Stitches

How do you place stiches onto a spare strand of yarn while knitting?

Im knitting a pair of simple mittens and the next instruction is to knit across, placing thumb stiches onto a spare strand of yarn. Now im a beginner, and obviously dont know what this means. Id appriciate it if anyone can answer this for me. Thanks

Public Comments

1. you're popping them off for later, so the go that way, while the hand portion goes this way. i don't put them on yarn, i place them on a metal stitch holder, or a large safety pin.
2. You're going to set these stitches aside for later, and continue to knit the rest of the mitten. You can use a big safety pin or a stitch holder (sold in stores) to hold the thumb stitches, or you can take a length of scrap yarn, thread it into a big darning needle, then pass the stitches from the knitting needle onto the darning needle and down to the scrap yarn. Once you have the stitches on the scrap yarn, you tie the scrap yarn into a loop until you need them later. When it's time to knit the thumb, you will use your knitting needle to pick up those stitches and work with them.
3. It would be difficult to put the stitches on a strand of yarn. Safety pins are always handy even if you have to use more than one. . Just be sure you keep then straight when you get to the point where you have to pick them up.
4. To place those stitches on an extra piece of yarn, take a needle with at least 4 inches of yarn through the eye. Then just thread the needles through the number of stitches that need to be set aside for working on later. Slip the yarn out of the needle, tie a loose knot into the piece of yarn and you have a yarn holder. You will probably need a size 16 or 18 craft needle, but if you don't have one you can use a crochet hook to pull the piece of yarn through the stitches. AND, if you don't have a crochet hook, just take your knitting needle and pull the yarn through each stitch one at a time until they are all on it, then tie the knot. That's what I taught my students to do.