Continental, American or Both?

[debbiecakes]

Just out of curiousity, how does everyone knit?

I am continental knitting a super bulky queen-king sized blanket.
I am American knitting two different sport scarves.

For me:
Continental Style = loose, relaxed and quick.
American Style = Tight, tense and slooooow.

The super bulky blanket looks great but when I tried the sport weighted scarves, they ended up looking sloppy so I started over with the American style. Just a quick comparison, I casted on 12 when I started with continental but when I switched to American I had to cast on 26.

I've been knitting off and on for years but I still consider myself to be a novice. Fingers-crossed, with more practice my continental will shape up so I can ditch the American style. Over all I prefer continental because of speed, ease to switch from knitting/purling, and it feels more comfortable in my hands. :)

Comments

[pensnest]

I keep meaning to try to learn the Continental style, as it looks so efficient. I knit in a very inefficient way, looking the yarn around the stitch by moving my hand instead of flicking a finger over, and I don't think there's any way to change that except by adopting a radically different system. Trouble is, I'm already a slow knitter...

Interesting about the difference in tension that you get. That's quite a variation!

[franzi1981]

Continental, with a twist.

I got taught an easier version of purling in continental. Which means my knit stitches all lean the other way. Which is okay! You just have to have to k2tog when it asks for ssk and do ssk when it asks for k2tog *G*.

[nu_ophiuchi]

Oooo, are you wrapping the yarn around the needle clockwise when you purl? Does your stockinette come out with the stitches' "legs" crossed, or are you avoiding that? I'm very interested in talking shop on this because I just recently discovered I was knitting weird in this way, and I'm still working to settle into a style that feels reasonably comfortable and doesn't complicate patterns or stitch patterns too much.

-- So if that's not what you're doing, I want to know your trick to purling anyway! :D

[afuna]

Try searching for "combination style knitting"! It sounds very much like what you're doing, and there are several very useful resources for that :)

(the main trick, if you want avoid your legs crossing in stockinette, is to knit through the back loop of the knit stitch when you come to it -- it may make more sense if you can find a tutorial with illustrations!)

[nu_ophiuchi]

Oh yes indeed, I probably should have clarified my own part more. I've tried that out and I definitely like it, but it's not without its complications either. I ran up against a project that involved k1b, which I love, and realized I have no clue how to do that through the back loop and no faith that it would be easy anyway. Which also inspired me to evaluate my options more thoroughly in general, as it seems every method is going to make some things harder and others easier.

I'm still relatively new to knitting, and I'm not particularly fast by any method, so it's not much skin off my back to play around with different styles, fortunately. It would be fun to just knit in different ways depending on the needs of the project, but alas I suspect that conflicting muscle memories would eventually catch up with me.

[afuna]

Aaah gotcha! I read your initial comment as that you were already purling in combination style, and just didn't know it!

And yeah, it does seem that there are tradeoffs with every technique. And sometimes the same technique makes, say, back and forth easy, but circular knitting a bit more fiddly. (Or SSK easy, but k2tog fiddlier, etc...)

[franzi1981]

I've been trying to explain, but I can't!

I'm not wrapping the yarn, no. And my stockinette looks like any other stockinette - no weirdness there..

Oooh! Found a video:

http://www.knittinghelp.com/video/play/the-purl-stitch-combination-continental

[dhae_knight_1]

Continental, all the way (of course, given the fact I'm European, that's kind of a given). I must say, though, that the American style doesn't tempt me. It looks slow and awkward, having to move the yarn, rather than just moving the needles.

I knit tightly, though, but I've found that it depends on the needles. Metal needles gives me the tightest knitting. Plastic and hardwood gives me a more relaxed gauge, and with bamboo I knit pretty losely. On metal needles I usually have to go down .5 cm to a full cm in needle-size to fit the gauge.

[debbiecakes]

I'll have to try a pair of metal needles. I've always used bamboo or plastic.

[aryas_zehral]

I have never heard of continental v. American knitting. What is the difference?

[beachlass]

Mainly in which hand you hold the yarn. English/American knitting = holding the yarn in your right hand and throwing it around the needle. Continemtal = holding the yarn tail in your left and flickimg it around the needle.

[aryas_zehral]

Now I'm trying to work out which I do. English. The only way seems awkward in my head (although I'll probably try it later). :)

Thanks for the info.

[glinda]

Thank you, I'm always so confused by these discussions and now I know the difference! :D

[fire_my_spirit]

I knit continental -- near as I can figure. At least, the way I knit mostly matches up to continental knitting tutorial videos on youtube. I had been crocheting for almost twenty years before I taught myself to knit by diagram alone a few years ago, so I hold my yarn in my left hand and snatch it up for stitches with the needle in my right hand. That's what feels most natural.

I don't really have a comparison between that and the other because the other makes no intuitive sense to me, so I've never tried it. :P I haven't quite figured out my gauge, either, because I usually make things that don't require me to pay much attention. All I know is my favorite sizes to work with are worsted weight on size 8 needles, sport weight yarns on 3-5, and fingering yarns on 1.

[starfish]

Have you played around with how you tension your yarn with your left hand? I have slightly different methods for different weights of yarn (it's all about how I wrap it around my pinkie). (I also found a huge difference in gauge between American & Continental -- probably shouldn't have switched halfway through a cardigan. *g*)

[debbiecakes]

I sure have! With the blanket, I skip the pinky finger all together. I wrap it around my wrist then over my index finger. I don't normally hold the yarn that way but it seemed like the yarn was getting stuck on the bamboo needles. But even with my pinky wrapped up like a mummy I just couldn't get it to work for the lighter yarn. Practice practice pratice. Or so I keep getting told. =P

[ginny_t]

In addition to how you wrap the yarn for tension, you might consider experimenting with needle size. You can compensate for loose tension by going down in needle size.

[debbiecakes]

This usually works for me but even with the smaller needles, the light weight yarn looked fairly sloppy.

[ginny_t]

Well yes, but what about gauge? Is it the right number of stitches and rows per inch? If not, how far off? A lot of sloppiness comes out when you wash your finished project. Even stockinette benefits from a good drowning and shaping.

[debbiecakes]

It's a bit closer but it's still about 4 stitches / 6 rows off.
To be honest, I have only blocked two items ever and I didn't really notice a difference between blocking/not blocking. Maybe I need to give that another crack.

[ginny_t]

Blocking has the most effect on knit goods with animal fibres. Acrylic doesn't really block, but you can use an iron to melt the piece into the shape you want. (Yeah, it's as scary as it sounds. I've never done it, but I've read about it.)

It sounds like if you want to stick with Continental, you're going to have to experiment with how you tension your yarn with your left hand. I wrap the yarn at least once around my pinky, over my ring finger, under the index finger, and over the pointer (which is up) to the stitch. If the yarn is fine or slippery, it either goes twice around my pinky or once around my pinky and once around my ring finger.

I took to knitting Continental pretty quickly (it helped that I'm a very tight knitter, and loosening up was just what I needed), but a friend who learned at the same time started with dishcloths. I saw one of the ones she learned on. It was sloppy and misshapen as all get-out, but she did learn. If you have some cheap yarn you don't much care about, you could try that.

[beachlass]

Continental. And if I'm knitting somewhere where there are older women (like a church meeting) I often have someone staring in bemusement, as they mostly knit English style around here.

[kirana]

American--but if I'm knitting flat, I've figured out how to knit continental where I would normally turn the work to knit the wrong side so I can just knit back across. ^^' I've tried continental and my tension is tighter, but I am faster with American and I haven't bothered to find out how to do stitches other than knit continental style (except when knitting backwards). Also, I can only read when I knit American, as I'm not confident enough with continental to take my eyes off of it, and reading's a big part of why I started knitting again. ^^

[antisoppist]

I'm British. I knit with the right-hand needle digging into my stomach at a 90 degree angle to the left-hand needle and I move the yarn round it with my whole hand. I find circular needles difficult because I find it harder to hold both needles and move the wool.

I lived in Scandinavia where friends decided my knitting was too slow and taught me to knit continental but my way is still faster for me, though I can see continental would be quicker if I practised. Whenever I do try it, I come unstuck when I need to do something other than plain knit or purl and have to switch back to my method for increasing and decreasing.

[untonuggan]

I only learned about five months ago and I taught myself American from a book. I'm interested in learning Continental - particularly because it will probably make colorwork a lot easier - but have yet to sit myself down and do it yet.

[frotz]

I learned English (which I think is the same as what you call American?) eons ago and can do it without thinking. I would like to sit down and concentrate on things well enough to learn to learn continental, but not when I'm in the middle of a project, so when will that be...

English doesn't have to be slow at all, though. Not that I'm quick, but some knitters I know are blindingly fast at it; the movement required to loop the yarn does not have to be a large movement at all depending on just how one is holding everything.

[hobbitbabe]

I agree. I knit English style, but when my one brother and I showed signs of becoming more serious knitters as teenagers, Mum convinced us to learn to hold our right hand under the needle and just move a finger to wrap the yarn instead of our whole hand and arm. Both of us found it frustrating at first, but by the end of the summer were much faster - and that's what I've done ever since.


I've never heard English style called "American" before.

[bedlamsbard]

I knit continental, which is how I learned it from my (Japanese) mother (and then stopped for a few years, then taught myself everything else from books/the internet); I guess in theory I'd like to try learning English just to know it, but I haven't had occasion to have to try it yet.

[feywood]

Definitely continental for speed, comfort and very equal smooth work.
I can do English, though, with relative ease and I'm glad for it since I love doing stranded work.
I'm going to try Portuguese for my next project though. :D

[dragonfly]

I learned to knit from a YouTube video, and it seems I do it Continental. I don't "throw" the yarn.
However, I've been told I'm doing something wrong that confuses me. When I purl I scoop up the front of the stitch, but when I knit I scoop up the back of the stitch. Any advice on what I'm supposed to be doing? Apparently something about this is backward.

[jumpuphigh]

It sounds like you are doing Eastern style stitches. There is nothing wrong with that but it is uncommon in most English speaking countries.

[dhae_knight_1]

Isn't that a twisted knit stitch? I scoop from the front and below, up through the legs, snag the yarn on the far side and pull through and over.

[nu_ophiuchi]

Having put a fair bit of attention into this matter recently, my understanding is that it's a less common style of knitting but has its practitioners. If you're wrapping the yarn around the needle clockwise (looking at the point straight on) then purling through the front loop and knitting through the back will produce very similar stitches to the more common way of doing it. Though they lean in the other direction (can't remember which one's right and which is left) so you'd want to switch your ktogs and ssks from most patterns, like mentioned in an earlier comment here.

If you're wrapping counterclockwise, which is how folks doing the more common kind of knitting are generally taught, you get twisted stitches: looking at the knit side of a stitch it forms a V with the two strands crossing over at the bottom. It's not necessarily a big problem, you can do most stitch patterns fine, but twisted stitches do apparently stretch less which may be a good thing or a bad thing. And if you do flat stockinette with the purls and knits twisted differently, you start getting a funnier wavy sort of fabric. There's probably a lot of little variations here.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, though, I'm hardly an expert. Of course the bottom line is whether your knitting gets the results you personally want!

[leia_solo]

I believe I knit the American style. I'm actually just learning, but I got the hang of it easier the American way. I'll have to try out Continental one day.

[ex_blackcat765]

I do American knitting. I kinda want to learn Continental since I've heard it's faster (and looking at these fair isle books I've got they seem to lean more towards it for holding your yarn?), but idk. :|a. If I could work through how awkward it'd feel to hold with my left hand (I'm right handed) then I could go for it. \o/

[dhae_knight_1]

For what it's worth, your left hand actually does very little. Your hand holds the needle and the yarn is wound over your left index-finger and down through your fingers however works for you. About the only thing you do move is a slight lift of your left index-finder to tighten the stitch, depending on how you knit, obviously. So... The right hand does pretty much all the work. :-)

[ex_blackcat765]

Oh! I was thinking it was something where you held the yarn in your left hand and worked with the needle in your left, too. (Don't ask how that works XD). I could do what you're describing though!

[eruanna]

I started out English style (self-taught, from a book) but switched to Continental after about a year. It feels more natural to me. I have hand and joint pain, and picking is much more comfortable for me.

Continental knitting was easy to learn; purling was awkward at first, but experimenting with a few different methods helped me find a comfortable style. Now, my hands don't get tired as quickly, and I don't aggravate my joints.

[taste_of_water]

I've been kitting Continental style since I was a child, but after seeing a link in one of the posts here I've been thinking about learning/trying out Portugese style

[ariandar]

I knit English/American, but I usually weave the yarn through my right-hand fingers and sort of flick it around the needle when I throw, instead of moving my whole hand. I find when I'm doing standard flat knitting, I can go pretty fast in this way.

[mommy]

I'm a Continental knitter. I started with crochet with the yarn held in my left hand, and I kept that when I learned to knit. I've been planning on learning English style to make stranded colorwork easier, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[tephra]

I knit primarily English/American/throw.

If I'm using long straights (rare these days) I tend to brace the right needle on my leg or tucked to my right arm (I would go under the arm if the needles were longer but 14" is too short for that with my height).

If I'm doing something small, like socks or doll clothes, and it is mostly knit I do Irish cottage sometimes. I find purling with IC a bit awkward and "miss" on my throws more than I like. I don't use the yarn tension path as Stephanie does in that video, I just use my regular English tensioning.

If I'm using two colors in the same row I do one English and one continental. For double knitting I do the near side (knits) continental and the far side (purls) English.

I might do more continental if I could figure out a way to hold the yarn that didn't stress my left hand. Holding my index finger up makes for serious back of the hand pain after a relatively short while.

Occasionally, for k1p1 patterns, I use Portuguese.

And on the occasion that I bother with knitting left to right so I don't have to turn things around I do a mutant sort of left hand continental....

[archane]

I knit Continental. I was crocheting for years before I started learning to knit, and I was frustrated for months trying to learn American/English style knitting from my grandma. Everything felt wrong, and I just couldn't get it. It didn't make any sense to me. Then I came across a book which showed Continental, switched the yarn back to my left hand, and everything clicked.

I sometimes feel a bit silly, since I could work out how to knit "backwards," so that I can knit back and forth without turning the work, but it doesn't matter how many diagrams I follow or what videos I watch, I can't knit more than three or four stitches with the yarn in my right hand before everything seems to fall apart (and purling is out of the question).

[debbiecakes]

I crochet too and I know just what you mean! Initially, I tried learning how to knit with a book that taught the American style. Failed. Miserably. It wasn't until I learned to knit Continental out of a different book that I was able to go back and pick up the American style because at least I knew what a finished knit or a purl stitch looked like.

[kuri]

I knit English-style. What's "American"? ;-)

[afuna]

I started out English-style, switched to Continental, and eventually learned combination knitting -- which isn't a combination of english and continental, but is a combination of western knit + eastern purl.

So I hold my yarn in my left hand, and knitting and purling involve a quick scooping motion for both. The stitch sits on my needle differently depending on whether I've knit or purled it, so I have to pay attention to whether I should knit through the front loop or through the back loop, but it's easier than it sounds, because you can feel the difference when inserting the needle, even without looking at your hands.

[lyra500]

Since this seems to have become about which is fastest I thought I'd share this knitting video from a local Scottish news programme:

http://youtu.be/GfRZnN2rL4Y