How do you hold your knitting needles when you knit? There are many different knitting styles as I understand it. Some styles have us hold the yarn in our left hand, others in our right, some have us throw the yarn over the needle, others have us “pick it”. I have read that we as knitters typically continue to knit in the style in which we are first taught. That sounds reasonable to me but having at least one other style under our belts can be quite handy. It can gain us some speed, help to alleviate hand strain, perhaps relieve a little boredom if we can jump back and forth between styles, and if we are knitting with two strands of yarn we can hold one in each hand instead of having to put one down and pick up the other with the same hand for each colour change. There are lots of resources online to help us learn a new style. This, dear friends, is where I find myself these days. As with knitting styles there are lots of different needle choices and methods when knitting socks, double points, magic loop, 9” circulars, etc. I am typically a double pointed sock knitter but recently I dug a 9” circular out of my needle stash and thought I would give it a try again and lo and behold there it was, the reason the 9” was in the bottom of the needle stash, I hold my right hand needle like a pen and there is no room for that with a 9” circ. I would have to change what my right hand is doing as well as how I put my yarn around the left hand needle. I think the process of knitting with the little circular could be faster, one essentially knits around and around therefore here is no switching of needles as with the double pointed sets. So it looks like I have a choice, struggle thru learning something new with my knitting or drop the little circular back into the dark hole! I say struggle because it will be a struggle not to flip back to my old tried and true method. Usually learning something new is a joy but aren’t they so much easier to learn if we don’t have an alternative method in our knowledge base that we like and are so comfortable with! How many days does it take to break a habit? Only time will tell which will prevail dear friends, will this old chick learn a new trick!
Speaking of new, we have a new podcast out, episode three. Dianne and I introduced Gloria in this episode and as I understand it she will be a regular! We also mentioned how busy Dianne has been dying some new silk scarves. I think they are absolutely gorgeous, you might like to pop into the shop and take a peek, I bet you will agree with me.
We really do smile, honestly we do. The yarn is very lovely, soft and just delightful! You tube selects the happiest pictures don’t they!
I am full of smiles these days over a new project I am working on, once I get a few of the wrinkles worked out I will share it with you. I am a little excited about it!
Until next time dear readers, whatever your style, all the best and thanks so much for stopping by.
I am giving you all a little update, these 9″ circular needles are driving me “bonkers”, it isn’t looking good my dear friends, not good at all.