There are more than enough sites about knitting already on the Internet, and I'm not going to provide basic how-to instructions here. But I thought what I would do is post some useful advice that I really wish I had known when I was first starting out, or stuff I've picked up along the way that I haven't heard about otherwise. Everything that follows is probably already on the Internet somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it.
First and foremost—SWATCH, GODDAMMIT! That is, before commencing a new project, make a small square about four inches per side with the same yarn and needles you will be using in the project. Use a measuring tape and calculator to check how many stitches and rows per inch you have. If it's not what the pattern says you need, change the needles to a smaller or larger size and try again. Yes, yes, I know; this is on damn near every knitting site—"BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR GAUGE." "TO SAVE TIME, TAKE TIME TO CHECK GAUGE." Etc. I know the importance of this has been overly stressed all over the place to the extent that it's taken for granted and ignored, and I probably shouldn't be mentioning it again, but really, it's so damn key. I've fucked up SO many things and wasted SO much time not doing it; really, if you take nothing else from this page, remember this. MAKE THE GODDAM SWATCH.
Okay. Now. Other incredibly basic stuff that I wish I had known.
Joining new yarn—The first and only method I learned for joining new yarn was not the method I prefer. It involved adding the new yarn to the old yarn and working with both for a few stitches—completely unnecessary. All you have to do is knot one strand to the other behind the work.
Same thing with changing colors. First, the difference between intarsia and Fair Isle. It's simple enough: Intarsia means big blocks of color, and Fair Isle means tiny patterns of color. Also, in intarsia, you keep a couple of balls of color behind the work, while with Fair Isle, the yarn is not broken but carried all the way across.
Speaking of color changes—I had a hell of a time finding out anything useful about intarsia that actually referred to knitting. So many patterns just say "change colors with the intarsia method" or "twist yarn to prevent a hole in the work." WTF? Yeah—changing colors without leaving a gaping hole in the work being rather key, and something that would have saved me a lot of work on a sweater, is simple simple simple. All you have to do is bring the new color under the color that you just finished using. The old yarn, being essentially wrapped around the new one, will tug it into place and prevent a hole from forming. It's more or less like the above said, twist the yarn, but I didn't think that made sense. Obviously, don't twist the yarns too tightly so it looks pinched, or too loosely so there's a gap. I also found it helpful to give the strands a tug from behind the work to tighten it up a bit.
Fair Isle is a real bitch. The patterns are usually way too busy for my tastes anyway, not to mention, gawd what a mess, trailing all that yarn behind the work. But it's so worth it just for the challenge, or, in my case, a malicious practical joke. But, like with intarsia, color changing is not that bad; it's keeping the yarn from tangling that's key. Thusly, it's easiest to keep only a few yards of yarn of each color behind the work if you can, that way they're easily untangled.
Pick up and knit sucks, but it looks great if you do it right.
Double pointed needles are awesome. I don't know WHAT the fuck I was so scared of.
Circular needles are pretty damn cool too.
But binding off in the round will always suck.
When working a cable in fabric, where the stitches are pulled tight, there might be a small hole in the fabric. The way to counter this is not to pull the yarn tighter, which makes it worse, but rather to loosen it. The extra yarn kind of fills in the hole.
Speaking of working cables, there are different types apart from the basic left twist and right twist. When worked together, they can form wheatear, horseshoe, and staghorn cables. It took me a while to learn the difference because nobody had posted all three together. Until I get pictures posted, the following written explanation will have to suffice: A wheatear cable is a right twist cable and a left twist cable separated by a single knit stitch, which helps keep the cables separate. A horseshoe cable is a right twist cable and a left twist cable worked without any stitches in between, causing them to pull together in the middle and create a horseshoe shape. A staghorn cable is essentially a wider horseshoe cable; it's worked with more stitches so it resembles the horns of an animal, but it still pulls in at the middle like the horseshoe cable.
Holy shit, I wish I had read Lion Brand's bit on sewing seams well before I ever made anything with seams. My early sweater seams all sucked because I just sewed them howeverthefuck. Oh well.
There are many methods of increasing and decreasing, most of which do not involve leaving holes in the work. I wish I'd studied them all before I struggled along with my first project that had increases and decreases.
When increasing stitches on sleeves, one at each end, do the increasing and decreasing in between the first and second stitches, or last and second to last stitches, so they're inside the fabric; this will make sewing seams easier.