightly and I was shown how to do the knit stitch. I was told just to knit and then had the piece bound off for me when I was done. The knitting always turned out a weird shape, had dropped stitches, or extra stitches and was a boring garter strip.

Given these early experiences it took me a while after that before I went back to knitting for myself. Inspired by an urge to be creative and use my hands to make things.

I went back to basics and taught myself, by reading blogs and magazines, searching for how to's on You Tube and watching knitting podcasts.

Over time I was able to teach myself a lot, but when I look back on when I started knitting seriously, I wish I had known the following key tips:

1. A slip knot is not required to cast on, in fact knots should mostly be avoided in knitting

2. A tight cast on is caused by the lack of space between each cast on stitch, not the size of the stitch

3. Tinking back or ripping out is not failure, it is correcting a mistake you will not be happy with in the finished item
4.Choose a project you want to knit and practice on that as it is much more rewarding than a random strip or square
5. Use nice yarn and nice needles, as this is a key part of the process and adds to the Beginners should be taught to knit with good yarn and nice needles - because we should be sharing the joy and love that we have for our craft!