How Can it be Wrong when it Looks so Right?

If you knit in the combination style chances are at some point in your life another experienced knitter has told you that you are knitting the wrong way. This blog looks at the combination style of knitting and discusses techniques of this very legitimate form of knitting.

Friday, December 16, 2011

I do not Knit Weird

I've been told I knit weird.  I see how other people I know knit, and I have noticed two things:

  1. The technique I use looks nothing like their technique.
  2. My way is a heck of a lot faster.
My final product looks no different than your typical knit item so, you would think that a faster way to complete a piece would be wildly embraced but nothing could be farther from the truth.  To make matters worse every How-to knitting book I've ever seen says that my way is wrong  and that my stitches face the wrong way i.e. are "twisted".  I guess you could say I'm a twisted stitcher *groan.

Anyway until recently, I thought I was the only freak that knit this way but thanks to the internet I've discover that there are other  twisted stitchers out there.  I've even learned that this style of knitting has a name - Combination knitting.  If you are from North America, England or Europe most likely the style of knitting that you use is called Western No Cross.  There are two ways to do this the most common in England and North America is called "English".  The English hold the working yarn in their right hand and wrap the yarn to make a stitch.  The other western style is called either "Continental" or "German" depending who you ask.  It is exactly the same as English except the continental knitters hold the yarn in their left hand and pick at the working yarn.

Being that both English and Continental are called western I'll bet you've already guessed that there is also a style called Eastern.  Bingo!  I am not exactly familiar with this style accept to say that, the movements are in the opposite to those of the western style.  

So what is Combination then?  It is kind of  like a knitting love-in.  It uses some aspects of both western and eastern knitting techniques.  I like to think of at as taking the best of both worlds.  

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