How To
Skill Set Videos: Free!
Dearly beloved knitters,
You hear us say this all the time: we want to make more knitters. For us, knitting has been a huge source of joy, laughter, and connection to others. Being practitioners of one of the world’s great craft traditions has elevated our lives.
That’s why we wrote Skill Set: Beginning Knitting. And that’s why we created the Skill Set video app: to make more knitters. Our goal is to make knitting easy to learn.
The book is a hit with knitting teachers and beginning knitters, and also with more experienced knitters in need of a quick refresher. The Skill Set video app takes it a step further, so that learners always have help close at hand. We keep the 44 videos short and focused, clear and positive, more show than tell. Our message for new knitters is “you got this!”
We’re thrilled at the warm feedback we’ve heard. Skill Set is a good thing. We’re proud of it, and we want everyone to know about it.
Big News
To make the Skill Set videos even more accessible for people who want to knit, we’re making all 44 videos available for free.
We proudly present Skill Set: The YouTube Channel.
At the Skill Set YouTube channel, you’ll find all 44 Skill Set videos, neatly labeled, ready to watch and share. The videos demonstrate the nine lessons in our book Skill Set: Beginning Knitting.
Nine Simple Lessons
Drawing on our decades of knitting experience, we designed Skill Set to be short and sweet: everything a new knitter needs to know, and nothing they don’t.
What are the nine lessons, you ask?
Lesson 1 Supplies, Casting On, Knit Stitch, Binding Off
Lesson 2 Purl Stitch, Combining Knits and Purls
Lesson 3 Basic Shaping: Increases and Decreases
Lesson 4 Knitting in the Round
Lesson 5 Basic Lace and Cables
Lesson 6 Basic Colorwork: Stripes, Stranding, Intarsia
Lesson 7 Finishing: Weaving in Ends, Seaming, Blocking
Lesson 8 Patterns, Yarn, and Gear
Lesson 9 Fixing Mistakes
We cordially invite you to dive into the Skill Set YouTube channel. If you like what you see, subscribe to it, so it’s easier to find a video when you need it.
There’s More: Get the Skill Set App for 99 Cents!
We’re making the videos available on YouTube to provide a free resource to new knitters, one that we hope will be a path to the bighearted community of knitters here at MDK.
But YouTube is not a perfect tool for what we’re trying to do.
The best and most user-friendly version of Skill Set? The video app for smartphones.
With the app, no internet connection is needed, and there’s no searching for the video you need. All 44 videos are right there on your phone. The app keeps track of your progress through the lessons, and you can favorite the videos you use the most, for easy reference.
In addition, the app includes all the text and illustrations of the book—it’s a complete experience, designed for multiple learning styles and situations.
For a limited time, we’re making the video app available to download for just 99 cents. Find the Skill Set video app for Apple iOS here. And for Android here. Take a minute to download it now, and you’ll have a knitting teacher in your pocket.
Why Are We Doing This?
We believe that once you’ve seen and used the app, you’ll love it, and we hope you’ll share it with everyone you know who wants to learn to knit. It’s that simple.
Let’s Make More New Knitters: How You Can Help
- Subscribe to the Skill Set YouTube channel.
- Tell your friends, knitters, and wannabe knitters about this great resource.
- Download the Skill Set video app. You’ll find it for Apple iOS here. For Android here.
- Help us spread the word by following our Instagram Skill Set account, @how.to.knit, and re-posting our content to your followers.
Thank You
As ever, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support of everything we get up to here at MDK. Now let’s get out there and make more knitters!
Love,
Ann and Kay
This is generous and welcome news! I subscribed to the Youtube channel and then forwarded the email to my 12 member Knitting Circle. I’ve had the app since the beginning, its so good.
Thank you very much. I just downloaded the Skill Set video set and can’t wait to get started. I have been knitting many years and have learned there is so much I don’t know. I am so excited….
This is great news!!!! THANK YOU!!!!
Thank you! I had the app but changed phones and from Android to Apple and lost it! Definitely getting it again now.
Same thing for me!
Thanks Ann and Kay!
I will do my best. Have an iPad but not an iphone (those things belong to the evil always-there, attention-sucking fairy, (IMHO). So if the app works for iPads I am IN. I think MDK will have great success with this!
Got it! App is iPad-friendly. This will be great at reminders on how to work Left vs. Right cables and how to carry yarn in stripes and intarsia. I never can remember if working yarn goes under or over previous yarn. Also like the calm, even-toned narrative voice. My older eyes do wish the print font were a little darker, however. But still glad I got it! Chloe
This will be so useful for my knitting group – thank you!
This is year 2 of me teaching 12-week ‘learn to knit’ classes to 5th through 7th graders at my school. They come twice a week for 40 minutes, and work on simple beanie hats. Of the 48 students I’ve taught so far, I think at least 20 of them will keep knitting…including last year’s captain of the football team!
Thanks for making this great resource available for them!
I do like what I see and appreciate the .99 offer! Thank you! I will definitely guide any new knitters I come across to this resource. A couple of thoughts that might make your channel easier for new viewers: 1) create playlists for each lesson, 2) on the “about” tab include the book title and that book and/or app can be purchased from your website. Also, the app on my iPad only displays portrait and does not auto change to landscape. It could be a setting I need to change, but all my other apps auto rotate. If it’s something on the app development side, I think it would make the app more usable. Thanks again and for all you do❣️
Nice. As I was helping someone at a local library knitting group I recommended this book … now I can also recommend the videos!
Great news! I have the app, but will appreciate the larger screen size available on my desktop through the YouTube videos!!
I am excited about this. l want to improve my knitting.
Thank you! This is so timely as I’m teaching new knitter class at our library next week after a hiatus owing to the pandemic–class is full and find I am a little nervous even though I’ve been teaching knitting for over a decade now. I’ll definitely share this resource with our newbie knitters–and review for myself to calm the nerves!
I wish you had a Continental set of videos.
I think you’ll find that most of the instruction applies to any style of knitting, especially when we get beyond the very first steps of forming stitches.
Wow. I’m a long-time, pretty experienced knitter, but I just browsed the channel and found several of the videos that I need to watch. I’m pretty sure that some of the ways I do knitterly things have been improvised by me over the years (for better or worse), and now I have this amazingly easy way to get a refresher on specific techniques. Thank you !!
It’s wonderful! Thank you so much,
You can’t see me but…there’s a high 5 involved and a big thank you very much for your generosity.
I liked the channel so much I bought the app, it’s by far the best $1.35 I’ve ever spent ( I’m Canadian so the price is a bit higher). You see 58-years ago I could knit and purl, cast on and off for a Guide Badge and haven’t knit in almost 58-years. I remembered how to hold my left hand but for the life of me couldn’t get the needle. 10 minutes and I’m there, thanks so much!
Ann and Kay, I love the skill set app and videos. I am a knitting teacher and I have recommended the app and book to all my students, new to knitting and old!! I would love to see a field guide with projects for the newest knitters. I think worsted weight and/or bulky yarn simple projects that are fashionable would be a great idea.Finding simple well written patterns that are appealing to new knitters can be so difficult.
Thank you for this wonderful app and book and all you do for the knitting community.