Hey Splitimage,

Great you're teaching yourself to knit. Like the others posted, it is hard to learn from a video or to try to tell someone. You Tube has a lot of lessons. Sorry I didn't look some of them up before I go on PC tonight.

The "cable cast on" is the one someone talked about in one of the above replies. As opposed to the "long tail" cast on. One advantage to the cable cast on is you don't have to "guestamate" the amount of yarn you need like in the long tail method. You simply start a few inches from the end of the yarn.

google cable cast on see if you can find a video.

I'll try to explain it.

You have the hardest part accomplished by learning the slip knot so far!

1. The needle with the slip knot is in the left hand.

2. With the right hand needle (RHN), put it into the slip knot, front to back

3. Wrap the "working" yarn around the point of the RHN, as if you are doing
a knit stitch (working yarn is that which leads to the ball, not the short
one (the beginning end that you start with).

4. Pull up a loop (from the yarn around the point above) with the RHN, and
place it on the LHN, forming a stitch. You now have 2 stitches on LHN.

5. You repeat again, putting the RHN into that newly formed stitch rather
than the slip knot, until you have completed the required number of
stitches needed.

I like this method when I have a large number of stitches.

Hope this helps. It would be great for you to have someone demonstrate and then you copy them. At least that helps for me. I have to see it and do it before I get it most of the time. I'll look for a "You Tube" video and reply again. After dinner. Got to go for now.