So yesterday I hosted a Stitch n Bitch for my MeetIn group. There had been a request that a couple of people wanted to learn how to knit and I volunteered to teach....because I felt I could....and I'd been thinking it would be nice to have some girls in the area to start a Stitch and Bitch with.
So yesterday I had just one student. And she'd actually learned a couple of things from her mom before...including continental knitting. Now, I'd tried continental knitting once before...and I did something wrong that made all my stitches backwards....and I'd not attempted it again since then. We had our class....my willing student let me show her how I did a purl stitch and she continued using continental method for her knit stitches. Before we finished I told her she was going to have to learn how to purl in continental and then she could teach me BOTH next time we got together.
So today...i was inspired...and did some experimenting and figured it out for myself, at least for knit stitches. YEAH ME! What's most interesting...is using the "throw" method that I've always done, if I knit too long the pinky to middle finger on my left hand always go numb...and if I keep knitting them swell a bit as does my hand. When doing "continental" style knitting...my left had stays perfect...and after a while my right hand gets a bit tingle and twitchy when I stop knitting for a minute to pick up the remote or something. And its not really the kind of thing you can switch back and forth on because then the gauge of what you're knitting (that means the number of stitches and rows that make up a 4x4 inch square) gets totally different because I tension the yarn differently from throw and continental methods.
Anyway...just wanted to share because I was so excited to have taught myself a new skill!!! I've attached some pics of the two methods for those that are interested.
Continental Method
"Throw" or English Method
Pictures from
So yesterday I had just one student. And she'd actually learned a couple of things from her mom before...including continental knitting. Now, I'd tried continental knitting once before...and I did something wrong that made all my stitches backwards....and I'd not attempted it again since then. We had our class....my willing student let me show her how I did a purl stitch and she continued using continental method for her knit stitches. Before we finished I told her she was going to have to learn how to purl in continental and then she could teach me BOTH next time we got together.
So today...i was inspired...and did some experimenting and figured it out for myself, at least for knit stitches. YEAH ME! What's most interesting...is using the "throw" method that I've always done, if I knit too long the pinky to middle finger on my left hand always go numb...and if I keep knitting them swell a bit as does my hand. When doing "continental" style knitting...my left had stays perfect...and after a while my right hand gets a bit tingle and twitchy when I stop knitting for a minute to pick up the remote or something. And its not really the kind of thing you can switch back and forth on because then the gauge of what you're knitting (that means the number of stitches and rows that make up a 4x4 inch square) gets totally different because I tension the yarn differently from throw and continental methods.
Anyway...just wanted to share because I was so excited to have taught myself a new skill!!! I've attached some pics of the two methods for those that are interested.
Continental Method
"Throw" or English Method
Pictures from
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