Stitches

Why is it that every time I try to purl, I end up with a garter stitch?

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Is it in the way that I've casted on ?

Public Comments

1. when you knit you have your right hand needle into the stitch and it goes behind the left needles . like so : http://www.worldknit.com/images/knit_1.gif when you purl you put your needle through and this time your right needle is in front of the left needle, like so: http://www.worldknit.com/images/knit_perl1.gif and other difference is that when you purl your working yarn is in front unlike knit where it is in back here's how you knit http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knit-stitch here's how you purl http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/purl-stitch hope this helps
2. if you purl every stitch every row you end up with garter stitch, same thing when you knit every stitch every row. to get stockinnett stitch you knit one row, purl one row, or while working in the round on circulars you knit every round.
3. Here is a terminology I think may be confusing you: garter stitch is not a SINGLE stitch. It's more a pattern. So while knit and purl are types of single stitch, things like 'garter stitch', 'stockinette stitch', or 'rib stitch' are patterns formed by doing particular orders of knit/purl stitches. Stockinette stitch is formed by knitting one row, then purling the next, etc. Garter stitch is done by purling every row. So when you do a purl stitch, it will look like what garter stitch looks like, because purling is how you make something in the garter stitch. Similarly, if you have a look at the back of a piece done in stockinette stitch, it looks a lot like garter from that side - because you're looking at the purl stitches. It might help you to think of garter, stockinette, rib, etc etc with a different word than 'stitch'. Call them garter pattern, stockinette pattern, instead. I hope this helps!