Newbie! "Joining" and "place marker" ???

[AshleyBelle]

Hello! I'm trying my very first knitting project tonight!

I downloaded the "sheepy pants" longies pattern to start making wool longies for my baby girl So far the videos here have been a HUGE help! I'm a little confused on one thing though. I'm sure it's something very simple, but could somebody describe to me what I need to do, or point me in the direction of a tutorial?

I've got my stitches cast on the circular needles, and now I need to "place a marker and join them."

This is for the waistband of the longies.

How do I do this?
Thanks so much for putting up with my novice questions

~*Ashley

[brittyknits]

It's a GREAT question!

You're going to join the sts you've cast on so that they form a complete circle-- you're going to be knitting a tube shape. But you need to know where your circle starts and stops, so you need to put a marker there. You do this by slipping on either a pre-made/designed for the job little circle, (this is what they look like: http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.j...RODID=prd32214), or you can knot a piece of contrasting yarn knotted to form a small loop, or if your needles are small enough, some people snip off a very thin piece from a plastic drinking straw. When you come to it as you knit along, just slip it from one needle to the other, so that it always stays between the same 2 sts.

Now, here's another piece of advice about knitting in the round: When you first join the sts, you have to make sure that they aren't twisted AT ALL around, and that you're joining them so that the cast on edge is always at the bottom. That can be difficult, so a trick is to knit "flat", that is, back and forth rows, for a few rows, and THEN join. You'll end up with a little gap from the flat-knit rows, but just take the tail left over from your cast on and sew it up.

It any of this isn't clear, just give a shout!

[brittyknits]

Oops-- forgot to explain how to join: it's very easy, you just keep knitting. In other words, when you have come to the end of the row, just start knitting at the end where you first began that row, and it will automatically join. You don't have to tie anything, or do anything special at all.

[suzeeq]

There's videos on the Advanced Techniques page for how to knit in the round, though brittyknits explained it well.

[tarrentella]

Yo join in the round, just knit from your left needle to your right with the working yarn coming from your right needle. This forms a complete circle. You needle to place the marker of the ight or left needle before you connect them and make sure that the stitches are not twisted (the cast on edge is facing into the middle all the way around) as brittney described.