I'm a new knitter and I'm doing fine with English style. I'm working on getting the hang of Continental style because of its advantages--I think that if I get it down, it'll be faster, and I'm going to want to try Fair Isle knitting with the two-hand method. I'm starting to get the hand movements down, but I'm having trouble with tension. I have little trouble feeding the yarn with just a little bit of tension using the English style, but with the Continental style I can't seem to find the happy medium between a single wrap around a finger--too loose, inability to keep the new stitch on the needle while pulling it through the old one--and a couple of turns, or a turn around the pinky--the yarn won't feed. Any suggestions?
With the yarn around the finger, you have to release the yarn. So when it becomes tight, you flick the finger to release the wound around yarn. This keeps the tension even.
I hope this is clear.
Arlene
Harlan Mess> I'm a new knitter and I'm doing fine with English style. I'm working on
I do release the yarn, just as I do with the English method. My point is that the friction of the yarn as wound around my fingers is too great to allow it to slip. But if I wind it around my forefinger one less time, or if I skip winding it around my pinky, then I don't have enough tension at all. Maybe in that case it's because I'm still not properly figuring out how to firmly clamp down the pinky at the same time that I'm holding the left needle the way it needs to be held.
Hi Harlan -- I knit Continental (actually "Continental combined," which I didn't know the name of until I started reading knitting boards on the internet ) and I had to pick up my knitting to see how I hold the yarn. I then looked at instructions on several knitting sites, and none of the positions they showed looked like mine! So I think there are many ways to hold the yarn and regulate the tension, and you just have to find what works for you.
Here's how I do it: it's is hard to describe (I haven't figured out how to post pictures here, but maybe I can eventually) but I'll try . Coming from the needles, the working yarn passes over the tip of the index finger and is held in place between the middle sections of the index and middle fingers. Only these two fingers need to touch the working yarn. The tip of the middle finger rests against the tip of the needle and pushes forward stitches as necessary to be knitted. The thumb, ring finger and pinky hold the needle further back. In order to switch between knitting and purling, the whole hand rotates forward or back, pivoting around the needle, to bring the tip of the index finger with the working yarn to the front or back of the work as necessary. Does this make any sense? I can try to take a picture and post it if you want, but it might be easier for you to just go to a knitting shop or class and watch how various people hold their yarn.
(Just an aside -- are there medical terms for each finger that are more serious and dignified than "ring finger" and "pinky"? What are the different fingers called in other languages??)
Harlan Mess> > Harlan Mess> >> I'm a new knitter and I'm doing fine with English style. I'm working
Hi, Jackie. It seems to me that with my index finger above the work and the tip of the middle finger on the work I can't quite picture how to have the middle sections of my index and forefingers pressed together! Argh, I'll have to experiment.
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The Latin term for the ring finger is "digitus anularis" = "ring finger". The pinkie can also be called the "little finger", if "pinkie" sounds too cute.
The Spanish for "middle finger" translates as "heart finger". The French for "middle finger" translates as "biggest [finger]". The Spanish for little finger translates as "ear [finger]". The German and Dutch for index finger mean the same thing as Latin "index" does: the "pointing" finger.
I am a Continental knitter also. My working yarn is wrapped around the pinkie under the ring and middle fingers and over the index finger to manage the tension. I notice if I get the wrap too far down on the pinkie finger the tension is too tight and I cannot release it as well. The best place is right at the middle knuckle. I had to knit a row to see exactly how it works for me, but I move my pinkie finger away from the ring finger slightly to free up a little more yarn to knit with...it is a very subtle movement. I periodically have to let the wrapping go and re-do it as I knit.
B>> Harlan Mess>>> I'm a new knitter and I'm doing fine with English style. I'm working on
After *lots* of practice, I'm finding I'm starting to be able to manage with two turns around the index finger only, making sure one turn is close to the hand! I also found the rhythm hard to get down, but I'm getting there. Thanks.
When I learned Continental method, I learned it from a woman who had learned it in Germany (and called it German style).
I do not wrap the yarn around my index finger at all! My left hand holds the knitting yarn exactly the way it does when I'm crocheting:
Have the skein on your chair to the left of your lap. With your right hand, hold the needle(s) that have the cast-on stitches above your lap. Position your left hand palm up, with fingers spread. Advance that hand forward, toward the length of yarn stretching from the needles down to the skein, so that the yarn slides between little and ring fingers. Curl that hand toward yourself and rotate it palm down so that the yarn goes around the outside of the little finger and stretches across the back toward the thumb side. Bend and lift your middle finger to clear the yarn, and lower the finger again so that the yarn runs under it.
So, the yarn runs from the skein down between the ring and little fingers, across the palm side of (and at the base of) the little finger and up the far side of that finger, then across the backs of the little and ring fingers, under (palm side) of the middle finger (middle section or farthest joint), and over the last section of the index finger. Hold the left needle with the left hand almost the same way you hold the right needle with the right hand. The yarn is lying there on your left index finger, ready to be plucked; plucking it pulls it along from the skein through the fingers. Works beautifully! IMO.
The only time I knit anything using English method, as I was originally taught, is when I'm doing Fair Isle. Continental is more comfortable, and faster -- somewhat for a row of k st, definitely for a row of p st, and extremely for a row of k1 p1! If you can actually throw the yarn, get it to go around the needle tip with a flick of your righ index finger, you may not see as much difference -- but I haven't seen more than two (of lots and lots) knitters manage that.
The way in which you knit is an individual thing; one cannot assume one way is 'faster' than another. It may be faster for you, but not someone else.
I am a thrower...my left hand/arm hardly moves at all...my right hand does nearly all the work. I have always knit this way...to me knitting continental is like knitting with my feet. It is all in how you learn!
I currently can do nearly 280 sts./ 3 mins. stockinette on #8 addi turbos. (yes, I am eyeing the world record....!)
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