What is an increase and how does one do it? I'm self-taught and none of my books have anything detailing how to do an increase, all it says is to work into the front and the back of the same stitch. Huh?

Thanks!
Marisol

hello...
i'm a new knitter too! so i could be wrong but i think if you cast on say 21 stitches then you've started the next row, on the last stitch of that row instead of taking it off you just make one more stitch.
but i'm sure you can do it with the first stitch on the next row too.
does that make sense?
i only know this because on my first try at a scarf it kept getting wider and wider until i finally figured out what i was doing.
ah, i guess you should wait for the next answer.
sorry about that.
:)

hehe, I would think the same thing but the pattern says knit7, increase, (k8 increase)twice, k7. Darn!

Thanks for trying though!

Knit into the stitch as you normally would EXCEPT don't slide the stitch off of your left needle, then put the needle back into the stitch you just knit into ( in the back of it) and and knit again. Now slip the sititch off the left needle and you have increased. Hope that helps. You can check www. about .com and look at their knitting guide, they are sure to have helpful pics and illustrations.
hope that helps?

You're absolutely fantastic, it finally makes sense. Thanks!!

that's a bar increase. There are several other ways to increase, some are more visible, some are less visible, some are well nigh invisible from the get-go.

go to the library and check out a knitting reference book--if you're lucky they'll have The Principles of Knitting--or go to a bookstore and read Vogue Knitting (reference book), or the Big Book of Knitting, or Maggie Rigetti's Knitting in Plain English

Jen