i am looking for instructions on continental knitting. Does anyone know where i can find them i've heard it is easy to learn.
judy Riddle

Try knittinghelp.com

They have videos there that will help you

Thank you and I will check this site out.

A good book is "Y Not Knit?" by Susan and Jill Wolcott>

Dear Judy,

While you are taking the trouble to learn to our ancient and honoured craft, may I question the wisdom of looking for something that is "easy to learn."

Surely, the easiest thing according to the old adage is falling off a cliff, but I would hardly recommend that.

I wouldn't say that the way that experienced knitters knit is the only way or the best, but I assure you when I take my knitting to continental Europe, the knitters there are amazed at the versatility of the technique I was fortunate enough to have been taught.

I have read a quote from a well known publisher who makes money out of selling her wares:

"There is no right way and no wrong way to knit."

but I promise you I have seen web-sites with some pretty ridiculous hand positions, causing all sorts of problems.

Tell you what, if I ever visit my brother-in-law in Beaverton, I'll drop by and give you some real help!

Best wishes, John

John,

You would also be welcome in Birmingham at any time.

Thanks, Bill, for the kind invitation. You never know, you know. . . .

Best wishes, John

quote:

Originally posted by John:

Surely, the easiest thing according to the old adage is falling off a cliff, but I would hardly recommend that.

Falling off a cliff isn't as easy as it sounds. First, you have to find a cliff. Next, you have to get to it. Then, you have to conquer everything your brain and body say about being upright and on solid ground to get yourself over the cliff. It not so easy when you break it down.

Anyhoo, I'm a self-taught Continental knitter who doesn't knit exactly the way the video shows, but it's comfortable for me and it gets the job done.

John, if you and DW do go to Beaverton for a visit, let us know. My brother lives up in Portland... or if you're heading to California for a visit...

Thanks, Lisa. I don't see us crossing the pond this year, but Judith is due to retire next year, so we may well be doing the world tour as her retiremnt present. You never know.

And thank you, too, Sarah Guest. I suppose we don't get many chances to practise falling off a cliff either. Perhaps we start with small cliffs and work towards the really big ones.

Best wishes, John

John, I would be pleased to meet the 2 of you.

...back to the matter at hand, knitting in general is not hard to learn. What made it "easier" for me to learn, was finally sitting down with just one person (not 2 persons), and having them available to help if I got myself stuck, i.e. dropped stitch, too many stitches, this kind of stuff. You eventually know how to take care of those problems, but not right at the beginning. When I finally sat down to learn to knit "for real", that was the most important thing.

I'm sure this question has come up before although I didn't find it on a search:

Which way do MOST Americans knit? Sadly, I am a "lonely" knitter! I don't have knitting buddies so I don't know what techniques everyone else uses. I knit Continental which is much faster and easier than English for me (especially for ribbing). I am under the impression that more Americans knit English....is that accurate? If so, why? Are there advantages to that method?

The main reason for me to know how to knit English is for two color work so I can use both hands.

Marykb--
From everything I've heard, many more Americans knit English style than Continental, probably because that's the style that came over on the Mayflower and took root.

My mother and her friends were far from Mayflower descendants -- they came to the States during the great waves of immigration in the early 1900s. Yet all these first generation Russian and Italian and German ladies who spent hours at Rhoda's Knitting Shop in Philadelphia held the yarn in their right hands and "threw" it with great speed and aplomb. Maybe they were eager to be "American" in everything they did.

My generation learned from our mothers, so we learned English. It's only recently, and with the help of knitting gurus like Elizabeth Zimmerman, that many of us have converted to Continental. (I made the switch on the fly, in Italy, because I thought that the ladies on the adjoining park benches were snickering at my brutto style of knitting.)

Although I now use the Combined or Eastern Uncrossed version of yarn-in-the-right-hand knitting, I'll still find myself reverting to English when I'm tired. And you're right: it's very, very handy for stranding.

So long as the loops are making it onto the needles and not raveling on the way, the yarn hand /needle position is immaterial. I have seen a whole lot of ways to hold the needles and throw or pick the yarn. I have concluded that there are natural throwers and natural pickers and trying to teach one to do the other at first ( for a beginning knitter) is an essay in frustration for them both. I try to help people find their natural style first and then once they have that down they can work on another style.
I am a natural picker. I can throw english both hands and pick both hands in both directions but getting to the point of being comfortable in both styles both directions was a long very uncomfortable process a bit like shifting all your casual activitys from your dominant to your non dominant hand. If you are wondering what I mean, try a week of brushing your teeth, your hair, eating, and using toilet papter to your non dominant hand. It felt for a while as if my brain would explode.
find your natural style first and then branch out. and relax, it is knitting.

As a crocheter, I find that controlling the yarn with my left hand and "scooping" is very similar to the motions of crocheting. In fact knitting continental is almost EXACTLY like chaining in crochet(at least the way I do it)so I took to it pretty easily.

BTW...dances with needles you'd better hurry up and post again QUICKLY! Your last post is #666!