How to Make a Knit Stitch Three Ways – English, Continental, and Portuguese – With GIFs

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Learn how to make a knit stitch in English, Continental, or Portuguese style.

The knit stitch is the foundational stitch for all knitting projects. You can’t knit without it!

Even though the stitch is the same, there are many different ways to get the same result. We are going to cover how to knit stitch in English, Continental, and Portuguese styles.

If you want to see the pros and cons of each of these knitting styles, take a look here.

For those of you who are brand new to knitting and don’t know what I’m talking about, start here, where I cover all the knitting basics you need to know. Be sure to also check out this post about knitting terms as well.

Before you can start knitting, you’ll need to cast on some stitches. Here are three easy ways to cast on to get knitting fast!

Let’s get knitting!

What You Need

You’ll want some yarn and a pair of knitting needles for these techniques.

If you are just practicing these stitches, you can use whatever you have lying around.

For a specific project, refer to your pattern instructions. I highly recommend practicing a new knitting technique before knitting anything where the final size matters. Dishcloths and simple scarfs make great practice projects since they are so forgiving.

All three of these techniques can be used with any style of knitting needle, including straight, circular, and double pointed. They work just as well for knitting flat as knitting in the round.

For Portuguese knitting, you don’t need anything other than yarn and knitting needles, but there are pins and necklaces available to tension your yarn if you don’t like having it around your neck.

English Style Knit Stitch

With a knitting needle in each hand and stitches to work into on the left-hand needle, hold your working yarn tensioned in your right hand.

For English knitting, I like to wrap the working yarn around my pinky, middle finger, then draped over my pointer finger.

A NOTE ON TENSION: Every knitter tensions their yarn a little differently. How I tension my yarn may not work for you. Whatever way you can find to hold your yarn where you get enough tension to make even stitches, but loose enough so you can get a little slack when you need is great!

Starting with a stitch on the left-hand needle, insert the tip of the right-hand needle from underneath the stitch. When the right-hand needle is through the stitch, the right needle should be behind the left needle.

Pinch where the two needles cross with your left hand to help hold them.

With your right hand, let go of the right-hand needle.

Then wrap the working yarn around the tip of the right hand needle counterclockwise, using your free right hand.

Next, pull the yarn you just wrapped around the right needle through the loop on the left needle.

Slide this stitch off of the left needle. Now you have a knit stitch on your right needle!

Continental Style Knit Stitch

With a knitting needle in each hand and stitches to work into on the left-hand needle, hold your working yarn tensioned in your left hand. The working yarn should be behind the left-hand needle.

For Continental knitting, I like to wrap the working yarn around my pinky, then drape it over my pointer finger. Play around with your tension and find what works best for you!

Starting with a stitch on the left-hand needle, insert the tip of the right-hand needle from underneath the stitch. When the right-hand needle is through the stitch, the right needle should be behind the left needle.

Using the pointer finger of your left hand, wrap the working yarn around the tip of the right hand needle counterclockwise.

With the tip of the right-hand needle, pull the working yarn through the stitch on the left-hand needle.

Slide this stitch off of the left needle. Now you have a knit stitch on your right needle!

Portuguese Style Knit Stitch

Hold your knitting needle with the stitches you will work into in your left hand. Hold the knitting needle you will be knitting onto in your right hand.

With the working yarn in front of your knitting, drape your working yarn around your neck from left to right. Gently tension your working yarn with your right hand.

For Portuguese knitting, I like to simply drape my working yarn over the back of the middle finger on my right hand.

With the right knitting needle, insert the tip of the needle into the next stitch on the left-hand needle. Be sure to come up through the stitch from underneath the working yarn and the stitch.

The right-hand needle should be in front of the left-hand needle.

Using your left thumb, flick the working yarn around the tip of the right needle counterclockwise.

With the tip of the right-hand needle, pull the working yarn through the stitch on the left-hand needle.

Slip this stitch off of the end of the left-hand needle. Now you have a knit stitch on the right-hand needle.

Give It a Try!

I hope you give these three knit stitch techniques a try! You might be surprised what works best for you!

If you want to learn more knitting skills, click here.

What is your favorite knitting technique? Let me know in the comments below!