And a quicker way to knit!! :)
The sister's housemate is a knitter. She had a "project" for me when I arrived in North Carolina on Monday night. She had two balls of a lovely ribbon yarn, which I'm pretty sure was cotton/silk blend, that she had picked up in Greece. She wanted my opinion as to what to make with this lovely stuff.
I think she finally decided on the Candy Stripes Kerchief. Anyway, since there's only a small amount of yarn we decided to swatch with bigger needles, she made one swatch and I made the other. And as we were sitting there, sister's housemate looks at my hands and says, "You knit differently than I do, but you purl the same".
After some investigation and demonstrations, I have learned a new way to knit! And I have increased my knitting speed slightly. Since this revelation helped me, I figured it may be something that might help someone else too. So I'm going to share. :)
First, the way I learned to knit. I learned to pick up the front leg of the stitch from behind, and to bring the right-hand needle to the front of the left-hand needle.
Then I looped the working yarn counterclockwise over the right hand needle and pulled the stitch through.
Now, the new way (to me anyway). Pick up the front leg of the stitch from behind, but don't bring the right-hand needle to the front. Instead keep the right-hand needle behind the left-hand needle, almost like if you were knitting through the back loop.
The working yarn is still wrapped around the right-hand needle counterclockwise and pulled through.
My first thought was that this would twist the stitch, but it doesn't. And the few milliseconds that it takes to bring the right-hand needle to the front of the left, definitely makes a difference. At least it's really helped me. Try it out. Let me know what you think! (Or, if you knit this way all your life, I'd love to know that too!)
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