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

[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.