T is for...

Twisted Stitches!

This is a knitting-confession-time post, really.

Anyone who has knit with me and actually watched me knit, knows that I knit... oddly.  My own sister (who I actually taught to knit!) saw me knitting once and was perplexed over what I was doing.  To sum, I do several things differently:

1. I'm a lefty.  If I set up my pieces in the most comfortable working direction for me (right needle to left, not the other way round), I often end up reversing the image.  This doesn't really make much difference in the average cable or lace pattern (does it really make a difference which way leaves are cascading?), but it does take special concentration if it's something like a logo or lettering which HAS to be facing a certain direction :)
2. I don't actually turn my work (this is a BIG oddity).  I am always looking at the right side of the piece.  This keeps my hands from getting as tired, and it makes reading charts very easy, since I just have to make it all look like the picture!
3. The way some (most) people knit in English or Continental style... I don't.  If I'm being a little more 'normal' for whatever reason in a project (perhaps not wanting to reverse an image), or if I'm knitting what would be the wrong side row, I will knit English ("throwing").  If it's in the round, though, or if it's the right side rows of a piece, I use what's called Scottish style.  Realized that I was using a 'real' knitting style with the Interweave Knits Spring 2004 issue's article on different, less common knitting styles.  Scottish style is designed for long straight needles (so I'm a little slower on circulars), but it keeps all the needle control in my left hand - very good for me!  

Oh yeah, if you haven't read that issue of IK, you should - TONS of great patterns, and that awesome article on knitting styles.  Really one of their best issues!

A side effect of not turning my work was that I had to learn to read my knitting and how the stitches sit on the needle.  Very useful skill, especially when you drop a stitch, but you do have to make an effort to learn it.  When you turn your work, you're always facing the stitches in the same direction, your movements to create the stitches are always the same.  But when you don't turn your work, you are twisting the stitches as you are going one way, and then untwisting them by going back the other.  The combination of the two rows gives you the regular "v" shaped knit stitches (as you should create), so all is good, as long as you know what you're doing.  The problem was when I was still learning - I didn't always untwist the stitches on the returning (wrong side) row!  

So, after that long explanation - T is for Twisted Stitches!

I realized all this in my first project that had yarn clear enough to see the stitches: a big rugby-striped, "Harry Potter style" scarf in my college colors, green and gold.  Other projects I'd done were in boucle yarns or in really dark yarns, so it was very difficult to see the twisting.  Then came the gold in my W&M striped scarf, which was a brighter, smooth yarn.  Took the entire hugely-long scarf to figure out what I was doing to create the stitches I was getting!  And by that point, I just finished what I was doing through the end of the scarf.  So, this project became a learning project and a lovely example of how a mistake repeated across an entire project can become a design element!