Jogless stripes--a new way

includes a how-to

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Knotingale asks "can you explain the 'jogless' join method for stripes knit in the round? I can't understand the instructions I've found thus far."

As we say here in Wisconsin, "yup, you bet!" But, it all depends on WHAT KIND of stripes you're planning to make.

--->For one or two round-high stripes worked in the round, using the same two or three colors throughout consider trying the barberpole (helix) method.

--->For one round-high stripes where every round is a different color, consider working the smoothed circle way. 

--->For stripes with designs in them (such as Fair Isle) worked in the round, consider trying the picture-frame method which disguises the ends of the rows, while allowing you to stay in pattern.

--->For stripes which are three or more rounds high worked in the round, try this nifty method described below:

JOGLESS STRIPE HOW-TO
(a new way)

• On color change rounds, change colors by knitting the first stitch of the new color as you usually would. Then, knit the rest of the stitches to the end of the round.
  
• On the next round, slip the first stitch of the new color, then knit the rest of the stitches.
• On every following round, knit every stitch as usual

Keep doing this over and over again. That's it. That's really all there is to it. Well--nearly all. You still face the issue of--

STACKING the COLOR CHANGES

The only thing at all complicated in jogless striping is how you choose to stack the color changes. If you choose to let the beginning of the round travel one stitch to the left with each color change (this WILL make sense as soon as you try jogless stripes with needles) then every part of every row will be the same height and have the same number of stitches. Such jogless stripes are called "traveling stripes." If you choose to hold the beginning of the round in the same place, then at one spot on every stripe, there will be one fewer stitches. Such jogless stripes are called "stationary stripes."

Here it is, one more time, slower, with complete step-by step directions and more photos.

TRAVELING JOGLESS STRIPES

1. On the round BEFORE you intend to change colors, insert a stitch marker at the place you intend to change colors.
   
2. On the color change round--slip the marker, then change colors by simply starting to knit with the new color.
   
3. On the following round, when you come to the marker, slip it. Then, slip the first stitch of the new color from the left needle to the right needle WITHOUT KNITTING IT (and without twisting it--this is called "slipping purlwise"). Knit all the rest of the stitches of the round.
   
4. Knit as many rounds as you desire for the stripe, knitting every stitch.
5. One the round BEFORE your NEXT color change, shift the marker over one stitch to the left.
6. Make more stripes by repeating steps 2 though 5.
   

These stripes are called "traveling jogless stripes."

• ADVANTAGE: Every part of every round is the same height.
• DISADVANTAGE: The round beginning "travels" one stitch leftward with every color change.

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STATIONARY JOGLESS STRIPES

1. On the round BEFORE you intend to change colors, insert a stitch marker at the place you intend to change colors.
   
2. When you come to a color change round, slip the marker, then change colors by simply starting to knit with the new color.
   
3. On the following round, when you come to the marker, slip it. Then, slip the first stitch of the new color from the left needle to the right needle WITHOUT KNITTING IT (and without twisting it--this is called "slipping purlwise"). Knit the rest of the stitches of the round.
   
4. Knit as many rounds as you desire for the stripe, knitting every stitch.
   
5. Make more stripes by repeating steps 2 through 4.

These stripes are called "stationary jogless stripes."

• ADVANTAGE: the color change remains in the same place.
• DISADVANTAGE: at one part of each round, that round will dip one stitch lower.

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WHICH TO CHOOSE?

With stationary stripes, each stripe dips one stitch lower at the color change. With thin stripes, and/or in thin wool, you'd soon have substantially fewer stitches along this column, so the fabric might start to "pull" along that column of stitches. However, with thick wool (5 st/in or fewer) and/or thicker stripes, this isn't an issue because the knitting stretches enough to solve the problem. Therefore, stationary stripes are best for thick wool and/or thick stripes.

With traveling stripes, a faint spiral pattern will develop along the diagonal of the color change, so be careful not to pull your yarn too tight, especially if you are carrying the yarn behind from stripe to stripe. This spiral pattern is more obvious in heavy fabrics and less obvious in thinner fabrics, so the traveling stripes are better for thinner stripes and/or thinner wool.

If you have thin stripes in thick wool, or thick stripes in thin wool, you'll have to make up your own mind.

JOGLESS STRIPES AND GARMENT SHAPING

If you choose stationary stripes, you have no problem you wouldn't have with regular (non-jogless) stripes--you begin the garment shaping as directed in the pattern. If, however, you choose to let the round beginning shift by one stitch with each stripe--what will happen when you come to shape the garment?

Suppose your directions require that, "at the beginning of the next round," you must increase (or decrease) to shape the garment. If you've been using traveling stripes, where the heck IS the beginning of the round? Is it where the COLOR beginning of the round is, or is it where the cast-on ACTUAL beginning of the round is?

Long answer short: if you've used the 3-in-1 TECHjoin to start your circular knitting, you won't really be able to tell where the cast-on beginning of the garment is. This frees you to use the COLOR beginning as the beginning of the round. You start your shaping opposite the last color change (double-headed arrow photo below). When you start the shaping, you switch gears. In other words, once shaping begins, you hide the color change IN the shaping (the right part of the photo below). This keeps the color beginning of the round from wandering further and avoids complications.

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Are you wondering how the spiral shift of traveling stripes will affect the shape of the finished garment? Will the one part of the garment be longer than another? The short answer is "no problem." Many knitted garments face this issue--to match shaping, the left front and the right front of a cardigan are almost always off by one row. The same thing with shoulder shaping--that too is almost always off by one row between the left and the right shoulders. Even a circular-knitted sock is one row off between the left side and the right side of the heel tab, or on either side of a short row heel. Knitting stretches, and a spiraling round beginning will not cause any greater problem than do any of these.

WHY ARE OTHER INSTRUCTIONS SO COMPLICATED?

In some other instructions, the pattern writer seeks STATIONARY color changes (the color change should stay in the same place) AND the same number of stitches in every part of every round. The only way to accomplish this is by somehow inserting an extra stitch in the same column as the color change, which can get messy pretty fast.

In other instructions, the jog is evened out--not by slipping the first stitch of the new color as set forth in this post--but by slipping some other stitch or part of a stitch already knitted (typically, a stitch in the row below). The complication isn't really one of execution--it is one of explanation. In other words, the complication arises from trying to explain which stitch or which part of which stitch from the row below should be slipped "up" onto the left needle, how that should be done, and what to do with it once it's there.

CONCLUSION

One thing is for sure: regardless of how you choose to stack your color changes, whether with traveling jogless stripes or stationary jogless stripes, your result has got to be better than regular (jogging) stripes--see photo below.

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--TECHknitter

PS: There is a different version of this same information in a newer post with prettier photos, so for a different and prettier view of jogless stripes, here is the link.

Pretty, aren't they?

Addendum June 2016:  I was sent the following link to a method which makes a very nice jogless result, using a sewing needle.  I am sharing it with you here. Thanks to Lizzy for this new trick.

Joining circular knitting--the 3-in-1 TECHjoin!

includes a how-to

Joining the first round of casting-on for circular knitting can get ugly. There is a horrid loose stitch where the join occurs, as well as a "jog." The tail gets unwound and makes the loose stitch even looser, while working in the tail has the potential to make a mess of the cast-on edge.

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It need not be this way.

Here is a join for circular knitting which avoids that horrid loose stitch, eliminates that nasty little "jog" AND works in your tail, three tricks in one! Here is the TECHknitting 3-in-1 TECHjoin!

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HOW TO

1. Begin with long-tail casting-on. Long-tail casting on actually consists of a foundation row AND a knitted first row. This double row is substantial and so is easier to keep "sunny side up" when joining.

2. For the first stitch of long-tail casting-on, do not use a slip knot. Instead, use a simple loop.(more info about the simple loop in the long tail post)

3. Make the cast-on row as follows:

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• Make the first stitch as a simple loop over one needle, not two.
  
• Make the next two stitches as ordinary long-tail cast-on stitches, again looping over one needle, not two. (more info about casting on over two needles in the long-tail post)
  
• After you've created the first three stitches, create additional cast-on stitches by looping over two needles until you have TWO LESS stitches than you need, total.
• Create the next two cast-on stitches over only one needle.
• ADD AN ADDITIONAL stitch, again casting on over only one needle.
• Count your stitches. You should have one stitch more than you need, and the first and last three stitches should have been cast on over only one needle (not two)
  
• In the photo above, the first stitch cast on (extreme right) is made by a simple loop. There are 23 stitches cast on, for a 22 stitch tube.
  

4. Create the join and the knit first round as follows:

• Make sure that the stitches are "sunny side up" (not twisted).
• Pull out one needle so all the stitches lie on one needle. (For dpn's, distribute evenly among 3 or 4 needles.) Arrange your work so the cast-on stitches to knit first lie on your LEFT needle.
  
• Slip the first stitch (the one you made by the simple loop method) from the left needle to the right needle WITHOUT knitting it.
• Starting with the second stitch, knit all the way around.
• When you come to the end, knit the last stitch together with that first slipped stitch (in knitting parlance, knit 2 together, abbreviated k2tog).
• SLIP THE NEXT STITCH (which was the second stitch you created, and the first stitch you knitted).
• OPTIONAL: If you want to mark the beginning of the round, insert a stitch marker after this most recently slipped stitch.
  
• Catch the tail yarn and hold it together with the standing yarn (standing yarn=the yarn coming from the ball). Knit the next three stitches with BOTH yarns, then drop the tail yarn and continue with the ball yarn.
  

Ta da! The right number of stitches, no loose join, no jog, and the tail end is already "worked in." A real 3-in-1 trick!

Are you nervous about trimming off the tail end? Wait until after you've washed and blocked the garment. This helps the tail felt into the fabric a bit more. For non-felting yarn, such as superwash wool or acrylic, consider working the tail in even further by picking it up on the second round and knitting it together with the standing yarn for an additional three stitches as you come past it on round 2.


--TECHknitter

Gauge, ease and fashion--or "why doesn't my sweater fit?"

includes a how-to

GAUGE, EASE and FASHION--
or "WHY DOESN'T MY HAND KNITTED SWEATER FIT?"

Knitting any pattern for the first time is an act of faith. You see a pattern. It appears on a model, cunningly displayed on a chair, or hanging at the LYS. Through some combination of experience, fashion sense and hope, you decide that although you aren't a model, a chair, or a hanger, that sweater will surely look as well on you.

You buy the yarn, you buy the pattern, you cast on. You switch needles 3 times until you get the exact gauge. You work diligently, keeping the gauge perfect all through the sweater. You assemble your masterpiece--and--well, um.

Your new sweater fits best if you don't button it and looks most modest if you don't breathe, or at least, don't breathe deeply around men other than your husband. And forget about raising your arms. It fits your daughter well enough though, so it goes to her. Not a disappointment, exactly, because she does look good in it, and modest too, but a sweater for your daughter is not what you were aiming for. What went wrong?

I am here to absolve you. It isn't your fault. It wasn't an error in your gauge--there was insufficient "ease" in the pattern to get the fit you were looking to get.

EASE

So what is ease? Well, when you buy a sweater at the store, you try a few on. Perhaps you find that even among garments from the same manufacturer, you prefer a size 6 sweater, while in a different model, a size 4 might fit better, you skinny thing you. Assuming we are not talking high-fashion sweaters here, the difference between the way the two sweaters fit is due to their "ease."

Stated otherwise, "ease" in a technical sense does not refer to lolling about watching TV while eating bon-bons. It refers to the amount of extra room inside your clothes--how much looser your clothes must fit than your skin does, in order that you do not tear your clothes (or compromise your dignity) every time you lift your arms, turn around, sit down. It is the amount of extra room which allows your clothes to slide and glide becomingly as you move around.

FASHION

Confusingly, the concept of ease often runs right into the concept of fashion. If you were to look at one high-schooler in each of the two major genders, you must blame fashion, not ease, for the fact that his pants could conceal himself and two friends (one in each baggy leg) while her pants can barely conceal herself. Fashion, not ease, dictates his pants are ready to fall off the edge because they are too loose, while her pants are ready to do the same for the opposite reason. Yet, even if both were dressed as their mothers would like them to be, it would be ease, not fashion, that dictates her pants must be cut broader in the beam than his, and that his pants must, regardless of fashion, be cut looser in the crotch than hers, at least if he desires to father viable offspring in the future, if you catch my drift here, ladies.

Leave aside fashion and assume that we knitters are persons of distinction seeking sober well-fitting garments. We still might not get what we want when set out to knit a sweater, because we might not consider how much ease we actually like to have in our clothing. And even if we do know how much ease we want in our clothing, we might not know how much ease the pattern creator allowed. When we leave sobriety behind and add fashion to the equation, we step ever further away from any assurance our laboriously hand-knitted garment is going to fit in an attractive manner. Obviously, what is wanted is the baby bear's amount of ease--not too much, not too little, but just right. But how to find it?

HOW TO MAKE SWEATERS THAT FIT

Here is the trick. Do NOT measure your BODY. No. Or at least, not yet--not first. Instead, go and measure your favorite sweater/hat/gloves/whatever it is you are trying to knit. That's right. Do not wrap the tape measure around you--use it to measure your favorite garment, instead.

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The reason you love that garment is because it fits you the way you like clothes to fit. And that fit is something you can analyze. How big around is the sweater in the area of your bust? How big is your actual bust? The difference is the amount of ease you prefer in a sweater. Are you surprised that it might be as much as 8 inches, and maybe even 10 inches in a heavy jacket-type sweater? I know I was when I first started knitting sweaters.

How long do you want that sweater to be--do you want your "hips" (speaking euphemistically here) covered, or do you find that a garment grazing your belly-button is quite long enough, thank you? Better be sure that the sweater you are making is long enough to cover what you want covered (and only that). The best way, again, is going to be to measure your favorite sweater. Ditto sleeve length, ditto shoulder span, ditto neck hole width and depth, ditto v-neck depth and angle.

How about the depth of the armhole? My sister, a very thin work-out type person who wears a preposterously small size for an adult, just gave my young teenage daughter a very expensive Norwegian tapestry-knit sweater she originally bought for herself. It fit my sister very well everywhere except for the depth of the armholes. The armholes were too shallow, causing the sweater to bunch unattractively under my sister's (thin) arms. In other words, even assuming the garment you want to knit has the same armhole style as your fave, what is the armhole depth of your proposed creation?

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Now let's add fashion to the equation: Look at the shoulder--are all your favorite sweaters drop shoulder? If so, why assume that raglan sweater you are planning to knit is going to be flattering? A drop shoulder sweater typically hangs so the shoulder seam lies some inches past your natural shoulder--a shoulder-broadening boon to the narrow-shouldered. A raglan sweater has, technically speaking, no shoulder at all. The wearer's shoulder defines the sweater's shoulder. A narrow-shouldered person accustomed to depending on their sweater for a few extra inches of shoulder-broadening might possibly look like the nose-cone of a ballistic missile in a raglan sweater (ask me how I know...). On the other hand, a broad-shouldered swimmer looking to minimize her shoulder span might look equally ridiculous in a drop-shouldered sweater--like she changed her sport to football and forgot to take off the pads.

OK, enough philosophy. Here's where the rubber meets the road. Before you knit a sweater from a pattern, be SURE that the pattern gives the FINISHED GARMENT SIZE in inches (or centimeters) not just in dress sizes. If the pattern does NOT give the finished garment size, you proceed at your own risk and have a lot of detective work in front of you. Where finished garment sizes ARE provided, USE THEM. If you are a size 10, and the finished garment size for size 10 differs from your favorite sweater, you must disregard the size designation--DO NOT KNIT A SIZE 10. No. Do not. Knit the sweater which will give you the finished garment size, measured in inches (or centimeters) closest to your favorite sweater. This way, regardless of how much ease the PATTERN MAKER thought would be appropriate, your finished sweater--whether it is labeled size 8 or size 14, will fit YOUR notion of how much ease is appropriate to YOUR body.

You may have to do some detective work to figure out some of the dimensions of the finished garment--the armhole depth is typically not given in American patterns (although it often is in European ones). You may have to work backwards from the pattern directions (so and so many rows, at such and such a row gauge) to determine the armhole opening depth. (Hint: your LYS lady (man?) is a great resource here, and it is for this service that you should be HAPPY to pay them more per skein than you could pay for that same yarn on the internet.) (Conversely, if this is all beyond the LYS personnel, think about finding a different LYS.)

A caveat: The heavier the fabric, the greater ease required. If your favorite sweater is lighter weight than the weight of the sweater you are planning to knit, you will have to add ease so the thicker sweater fits as well as the thinner sweater does. Conversely, if your favorite sweater is heavier in weight than the sweater you are planning to knit, you must subtract ease to get to the right fit. How much ease to add or subtract is, of course, a judgment call, which is why the very best way to get a good result is to use a sweater in the style and weight you want to make as your taking-off point.

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Another caveat: Very high fashion styling puts paid to all the foregoing because, unless you already own a leg-of-mutton sleeved sweater with a twirly button band and the fronts longer than the back, you really have nothing against which to measure your proposed new handknitted leg-of-mutton sweater with etc. (And if you did possess such a creature already, it might be unlikely that you'd require another.) In such a case, perhaps a foray into a modish department store or boutique and some surreptitious activity with your tape measure in the fitting room will lay the necessary groundwork to assure a better fit when this eventual fashion masterpiece rolls from your needles.

A final thought: If you used the same yarn and needles to make your next project, you'd be ahead of the game. You already have a big, big gauge swatch in the sweater (hat, mittens, whatever) which you made first. You have an important body of knowledge and experience gleaned from working with that yarn and those needles. You know in the core of your being what X number of stitches look like after they come off the needles. With this information, you're far more likely to make a fitting garment the second time through than you were the first time around.

After all, think on traditional folk knitters: unlike modern knitters, they didn't use a different yarn and different needles for each project. In fact, most had access to only one weight of yarn, and they used the same needles over and over again. I don't advocate that every sweater you ever make ought to be in the same yarn as you used for the first one, but you will get an increasingly professional-looking result with each project for which you use the same yarn and needles.

--TECHknitter

See you in a few weeks...

I'm off to Europe and I'm coming back with a suitcase full of ...
airplane full of yarn
--TECHknitter

Ever have one of those days?

--Techknitter
R2D2 knits
R2D2 knitting

The English knit stitch

The English knit stitch differs from the continental knit stitch in only one detail--which hand supplies the yarn. In continental style knitting, the LEFT hand supplies the yarn, in English style knitting, the RIGHT hand supplies the yarn. The yarn, however, goes the same way around the needles, and the needles go the same way through the loop.

If you are having trouble wrapping the yarn correctly in English-style knitting, look at the three yarn wrapping errors illustrated for continental knitting (ignore the fingers, just look at the way the yarn lays on the needles) link 1, link 2, link 3. Each of those yarn-wrapping errors is a wrapping error in English-style knitting also.

THE ENGLISH KNIT STITCH

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Step 1: The right needle is inserted FROM the FRONT, TO the BACK of the stitch at the tip of the left needle, as shown. The right hand supplies the yarn--the right forefinger carrying the yarn acts as a shuttle, tracing a path in the air shown by the dotted line, above. The standing yarn (green) takes the path shown by the solid red arrow, wrapping around the RIGHT needle.

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Step 2: Once the standing yarn (green) is wrapped around the right needle, the tip of the right needle draws the wrap "down and through" the stitch at the tip of the left needle as shown by the red arrow.

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If everything goes right, this is what you will see on your right needle--a new stitch (green) with the right arm forward.

Other posts in this series:
The continental knit stitch
The continental purl stitch
The English purl stitch

--TECHknitter

(You have been reading TECHknitting on: The English knit stitch.)

The continental purl stitch

The pictures say it all.

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The yarn follows the path of the green arrow. Beware of the yarn-wrapping error illustrated in the inset--you'll wind up with a twisted stitch if you wrap the yarn "around the bottom" of the right needle, instead of "over the top," as you should.

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If all goes right, here's what you'll see:














Merry Christmas--from
--Techknitter

Knitting efficiently

Today, I’m going to rant on about *EFFICIENCY IN KNITTING.*

My heart leapt when I saw a book called “Speed Knitting.” But it wasn’t about efficiency, it was about big needles and big yarn.

Efficiency is really about ergonomics. How you hold the yarn and needles is less important than how much you MOVE the needle for each stitch. Of course, you may have to move your needles more because you are holding your yarn and needles badly, but the motion is really the first thing to analyze—all else follows.

The very fastest knitters move the needles hardly at all—production knitters in the old times often immobilized their (very long) needles by tucking the end of one or both needles into a knitting belt or sheath. Their fingers carried no weight, but were free to manipulate the very tippy ends of the needles with (evidently) incredible rapidity.

Today’s successors to production knitters are the awsome bloggers who produce scads of garments: a new lace shawl or six pairs of socks with every couple of posts. The rest of us do well to limp along producing as much in a month as these wonders produce in a week. Of course, actual production knitting is by no means dead, either...with all the baggage THAT carries. Check out this link to a truly scary sounding article--can anyone read Polish?

I have never had a chance to watch a true world beater. But the two fastest knitters I’ve ever seen personally (a Japanese lady who knits continental, and a British lady who knits English style) both share several traits: They move their hands very little. There are no grand sweeping motions, their elbows stay down, their wrists flex only slightly. The continental knitter's fingers do not move at all; the English-style knitter's fingers move only in a repetitive, efficient shuttling action. They do not sit hunched, they do not grip the needles with all ten fingers, holding on for dear life. The yarn flows onto their needles.

Because their motions are spare and efficient, their stitches always present at the same place on their needles. This means they’re not hunting for the next stitch—their hands know exactly where it is. Consequently, both of these ladies knit great swathes of fabric while hardly watching what they are doing.

How can us mere mortals duplicate this? Most of us probably won't. But we can walk a short way down that path. Get a drink of water. Sit in your favorite chair. Take a deep breath. Watch your hands, wrists, arms. Can you immobilize a needle by tucking it under your arm? By resting it on a chair arm or table? By tucking it into the cuff of your sweater? Can you stop your elbow from swinging out at every stitch? Can your wrist rotate less and still get the yarn onto the needle?

One reward will be faster knitting. An even better reward will be fewer repetitve strain injuries—the less you move, the less you strain.

--TECHknitter

The continental knit stitch

Today's post is about the continental knit stitch. It is the first in a four-part series, which includes the continental purl stitch, the English knit stitch and the English purl stitch.

HOW TO

There are many fabulous web sites devoted to teaching knitting. Several have videos, even. I don't have a lot to add to all that, but here's my little contribution towards illuminating the knit stitch, continental style:

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The right needle inserts into the stitch at the tip of the left needle, and catches the standing yarn (green) "up from under." The tip then travels out of the loop along the path of the red arrow carrying the snagged standing yarn, which enlarges and becomes a new loop on the right needle.

TROUBLESHOOTING

If you think about it, a lot of things have to happen "just right" for a stitch to be created and lie correctly on your needle--the stitch you're knitting into had to be made correctly, you have to position the standing yarn in the right place, the tip of the right needle has to be correctly inserted into the stitch and the right needle has to correctly snag the standing yarn. Something can go wrong with each of these steps, and generally does when you're first learning.

HOLDING THE STANDING YARN IN
FRONT OF THE LOOP

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You won't get too far with this mistake--it's too hard to catch the standing yarn if you've held it in front of the left loop while trying to snag it from the back with your right needle. That doesn't mean you won't drive yourself nuts trying, though.

TWISTED STITCH

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There are two ways to create this problem: Either the stitch was already sitting twisted on your left needle when you got there (because you inserted the tip of the right needle wrong when you made the stitch on the row below), OR you inserted the right needle wrong on this row (the correct way to insert the right needle into the left stitch is from the front, over the right arm in a left-to-right "hooking" motion .Either way you got there, though, if you see something happening like the illustration above, you've got a problem. Take it out and do it again.

CATCHING THE STANDING YARN THE WRONG WAY

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This, too, is a very popular error, especially when you first learn to knit, what with learning to control the needles, the yarn and your non-dominant hand (all at once). It's easy to make the mistake of catching the standing yarn "over the top" instead of the way it should be: "up from under." If you see this, take it out and do it again.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

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If you got everything just right, this is what the stitch should look like when you're done.

Next post: the continental purl stitch

--Techknitter

Continental knitting, English knitting & handedness

In all of knittingdom, there are only 2 stitches: The KNIT (K) stitch and the PURL (P) stitch. (Well, perhaps there are 3? A yarn over (YO) is neither a knit nor a purl. On the other hand, a YO may not be a stitch at all, so maybe we are back to 2?)

As soon as you master these 2 (3?) stitches, you can make anything at all in all of knitting; cables, picots, stockinette fabric, garter-stitch fabric, lace. This all seems simple, and, in a zen-like sort of way, it is. However, the complications soon start cascading and obscuring all.

The first complication stems from the split between knitting's two main divisions: continental knitters who carry the working yarn on their left hands, and English knitters, who carry the yarn on their right hands.

Knitters argue about which method is "better." Speed records are set by both kinds of knitters. I believe the best way to knit is the way that you, personally, prefer. The next 4 posts will illustrate both continental and English knitting and purling--if you don't already know how to do these, you could try them and make up your own mind.

But before the how-to posts, THIS post is about how the continental style and English style differ, and why handedness (left-handed, right-handed) has only a little to do with which style will work better for YOU.

CONFUSION

There is a lot of confusion about the difference between continental and English knitting. For me, learning to knit continental arose from this confusion.

I did not learn to knit until I was 24 years old--old enough to get my own way with my very stubborn mother. Before that, my mother refused to teach me because she thought she would teach me the "wrong" way--the continental way--which she had learned as a girl in Germany. She thought that I should learn "regular" (English) knitting so I could follow knitting patterns written in English--she thought continental knitting was "backwards" to English knitting.

My mom was confused (and did I mention? stubborn...). It is true that continental knitting and English knitting differ. However, the stitch which results--the loop on the needle--is the same (and the same knitting patterns work for both).

The difference between continental and English knitting arises ONLY from which hand holds the working yarn. In continental knitting, the working yarn is held on the left hand, so that the tip of the right needle "picks" the yarn to draw it through the loop. In English knitting, the working yarn is held on the right hand, and the working yarn is "thrown" around the tip of the right needle, then drawn through the loop.

If you ignore the hands supplying the yarn and watch only the needles, the ACT of drawing a new loop through the old loop is the same in continental and in English knitting:

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*the loop to be worked is held at the very tip of the left needle
*the tip of the right needle reaches through that loop, snags the standing yarn "up from under," and pulls that snag through the left loop.
*by this act, two things happen simultaneously: first, as the right needle draws the snag through the left (old) loop, the snag enlarges to become a new loop, second, the new loop is transferred to the right needle.

HANDEDNESS

Some think that continental and English knitting have to do with handedness--left handedness, right handedness. That's only partly correct.

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What some call "left- handed knitting" is actually BACKWARDS, a.k.a MIRROR-IMAGE knitting: using the left needle to draw a new loop through a stitch on the tip of the right needle. This transfers the new stitch onto the left needle and generally leaves the new stitch oriented backwards--that is, left arm forward. The act of supplying the yarn also changes hands, with the right hand carrying the standing yarn in continental knitting, and the left hand supplying the yarn in English knitting.

There are knitting teachers who go through a lot of trouble to teach the left handed to knit backwards--the most popular technique is to use a mirror. This approach probably stems from a time when there were fewer choices--when people only knew about one way to knit--and presumably thought it self-evident that lefties should knit differently than righties.

I myself would avoid this approach. Knitting is (usually, but not always) a two-handed activity--the right-handed have just as much trouble learning to control their left hands as the left-handed have controlling their rights, so the left-handed are (for once) at no disadvantage.

It may be that a left-handed person will be more comfortable with continental knitting--in that style the left hand gets to do more work than in English style. I'd certainly try that before I could be persuaded to teach even the most profoundly left-handed person to knit backwards.

Mirror-image knitters are doomed to a lifetime of transposing knitting patterns, not to mention confusing knitting teachers. Without transposing, mirror-image knitters' decreases and increases will slant the wrong way and everything'll be backwards--just what my mom feared when she (mistakenly) refused to teach me continental for fear that I'd never be able to follow a printed pattern.

To those of you who already knit mirror-image: you have my admiration for your perseverance and persistence in a knitting world which lies, for the most part, sdrawkcab * to you. To those of you who are left handed and have yet to learn to knit: the best way, IMHO, would be to learn the same way as right-handers do--and try continental first.

(Added 2-8-07-- a new final conclusion: I myself have taught at least a half-dozen different left handed people to knit "regular" over the years. I also know several additional left handed people who knit continental with no problem. It was based on this experience that I wrote this post. HOWEVER...dear readers, I have just heard from Jenny, a left-handed reader who posted below. She has had a different experience--she tried to learn regular knitting--English AND continental, and she STILL found mirror image knitting easier. Evidently, sometimes a left-handed person has to choose between mirror image knitting or no knitting. In that case the choice is easy--knitting is SO obviously more fun than not-knitting! Bottom line: I would certainly try to teach a left handed person to knit "regular" and would concentrate on the continental style. BUT, if you try and try, dear lefty, and still can't knit, not even continental, then we'll all have to swallow the fact that you're going to have to learn to transpose patterns, and learn to knit mirror image....)

--Techknitter
*("backwards," spelled backwards)