Perfect Purl Stitch

So you've mastered the knit stitch and you're feeling like, hey, I might need a little couple more pearls of wisdom. Well let me help you. I'm Vickie Howell from DIY’s Knitty Gritty, and I'm going to show you the purl stitch. First off, let me show you what it looks like. The purl stitch in fabric just looks like a little bump as you can see here. Okay, let's get started. I'm going to show you two methods, the English and the continental. Whatever you're more comfortable with is absolutely the method you should go with, one is not better than the other. The first method is the English method. We're going to keep our working yarn in our right hand, wrap it around our index finger. I like to keep the rest of the yarn loosely underneath my ring finger and pinky just for tension purposes. Alright, let's go. So we're going to come down through the stitch, use your left hand to hold the two needles securely. Now you use your right hand to wrap the working yarn around your front needle. You're going to pull the loop off, this creates the new stitch. Then you take the old stitch and just pull it off the needle. Again. You're going to come down, around, creating the new stitch and off with the old stitch. I'm going to show you one more time. Down, around, through, and off. That’s all there is to it. Okay now let's try the continental method. For this method, your working yarn goes in your left side and you use your left hand to do all of the work. So you're going to wrap the yarn a couple of times around your index finger. Again, using your ring finger and pinky finger to secure the yarn. Alright. Working yarn, always in front for the purl stitch, no matter what the method. So we're going to come down, now this is where it’s different from the other method. You're going to take your needle and kind of do a little sweep to pull the loop through, this creates the new stitch. Old stitch comes off. Let me show you again. Come down, sweep, out, and off. And one last time. With a loop, little sweep, pull it through, and off. Really, that’s all there is to it. So now, you know how to purl and the knitting world is your oyster.