How to Knit Rib Stitches

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Jeanette White on behalf of Expert Village and Piper's Quilts and Comforts located in Sugar House. Today we're going to be talking about ribbing. Ribbing is the knitted version of elastic. And a lot of times it's at the bottom of a sleeve on a cuff or the bottom of a sweater. And what it'll do is it'll make things a little bit tighter. You can also do some really fun things with just doing just ribbing like in the case of this hat. This whole hat is ribbed. And this is a knit 2 and a purl 2 rib. So this is how we're going to accomplish this. The more stitches you have in a rib the deeper the elastic value of it. In other words if you have a knit 1, purl 1 rib then it's not so elastic and a little bit more of a delicate look. A knit 2, purl 2 rib which is what this hat is, is the most common kind of ribbing and it has just a moderate amount of elasticity. If you want something to be very, very elastic and really be cinched in then you would do a knit 3, purl 3 rib. So here we go. We're going to do a knit 2, purl 2 rib so I'm going to knit and then I'm going to pass the yarn between the two needles and I'm going to purl two. And then I'm going to pass it back again between the two needles to the back and I'm going to knit two. And then between the two needles and purl two. And that's how you do a knit 2, purl 2 rib."