Oh, no! Your first knitting attempt has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. You need a bit of knitting help so that you can whip out luscious scarves and fluffy sweaters that your family can wear with pride.

First, take a look at your needles and yarn. For people who are starting out, a larger pair of needles and some plain, untextured yarn works best. Once you have the right tools, take some time to practice the basic stitches. Master the traditional knit and purl stitches and you'll be all set to begin your first successful project - a simple scarf.

To make the scarf, you'll need one or two skeins of yarn. The amount required will depend on how heavy the yarn is and how big each skein is. With larger needles, you'll want to cast on 15 stitches. If you opt for smaller needles, you'll need to cast on more stitches. Once you have that first row of stitches on the needle, you simply need to knit one, purl one all the way to the end of a nice, long scarf. If you are having trouble remembering to alternate the knitting and purling stitches, you can simply knit the entire scarf, but alternating the stitches creates a pretty pattern.