Continental, American or Both?
Feb. 7th, 2012 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
debbiecakes posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
knittingJust 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. :)
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. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-07 11:23 pm (UTC)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....