Knitting Problems

[tabitha]

hello, i'm learning to knit.

well, i learned the basics from a friend about a year ago, and never thought i learned incorrectly. i knitted a scarf and it looked right...

but, i'm about to join a kniting workshop so i got a book: How To Knit, to learn a bit more. And i knit backwards!!! the book says they do it differently in other countries and i guess i learned the foreign way. i hold the yarn in my left hand.

will this impede my ability to knit? i can't decifer the picture instructions because i hold it all differently. i tried and tried to re learn but my way just seems so much easier!

this has led me to doubt that i have even been 'knitting' all this time. i think i was purling. how can i know the difference? i tried making a stockingette swatch, but it was all knitted- looking. i don't know what i'm doing anymore?!

please, if you knit, help me!

[Shanghaimum]

I love knitting.

My sister knits the way you do - it is actually a faster way to knit. If you knit on round needles and just knit all the rows the same (the 'foreign' stitch you already do), it will end up looking like the stocking stitch.

I have knit quite a few scarves, but never used a pattern.... Last night I have started following a pattern for the first time - I am knitting a cotton bikini!!! (God knows what it will look like...)

Good luck

Emma

[OceanMomma]

I love to knit but never get a chance these days with dd being a toddler.

I don't knit the proper way either. I have to knit into the back of all my stitches or mine comes out twisted. I have no idea why but it works for me.

I knit with the yarn in my right hand. I'd guess if you knitted with the yarn in your left hand, you'd be doing it all back to front by a conventional pattern ?

The way I knit, when you do a knit stitch the yarn is at the back of the work & when you do a purl stitch the yarn is at the front.

[jessikate]

If you knit with the yarn in your left hand, that's called Continental or picking. If you hold it in your right hand, that's usually called English or throwing. As long as you've got the empty needle in your right hand and the full one in your left when you start a row, you're going the right way.

For the twisted stitches, try wrapping your purl stitches from the top to the bottom, instead of from the bottom toward the top (clear as mud?). If you don't mind watching to make sure you knit into the back loop, then you don't have to change your style, but if you take a class you may be told you're doing it wrong. You're not, this is just a knitting style called "Eastern Uncrossed". Isn't it great that there's a legitimate name for a technique that you were regarding as a mistake?

I'd suggest you check out the KnitList on Yahoo! Groups http://groups.yahoo.com. It's a fairly high-volume email group where you can post questions, chat about knitting, and just waste a ton of time.

Happy knitting!
Jessikate