Knitting by Structure, Part 2: All About Stitches

Introduction

As I stated in my series introductory post, the first step in learning how to knit by stitch structure is actually learning what stitch structure is.  After all, you need to know what you're aiming for before you learn how to do it.

Now, this isn't going to be an in-depth look at knitted fabric and how stitches behave in it.  I'll touch upon a few high-level items there, but that's not what we're really concerned about at the moment. What the student needs to get out of this is two things:

1. A basic understanding on how yarn becomes stitches becomes knitted fabric, and
2. The parts of a stitch, both active and in the fabric. 

For many people, a deeper understand will come with time and practice, so if you don't quite get it, it may be helpful to continue on and re-visit once you've gotten to the point where you have needles and yarn in your hand (or have knitted a thing or two after learning this, if you're already a knitter).

Fabric and Stitches

Simply put, knitted fabric is just a series of interlocked loops called stitches. This is easier pictured than described, so here's a diagram I found on Wikipedia (click to go to source):

Now, this happens to be the knit side of a piece of stockinette fabric, but it all works similarly (though looks different) so I'll ignore that for now.  Typical hand knitted fabric is produced by holding a set of 'active' or 'live' stitches on a needle, and using another needle to pull a piece of yarn (that is as continuous as you can make it) though the active stitch, creating a new active stitch.  You then drop the old active stitch and repeat the process on the next one.  What this does is what the red line above symbolizes: creates a row of stitches that is in reality a part of a piece of yarn looped through another part of the yarn to create a fabric.  These stitches remain active until you either create a new stitch through that stitch, or you complete a process called binding off.  To get the first set of active stitches, you complete a process called casting on.  Binding off and casting on are things you'll have to learn, but they're out of scope here.  The only thing you'll need to recognize with casting on is that it'll create a series of loops that you'll treat as normal stitches.


There are two major actions in hand knitting that one uses to produce a stitch, and unfortunately they're also called stitches (you'll find that there's a lot of things call stitches in knitting.  They are not all the same thing).  The knit stitch, as shown above, is when the working yarn is pulled through from the back to the front of the active stitch.  The purl stitch, on the other hand, is when the working yarn is pulled through the front of the stitch to the back..  You might notice something here, which is basically these actions are opposite sides of the same coin.  If you perform the action of a knit stitch on one side of the fabric, the stitch is a purl on the other side.  If you purl it, its a knit stitch on the other side.

And this is pretty much the whole basis of knitting.  Everything else is variation.  For example, I mentioned that the diagram showed a piece of stockinette fabric (which is also called stockinette stitch...yeah, I know).  Here's a real-life picture of it:

 Look at the diagram and/or the picture. Can you figure out how the stitches build to create that?  Basically, stockinette is just where you perform the knit action into another knit stitch for all the stitches (or a purl into a purl stitch, if that's what's facing you).  This causes all the knit sides of the stitch to face one way and the purl sides to face the other way.

Another common fabric type is called garter stitch, and it's the opposite of stockinette in a way.  Garter is produced by knitting into a purl stitch and vice versa, which creates rows of stitches that alternate which side is facing where:

Anything more complicated fabric type than this is the same way.  It's just an action creating a stitch where the knit and purl sides face specific directions in a repeated manner that creates a specific looking fabric. And even if you get away from that statement with, say, cables or decreases or some such, you'll still be preforming the same action in the end to complete them.  You either knit, or you purl.  You may switch direction and work through different loops, work through two or more stitches (or something that isn't a stitch), swap the order of the active loops, or whatever.  You still either pull the yarn through back to front, or front to back in the end.

Actually, there is one exception here.  It's call a yarn-over.  All a yarn-over is is an active stitch you created out of thin air with the working yarn by creating a loop without pulling it through anything.  It's works the same way as any other active stitch, and has the same parts.  Don't worry about it though until you get to increases or lace. 

 

The Anatomy of a Stitch

Every stitch you create, whether it's a knit or purl stitch, has four specific parts.  Let's take a stitch from that diagram above, shall we?

The first two parts are that the stitch has a front and a back.  The front of the stitch is the face of the stitch facing you (no matter what side of the fabric you are on...this is important.  The front of the stitch is not always its knit side) when it is lying flat within the fabric and open.  The back, of course, is the opposite side.

The second part is what we call the legs of the stitch.  The legs are the sides of the loop:

Well that's not the best quality there....but you get the point

They are named based on the front of the stitch, that is, the right leg is the leg of the stitch to the right when you are looking at the front of the stitch.  Same for left.

When the stitch is active, one of these legs is also called the working leg.  The working leg is the leg used to orient the needle you're putting the new stitches on. This has to do with the fact that when the stitch is active (that is, it's on a needle), the stitch doesn't lay flat and there's a needle going through the stitch.

To use an active stitch, we must guide the other needle on one side of the stitch or the other due to the holding needle.  The side used is the side with the working leg (in mechanical instructions, it's usually termed in terms like 'going x to y direction through the z side of the stitch').

This sounds complicated but it's not.  The rule to identifying the front side of the stitch and the working leg is thus: The working leg of the stitch is always the one closest to the needle tip, and the front of the stitch is always the side tilting towards you.  In this format, this does not rely on stitch orientation or style or stitch type.  For the sake of working a stitch, this also holds true if the active stitch below is twisted; that is, the stitch legs are crossed and therefore the faces of the twisted stitch is flipped in relation to what was shown above.  This is because that statement isn't in relation to the stitch itself, but the knitter working the stitch.

 

Wait, What's Stitch Orientation Mean?

I'll cover this a bit better in the next post as it's related to knitting styles, but the stitch orientation is simply the way the active stitch is sitting on the needle.  Different styles produce different orientations, but there are two main ones in use.  The important part about stitch orientation that you need to know is this: stitch orientation is dictated by what direction you wrap the yarn around the needle before pulling it through the stitch.  That's it. 

While most mechanical knitting instructions and patterns presume a certain stitch orientation, the whole point of this is that it doesn't.  So don't worry about orientation for now.

Conclusion

So there you have it; the basics of how stitches work and how they create knitted fabric.  If you don't take anything else away from this post before moving on, remember this:

1. Stitches are loops and they have a front and back as well as a left and right leg.
2. Fabric is created by pulling yarn through a previously created stitch in a specific manner.
3. These manners of creating a new stitch are called 'knit stitch' and 'purl stitch' (or knitting and purling).
4. A knit stitch and a purl stitch are opposite sides of the same 'stitch'.
5. Active stitches are the ones on the needle that have not had a stitch pulled through them yet.
6. On an active stitch, one of these legs is called the working leg.  It is used to guide the other needle.
7. Stitch anatomy for all future instructions is based on the knitter's perspective, not the stitch's or fabric's.
8. The working leg of an active stitch is always the one closer to the needle tip and the front is always tilted towards the knitter.
9. Orientation is dictated by the direction you wrap your yarn to create a stitch.

Don't worry if it doesn't make complete sense now, especially if you've never knitted before; once we get to the actual knitting instructions, it'll come together. 

Knitting by Structure, Part 1: Um...What, Now?

Well that was a break I didn't intend to happen.  I'm behind on a lot of things.  Not my knitting so much, but everything else...yeah.  Happy New Year everyone.

Anyway, here's the start of something helpful for once. I've been meaning to do this post series for a bit, but since I'm lazy I just got around to it.  Might as well actually do something useful after some radio silence.

Knitting by Structure Series: The Part Where I Discuss What I Mean By This, Why You Should Read It, and What It Will Cover
(otherwise known as Part 1 - Introduction)

If you've been around the knitting realm a bit, you've probably noticed how most instructions for knitting are set up.  They usually go something like this: Step 1, do x motion.  Step 2, do y motion, Step 3, Profit.  That is, the instructions focus on the mechanics of the actions you need to complete.  They tell you what direct to put your needle, how exactly you should hold your yarn, and wrap the yarn around the needle, and so on. 

It makes the instructions simple, usually self-contained, and has a huge flaw in that it presumes one way of knitting is correct and makes the average student a slave to the instructions.  Ok, maybe that's a bit harsh, but you get the point.  A lot of people will read the instructions, mechanically follow them, and that's all they know.  If they run into an issue, or need to do something else, they have to go off and find more instructions.

I don't mean to pass judgement on the people that do this.  This is how many things are taught.  It makes it easier to learn as you just have to follow the process, right?  It's also how most of us will explain a new technique to other knitters...me included.  It's normal.

However, I propose a different method of looking at the action of knitting.  I think the focus should be on structure than the mechanics of the knitting process.

What do I mean when I say 'structure'?  Well, I mean the focus should be on the why of knitting, instead of the how.  That we should learn to knit by learning how a stitch works and how different actions influence it.  That the act of knitting should be taught by its generic algorithm, and that style (aka, how one holds the yarn and wraps it around the needle), should not be assumed by the instructions.  Make things modular; teach understanding and build up on that.

I will admit, this is a bit harder way of learning knitting.  The learning curve is steeper in the beginning, and you won't be able to jump straight away to producing results.  But the trade-off is that it levels out sooner.  Instead of just learning a certain set of mechanics, and having to learn to troubleshoot or a different technique after you make a mistake or want to change something, you gain an understanding up-front that makes it much easier to avoid some of the common mistakes one sees when learning to knit.  Or to understand enough to change things on the fly.

I will also admit that this line of thinking is a bias of mine.  I currently code for a living.  Condescending an activity to its essence, modularizing it so each part is semi-separated and re-useable, and building complexity on top of previous structure is good coding practice.  It reduces interdependence, makes things re-usable, can save time, and absolutely saves maintenance and enhancement effort later on. And that's the beauty of this approach.  You may have to put more effort in at first to understand what's going on, but later the whole arsenal of knitting techniques is open to you. To slightly extend another programming-knitting metaphor that someone else really came up with, we want to learn how to be more than compilers, reading instructions and changing them directly into fabric.  We want to be able to program the instructions a bit so that when the compiler reads something that doesn't compute, we don't have to spit out an error and leave it at that.

So with that justification out of the way, the following is the outline of Learning to Knit by Structure:

1.  Learn the structure of a stitch.  What do we mean when we say 'stitch front' or 'left leg'?  How does each stitch interlock with others to form a knitted fabric?
2. Become familiar with the knitting styles (this is things like English and Continental as well as Western, Eastern, and Combined).  How does each direct you to hold the yarn and wrap it around the needle (at this point we are not concerned on how to actually knit and purl)? 
3. Learn and understand how each style effects the stitch orientation.  Why do we get the same fabric using different styles?  How do knitting patterns assume it works? What style do you gravitate to (at this point, you must pick a style to learn first).
4. How do we knit and purl?  What must we do to read the stitch and know where to put the needle and pull the yarn through?  This will be presented in such a way it doesn't matter what style is being used.
5. Certain things presume a specific structure and orientation in common knitting parlance.  What are they?  How do things such as directional decreases actually work?  Twisting stitches (that is, what does 'ssk', 'k2tog', and 'tbl' really mean)?
6. There are other basic techniques that don't rely as much on such presumptions, but should still be learned as a basic: other decreases such as yarn-overs, increasing, picking up stitches, casting on and binding off (these may need to be taught before step 4, at least superficially).

At this point, a knitter that has learned and understood these steps can go off and use the multitude of resources out there to pick up more advanced skills.  Short rows?  Cables?  Lace? Shaping?  All these techniques build on the steps above: how does a stitch work, and how do we make it?  I purposed that anyone who has learned the ideas presented above will be able to pick up these kinds of skills no problem...even if all they can find is mechanical instructions.  As well, knowing the whys of knitting should guide you through any issues or mistakes...or even a shift in preferences.  Even when the fix is a hack.  Especially if the fix is a hack.

Now, of course really learning this comes with practice.  Mistakes will happen, something won't click for a bit, that's all normal.  Learning the basics of each step is enough to go on; once a knitter starts actually knitting, they should be able to learn with action as well as theory.  I know people learn differently, and they will gravitate towards what they find easiest.  Which may mean that a step will be done out of order.  That's ok.

However, if you want to learn this way (even if you already know how to knit), it does take one thing: eagerness to know why what happened happened, and a willingness to learn it...at least at the basic explanation level (after all, what is outlined here is skimming the surface a bit.  But we do have to balance why with how, and I get that most knitters don't have time for an academic-level discussion, me included.  Though if you want to go right ahead).  What I mean is that you can't just want the quick fix, just looking for the detailed instructions that you will follow to produce a result.  These are the people also running to someone when they got a virus again by downloading from a shady source a mistake occurs without even attempting to fix it. I get that you may not know off the top of your head (I don't remember much off the top of my head.  That's what the Internet and books are for), but you must be willing to try and learn at least where to find the answer.

Humans are pretty smart cookies.  Knitting isn't rocket science, or even programming.  You got this.

Guides for Self-Taught Crocheters: Just How Do I Hold the Hook and Yarn Anyhow?

It's about time I do something for the crocheters out there.  I tend to focus on knitting for these posts since I learned how to knit in recent memory, and so I come across stuff in my own travels.  On the other hand, my mother taught me to crochet when I was 8.  It's been awhile.

However, I was in a conversation recently about how one hold the yarn and hook in crochet.  Turns out there's a lot of unofficial variation out there, despite there being only two ways to both hold the hook and to actually crochet.  So I figured that it would be a good idea to not only cover the official ways, but some of the variations out there as well...because, you never know, you may like it better!

Styles vs Variations vs Whatever You Call It
First note that no matter what you may think, the term crochet style is not used the same way the term knitting style is.  A knitting style, as you may know, is how you hold and manipulate the yarn to produce all your stitches.  Crochet style...let's just say that it isn't used much to mean how you hold the yarn and hook to produce your stitches.  That would make too much sense.  Unfortunately, searching fails here.  After searching for the term crochet style on Google, it seems like no one uses it the same way at all.  The first entry is a Pinterest board and the second is a eHow article where the author calls both Tunisian crochet (a different yarn craft with different tools and stitches) and free-form crochet (I could see the usage, but I would call this an approach) 'styles'. It doesn't get any better, on the first two pages at least.

The truth is, there isn't a comprehensible term because the 'styles', in the knitting sense, aren't modular packages like the knitting styles are.  You have the hand you use to hold the hook, and then you have variations that you can pick and choose to use with the hand-style.  I'll call the first the base, since all variations follow from this.

Speaking of such, variations are things like how to hold the hook and wrap the yarn around your fingers. Basically, variations of the standard way of crocheting.  Some of these may be 'official', but some may just be the way you learned or fell into.  I'll cover some of the more popular ones here.

The official ways of holding the crochet hook are sometimes called positions or holds as well.  As you can see, terminology really isn't consistent in crochet.

The Base of Crochet Methods
All variations to crocheting start with what hand you use to hold the hook.  The hand you use to hold the hook is usually determined by your dominate hand, so unless you're ambidextrous or have problems with one of your hands, you'll probably have learned or will learn one base and stay with it.

For example, say you're like me and you're severely right-handed, you'll start with the hook in your right hand, and use your left hand to hold tension in the yarn.  This is usually called Right-Handed Crochet.

On the other hand (ha), you are dominantly left-handed, you'll do the opposite: you hold the hook in your left hand and the yarn in your right.  This is called Left-Hand Crochet.

If you don't favor one hand over the other much, you could pick and choose.  However, I would recommend that you go with the right hand.  Why?  Because almost all crochet patterns presume right-handed crochet. One of the consequences with choosing a base is that it determines which way you create the loops and therefore build the fabric.  With right-hand crochet, you work from right to left, and vice versa.  This has little overall consequence for the final product, or even what variations you use, but unless you're good with spacial thinking, left-handers may find it difficult to picture what's going on in the instructions or provided pictures.  That, and depending on the pattern writer, they may use 'left' instead of 'next stitch' or other similar phrases that assume right-handedness.  Left-handed crocheters have to watch out for that and mirror as needed.

Though, as you may suspect, handedness isn't the end all be all of it.  Since the non-dominate hand does the work of holding the yarn (and usually the work-in-progress), you may find that you prefer the hold the hook in your non-dominate hand instead so that the yarn is in your dominate hand.  Hand-ness is more important in crochet than, say, knitting, but it isn't everything many make it out to be.

Since to give real instructions means introducing some of the variations (after all you still need the way to hold the hook and yarn to start), I don't have any guides here, but here's a good list of myths associated with left-handed crochet.

Variations
So how do you hold the hook and hold tension in the yarn? Well, that's a lot more complicated.  There's a lot of variation, and it has little to do with the base or necessary technique usage and a lot about preference or what your teacher (both meatspace and not) used.  The only effect on the final product these variations have is personal to the crocheter...that is, you may find that one method produces neater stitches for you vs another.  Therefore, I won't make any broad recommendations as to which one to try first or learn.  You need to play around to find your best fit.

Holding the Hook
There are two official methods of holding a crochet hook: the knife method and the pencil method.  These are no way the only two variations in holding the hook, but they are what you'll run into if you learn from most sources, and I'd say the many of the variations are variations of these two methods.

The knife method, also called the overhand or over-the-hook method, is called that because you hold the crochet hook like you would a knife.  See the second set of pictures on this site and this site (also the third set there), and the first set on this site for slightly different variations on this method.  The key is that the shaft is under the palm of the hand with your thumb and some forefinger or set of forefingers on the grip.  While some sources will say to use your index finger and thumb, you can also use your middle finger and thumb, or all of them.  The other fingers aren't technically involved in the classic style of this method, but you may find yourself wrapping your pinky, ring finger, or both around the shaft of the hook (for stability and/or to help guide or move the hook).  Another connected variation is holding it 'fist like', like many of the commenters in the second link.  The hook can be facing you (see the first and third link), towards the floor (see second link), or the opposite of both of those (I guess, though I haven't see it).  However, hook position will be more of a consequence on how you hold the hook instead of a direct choice.  You may also turn the hook as you're crocheting.

The pencil method, also called the underhand or under-the-hook method, is also named after the common utensil in which the grip is similar.  See the first set of pictures in the first two links above, and the second in the third link for examples.  The key here is that the shaft is resting on or floating around the area between the thumb and forefinger, and only those two fingers are holding the crochet hook.  This method is a little less popular and so there seems to be less examples of variation to it, but it's possible.  For example, you can use your middle finger to grip instead of your pointer, and use the pointer to guide the hook (I tried it and found it easier that way than standard pencil grip, actually, but then again I'm weird and use my middle finger and thumb to grip all hooks and needles).

Holding the Yarn
On the other hand, there's no 'official' methods to hold the yarn, and the variations are endless.  However, there are right ways and wrong ways to do it.  This is because the way you hold the yarn has a direct effect on how tightly or loosely your stitches will come out (for the knitters out there, this doesn't hold as true for knitting due to how the stitches are produced, but that's a different topic).  Use the wrong hold, or the wrong one for you, and your stitches may be uneven, too loose, or too tight.

I say the wrong one for you because a right method that works for a million people may not work with your hand, especially since this is the non-dominate one we're most likely talking about.  Hands vary in size, shape, or strength, and that will have an effect on which method you prefer. For example, you might have cause two of your fingers to be stiff and prone to locking up because you rammed that hand into a bookcase years ago (ok, maybe that's just me). Things like that all can have an effect. The style you'll like may also change over time and incidents.  That's fine.  As long as you're getting good results, it doesn't matter.

One common way to hold the yarn is to wrap the yarn first around your pinky, and then over one of the other fingers (index, usually, but the middle can also be used) as a guide.  The fourth and fifth pictures down on this site shows this, as well as the first yarn hold method on this page (scroll past the hook holds).  Another variation is the second picture in this link.  The pinky wrap provides the tension, and the other finger is a guide to hold your yarn so that you can grab it with the hook. This method may give you a tighter tension than others, but it can also impede yarn flow as the yarn has to pull through the twist around the pinky finger.

Another is to pull the yarn between your pinky and ring finger, and then pull the yarn from under your fingers up and over your index (or middle) finger.  Grasping the yarn between the last two fingers provides the tension, and again, index or middle is your guide.  You can see this variation in the third picture of the first link in the last paragraph.  This way provides a looser tension, depending on how hard you grip the yarn with your last two fingers.  It may be too loose or you may find that you grip too hard to be conformable with this method.

A third is to hold the yarn with your last two or three fingers (bent towards the palm to hold it), and again, put it up over your index finger.  The third example in the third link above, and the second yarn hold method in the second link show this way.  This way is even looser in tension, if you need that.

There, are, of course, many other methods out there...way too many to list.  The last example on this link (same as the third above) is another, more unique way (the comments are sources for other variations and methods as well).  This link is a variation on the second one I listed that involves having the source of the yarn under the palm instead of over (makes more sense when you look at the picture).  This one shows the crochet just holding the yarn between the index and middle finger. 

If you really have no clue about which one to try, start with one of the three discussed above and modify from there (and if it's unconformable, then try another).  Don't get too frustrated at first, though.  Learning how to control tension in crochet takes some practice no matter what way you hold the yarn.

Conclusion
All in all, crochet methodology is fluid and you may have to experiment to find the way you like.  Have fun with it; after all, it's most likely your hobby.  Or will be, I hope.

Guides for Self-Taught Knitters: All the Different Ways to Knit and Where to Learn Them

There are many books and webpages out there that let one teach themselves to knit.  If your book or website sucked, it would have just showed you how to knit.  That is, the author showed you one way to knit because that's how you do it, right?

Wrong.  There are multiple styles of knitting, and all are valid ways of producing knit and purl stitches.  A good self-teaching book will cover this, as all that matters is using the style that's most comfortable to you, and it's better to learn that style up front.  However, every self-taught knitter...hell, every knitter...should at least be familiar with the different styles of knitting.

Why, you may ask? Because knowing the different styles lets you:

• Find the best method for you.  This may be the one you learned from the book you bought or your grandmother.  But you may find that you're more conformable or faster with a style you had no clue about before.
• Use the best method for the situation.  For example, stranded color knitting is easier if you can knit using both of the most popular styles.
• Understand some pattern assumptions that arise based on the knitter's own way of knitting.
• Help or, ever better, demonstrate any method to a newbie (because your preferred way may not be someone else's).
• Impress your knitting friends with your knowledge.  They may even think you're a better knitter than you are! (this is a double edged sword, so tread lightly).

So, lets get down to it.  One disclaimer, there may be other ways that I don't know about, so don't be offended if I don't mention some of the more obscure styles.  However, do let me know about them!

Oh, and this is an overview, not a teaching guide.  Use the links located in the 'So You Want to Learn It?' sub-section of each style to find good written and video instructions.


English Style
Also known as American style, this is the style you most likely learned from your crappy book you bought or that random website you found.  Very common in the Western world and in learn-to-knit guides for some reason.

What It Is
Either letting the yarn hang down or holding it in the right hand, the knitter produces stitches by using the right hand to wrap the yarn around the right needle.

The Positives

• It's one of the styles you need to know for easy stranded knitting.
• If you're a righty non-yarn-crafter, you may find this style easier to learn (as most of the action is done by your right hand).
• It's pretty straightforward, and there's lots of instructions on it if it isn't.

The Negatives

• It's easy to twist your stitches.  Just forget which way the yarn wraps around the needle.
• It takes more movement to produce your stitches, so not the fastest method out there.

So You Want to Learn It?

KnittingHelp.com has series of videos on their site (second listed, page is for knit stitch but purl is in the menu).  They also have the purl video on YouTube. And now they even have the styles named right (when I first found the site, they had English and Continental swapped).

I like TECHKnitter for not only good instructions, but also explanations on why it works.  Link goes to knit stitch, see top for purl.

For Dummies isn't a bad series, and they have their knitting guides online (link also to knit stitch).

Searching YouTube always helps (so you can figure out how exactly you like to hold the yarn and so forth).


Continental Style
Also known as German style or Left Handed Knitting (not to be confused with backwards knitting), this is the other common method in the Western world.

What It Is
Holding the yarn in your left hand, you use your right needle to 'pick', or grab the working yarn through the stitch on the left hand needle.

The Positives

• It's the other style you need for stranded knitting.
• It's also straightforward and common enough to find good instructions.
• Once you get use to it, it's fast.  There's less movement involved in this style.
• If you're a right-handed crocheter, this style will most likely be the easiest to learn (as you hold the yarn in the same hand, keep tension in a similar manner, and move the right needle similar to a crochet hook). 
• May be easier for left-handed people, as you control tension using the left hand.

The Negatives

• If you've already been taught English style, it may be hard to learn.
• There's a bigger difference between the knit and purl stitch, and purling is trickier in this method.
• If you're an extreme righty, holding tension in your left hand may be tricky. 

So You Want to Learn it?

The For Dummies guide, TECHKnitter, and KnittingHelp.com's YouTube video series also have guides for this style.  KnittingHelp also has all their videos on their site (first listed). All links go to the knit stitch like before.

Personally, I purl using my thumb to pull down the yarn, though I can't find where I learned to do that (and I don't think it's the best way, just the way that I fell into).  I find that the continental style of purling has the most variation, so you may need to do some hunting to find the best way for you.

Another awesome way to purl when you use this style is called Norwegian Purling.  Very helpful for ribbing, as you don't need to switch your yarn from the back to the front.

Also, most these guides will tell you to wrap the yarn around your pinky for tension. This video shows an alternate way of holding the yarn (start at time stamp 0:50). While I also don't have the link from where I learned this, this is how I hold the yarn:

I find that searching for 'speed knitting continental' on YouTube may net you some good videos if you're learning this way to knit faster.


Combination Style
Eastern styles meets western styles to produce a more uncommon but interesting way to knit.

What It Is
The knitter deliberately twists their stitches so that the live loops face the opposite way, allowing the knitter to insert the needle in the front for both the knit and purl stitches (Doing this un-twists the stitch, therefore still ending up with the correct knit and purl stitch in the fabric).

The Positives

• Knit and purl stitches can come out more even.
• Style can be merged with either English or Continental (that is, you can hold the yarn in either hand).  This is because both of those styles are Western styles, and this is a merger between western and eastern.

The Negatives

• Some pattern re-interpretation is needed, as decreases slant the opposite way when done in this style.
• Nowhere near as common as English and Continental style, so getting help may be a challenge.

So You Want to Learn it?

A slightly better description can be found on this style's Wikipedia page. 

One of the best known people who use this technique is Annie Modesitt.  That link goes to her comprehensive online guides on this style.

I first found out about this style when reading Grumperina's blog.  That link goes to her set of how-to videos on this style.

KnittingHelp also has a video on YouTube for the knit stitch in this method and its also on their site (third listed).


Backwards (Mirror) Knitting
This isn't really a style, but instead a method of knitting by swapping the actions for each hand in one of the above styles.  To really confuse you, this is also sometimes called Left-Handed Knitting.

What It Is
Backwards knitting is where you use your preferred style to work left to right instead of right to left. In all the styles above, no matter what hand you hold the yarn in, you use your right needle to pull the yarn through a loop on your left needle, which produces the new live stitch on the right needle.  When you mirror knit, you instead use the left needle to pull the yarn through a stitch on the right needle, producing the new stitch on the left needle.

The Positives

• May be the easiest way to knit for someone who's left-handed (hence why it's sometimes called left-handed knitting).
• You can avoid purling when flat knitting by knitting the purl rows this way. Also helpful when knitting a pattern that involves constantly going back and forth for short distances (for example, entrelac).

The Negatives

• If you mirror knit exclusively, you will have to re-interpret any pattern you use, as almost all patterns assume right to left knitting. This can be very confusing and a source of errors.  This is also why it's recommended that those who are left-handed try to learn one of the styles above first (that, and knitting  really does utilize both hands in manipulating the stitches, so non-mirrored knitting isn't strongly 'right-handed' in the first place. However, you are still using your right hand to wrap/pick the yarn, which may trouble some left-handed people.  All I can say is choose your negative).

So You Want to Learn It?

KnittingHelp suggests to hold a mirror up to their video to learn how to do it backwards (see last section), though I'm including this to more laugh at it (Really? How are you going to hold up a mirror and knit with the video?).

This video on YouTube shows how to do this English style.

This video, on the other hand, shows it in Continental style.

Conclusion
The styles above are all the ones I know about as of now.  I'll add to this post if I find other styles in my knitting travels.  And yes, I know I'm missing Eastern knitting styles...but as I'm in the western world,  I still need to learn about those myself.

Guides for Self-Taught Knitters: Avoiding Twisted Stitches

I'm sure we all have that one mistake (or more) we've made while learning to knit, where we look back at it years later when we're more experienced and go 'Holy shit, how the hell did I do that?'  I'm not talking about the mistake you catch a few rows away and decide not to fix, nor the mistake you make when you think you can read the mind of the pattern writer from miles away and therefore read in the pattern directions that happen to not be in the pattern.  No, I'm talking about being oblivious to the fact that you're knitting wrong for a whole year because you never saw anyone knit in person.  That kind of mistake.

Being that it took several tries of Googling this issue before I found out what I was doing wrong, I wish to embarrass myself and show you exactly what I did wrong.  Welcome to the first post in my new series, Guides for Self-Taught Knitters.

The Mistake
Pop quiz: Can you tell the difference between these two hats? (Other than the fact that the top and brim is bigger on one):

If you said: 'Oh, the stockinette stitch on the bottom one looks a bit weird,' or, 'The stockinette is leaning a bit on the bottom one' , you would be correct.  This is more apparent in this close-up (the left hat corresponds to the bottom hat in the picture above):

Notice how in the left hat, the stitches seem to be tighter, with one side sticking out over the other, instead of flat and more open in the right one?  That's because in the left hat, all the knit stitches (which are all the knit-side stitches, since these hats were knit in the round) are twisted. What do I mean by 'twisted'?  Well, first, you need to go to this page to see a schematic of what a knit stitch is supposed to look like.  Notice how all the loops are open, and one row of yarn waves through the loops above and below it?  That's how stockinette should look like, and it how the right side hat was done.  Twisted stitches, on the other hand, are where the 'U' and/or upside down 'U' shapes in the diagram end up not 'U's, but crossed:

Source picture is here.

That red row in my badly 'shopped schematic is what every knit row in that hat on the left side is.  While it still creates the semblance of a 'U' shape, it pulls all the stitches tighter than they should be, which we'll see produces a whole host of unintentional side effects.

The Symptoms
You may be suffering from twisted knit and/or purl stitches if your projects are doing one or more of the following:

1) When you stretch a piece done in stockinette and/or ribbing, the stitches pull closed, not open, and the sides of the stockinette columns look like ladders:

2) Your ribbing sucks.  More specifically, the side in which you are not twisting your stitches (unless you're twisting both your knits and purls, in which you wouldn't have this issue) is gaping wide open, and you can't get it not to do that by knitting tighter.  Also, you have huge ladders between the columns (It'll look a bit like the stretched picture above; but unfortunately, I don't have a good example of this one).
If you want to test this, knit a round in 3x1 ribbing.  It will be obvious.

3) When knitting a raglan round sweater, the increase lines aren't straight.  Instead, it looks like one line is bigger than the other, though when you measure it, it's not:

4) When knitting stockinette in the round, the columns of stitches curve around the tube:

5) Increases and decreases look screwy.

Believe it or not, that top part is just stockinette in the round with standard yoke decreases.

6) The columns of stockinette don't lie flat; there's a definite edge on one side (this will be the side in which the 'leg' of the loop is on top).  See the second picture of this post.

Of course, there may be more here I never ran into.  As well, depending on exactly how you're producing the twisting, or if you're making another mistake on top of it, will change exactly what symptoms you're seeing.


Causes and Corrections
Since there are so may different ways to knit and purl properly, there are so many ways you could be screwing it up to produce the twisted stitches.  There is one constant here, though.  If you're knitting into the front of the loop (otherwise known as the knit stitch, where the needle is placed in the right leg of the loop from left to right), if the left side of the loop is facing the front, you're going to twist your stitch.  If you're knitting into the back of the loop and the right leg is facing you, you will twist your stitch as well.

To tell you how I did it, you first need to read up on the English knitting style, if you're not familiar with the term.  This is one of the two most common styles of knitting in the Western world, and if you learned how to knit out of a book, you most likely learned this method of knitting.

One element of this knitting style is that you use your right hand to wrap or 'throw' the yarn around the right hand needle to create the stitch. Now, pop quiz: which way do you wrap the yarn around the needle in English style?

*cue Jeopardy music*

If you answered 'clockwise', you would be wrong, and you just found the reason all your knit stitches are twisted.  You wrap the yarn counter-clockwise in English style.  Unfortunately, the book I learned out of did not have very clear instructions, as it didn't state this fact.  Then again, this was also the book where I first thought knitting in the back of the loop was how one actually knit, but at least it only took me one project to figure that one out (see this project for an example of that, combined with the twisted stitches issue).

Correcting one's action depends on how one was screwing up in the first place.  To correct the mistake I made, you just need to train yourself to throw the yarn counter-clockwise.  Or, you can do what I did, which was to say 'screw this, I'm learning how to knit continental style.'

On that note, I'm thinking my second guide should be on knitting styles, as the books I've seen tend to say 'this is how you knit' without explaining that there are so many different ways one can knit (and purl) correctly.