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!