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## Identifying the Working Yarn 

The working yarn, the yarn that runs from your needle to the ball, is attached to the last stitch you made. That last stitch worked should be the stitch closes to the tip of your right needle. "Inevitably, you’ll get interrupted while knitting. When you return to your knitting, simply find the working yarn, make sure you’re holding the needle with the last stitch worked in your right hand, and away you go." 

## The Purl Stitch 

Step 1:  As with the knit stitch, start by holding the needle with the stitches in your left hand and the empty needle in your right. 

Step 2:  Pull the working yarn in front of the needles. Insert the tip of the right needle into the front of the first stitch on the left needle, from right to left (Figure 1). 

Step 3:  With the yarn in front of the needles, travel around the tip of right needle in a counterclockwise movement, passing between the needles from right to left and back around to the front again (Figure 2). 

Step 4:  Pull the right needle, with the loop of working yarn around it, down and back (mov- ing away from you) through the stitch on the left needle (Figure 3). Slip the old stitch off the left needle and tighten the new stitch on the right needle. You have your first purl stitch. 

Repeat this process through the end of the row. When you have purled every stitch on the row, you will have an empty needle in your left hand. Swap needles so that the “full” needle is in your left hand and the empty one in your right, and you’re ready to begin the next row. 

Note:  If you purl every row, you also get garter stitch! 

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## Tension 

“Tensioning” yarn simply refers to how you hold your working yarn. You want to find a way to hold your yarn so that your stitches come out firm, but not too firm to slide easily along the needle, and look even (no particularly loose stitches and no particularly tight stitches). Figures 1 and 2 show just two ways to hold the yarn; Figure 1 shows tension for the English style of knitting and Figure 2 shows tension for the Continental style. 

When you tension yarn, you’re doing two things at once—slowing yarn as it comes off the ball and guiding yarn around the needle. Sounds complicated, but it’s not. Why? Because there’s no wrong way to do it. Once your hand acquires muscle memory of holding tension, you’ll do it without thinking. 

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