the twisted yarn

Knitting, crochet, running, and silliness.

Knit Faster! Knit Faster!

by 78 Comments

Ever felt as though you need to learn how to knit faster? Those afghans and skirts and scarves won’t finish themselves, y’know. Yes yes, I realize we’re doing this for fun not efficiency, but I’ve got so many pattern ideas – and so many of other people’s patterns – fizzing around in my head, and I want to knit/crochet them all, right now. Stamps foot, petulantly. Tell me that I’m not alone?

Just for context, I’ve always been an English-style knitter of the most inefficient kind, shamefully lifting my hand from the right needle to wrap the yarn, each and every stitch. Every. Single. Stitch. I do it pretty rapidly in the hope that nobody will notice but still, that’s not good, is it? I’ve tried flicking the yarn so that all fingers can remain on-duty at needle-HQ, as taught to me by Mother Twisted many years ago, but, well maybe I’ve got weird fingers but that never seemed to work. Anyway, I’m not going to tell you how few stitches I was knitting per minute, because you’d laugh at me. And then you’d catch your breath enough to say, ‘Really?‘ And then you’d laugh at me some more. By which time my meagre ego would be crushed. Crushed, I tell you.

So, what to do? A rapid brainstorm yielded the following options:-

1. Convince the Stoic Spouse to learn to knit, using a complex system of cheese-related inducements, thus potentially doubling household knitting output.

2. Learn to knit continental style.

Having made this short list, I glanced over at the Stoic Spouse, who was idly winkling gravel out of the sole of his shoe with the brass toasting fork*, and looking remarkably unlike any kind of fibre artist, so that left option 2.

Y’know, it was surprisingly easy to master continental knitting. It’s even easier if you’ve been knitting (and frogging) for a while, and have a decent grasp of the anatomy of a stitch. Instead of the “in, wrap, pull through, off” of English knitting, you hold your yarn in your left hand and use your right needle to reach in and scoop a loop of yarn then push the stitch off. That’s it! Wowsers! After a bit of practice, you can do it with negligible finger movements, and thus very very fast.

That said, of the two fastest knitters in the world (Miriam Tegels and Hazel Tindall), one knits continental-style and the other knits English, so it’s not all about the style per se, more about the smoothness and smallness and efficiency of movements.

After a couple of days of dodgy tension and wiggly fingers, I’d become respectably fast. YouTube is your friend, people, if you want to learn continental.

And whilst I’m busy humiliating myself in public I may as well add this: I broke my own cardinal knitting/crochet rule and paid dearly for it. Always practice new techniques on spare yarn, I say. Get your fibrous snarl-ups out of the way on the cheapest acrylic you can find, before you attempt to make an exquisite fairisle cushion cover of arctic qiviut for your best friend. Normally, I stick rigidly to this rule and it’s served me well. But this time, for some reason I can no longer recall but which may have involved grape-derived alcoholic beverages and overconfidence, I decided to learn continental knitting right in the middle of knitting a blanket for my friend’s baby. I know, I know, the very best outcome I could have hoped for was an unsightly shift in gauge. What I got was an ugly mish-mash of wildly fluctuating tension. *Sigh* Time to call on Mr Frog. 🙁 So I pulled out my needle, and re-inserted it about twenty rows back:-

Getting Ready To Meet Mr Frog
Getting Ready To Meet Mr Frog

and ripped and ripped and ripped. (Ouch.)

Ouch.
Ouch.

and didn’t come back until I’d properly mastered continental knitting on some scrappy old spare yarn of uncommon ghastliness, by which time I was getting respectably fast.

The trick to speed really is to keep those movements small. I keep all of my fingers very close to the needles. I know some knitters have the left index finger raised with the yarn around it, but I keep it on the needle, and that seems to help. And by pressing your left index finger against the needle/stitch, you can stretch the stitch enough to make it easy to reach through and scoop the loop with your right needle. image Just so you know, I finished the blanket. And the baby hasn’t even been born yet. image It’s a clever log cabin design by Sirdar, using some of the yarn from my Deramores prize. I just hope that the baby likes it, when he/she arrives in a few weeks’ time…

*Not really. He was actually baking an apple crumble, but that didn’t fit with my anecdote.

Comments

  1. Welcome to continental knitting ! Next up combination knitting to make those continental purls easier. 😉 The blanket is fabulous! Great colors for a baby!

    Reply

      • I know! I’m part of a knitting group on facebook and they are always showing kids jumpers that they have knitted in an evening but i’m pretty sure they would take me at least a month! I will learn from your mistake though and wait untill the next section of my current project to try it!

        Reply

  5. I’m another, ‘almost flicker, English Knitter’ ..pretty fast but have often wondered about learning the continental method….maybe after all the Christmas orders are done I’ll give it a go…love the artistic licence, poor man..lol

    Reply

  6. Gorgeous blanket. The log cabin design looks very clever 🙂

    I just can’t get to grips with any form of knitting. I’ll stick to crochet. Much simpler.

    Reply

  7. I’ve assigned myself a couple of garter stitch projects in the last couple of years with the intent of forcing myself to learn to knit continental. It goes great for a day or two, but inevitably something distracts me and the next time I pick up my project I forget all about my plan.

    Reply

  9. I learned continental on youtube as well! Still my best source for knitting as I’m extremely visual! 😉 That blanket is gorgeous! Well done!

    Reply

  10. Your posts are always entertaining with a sprinkle of instruction. I will try the continental stitch and see if my knitting speeds up a bit. Beautiful blanket.

    Reply

  11. Hmmm, may be tempted to try the continental method now. I’m not an un-slow ‘English’ knitter, but the thought of retraining seems a bit like trying to teach an old dog new tricks! Perhaps a new year’s resolution (not that I make them).

    Reply

  12. I totally understand what it’s like to have so many ideas buzzing around. I am also an English knitter (actually having learned while I lived in England!) and proud of it. I’ll just live with the frustration – LOL!

    Reply

  14. There are different kinds of knitting?! I thought there was just one! Much better a husband who can make a crumble than a husband who uses your brass toasting fork to winkle out stones from his shoe methinks. Mine used the brass toasting fork to winkle out toast from his teeth…sigh…

    Reply

  15. I taught myself to knit continental too, years ago, and have never regretted it. Like you, I keep my fingers close to the needles and learned by watching Elizabeth Zimmermann’s technique on her Knitting Workshop videos. And I made dishcloths at first in case I made mistakes or had uneven tension … which I did!

    Reply

  16. I knit holding the ends of the needles under my arms! I don’t know why. I can’t seem to break the habit and it makes progress very slow! Still, I knit for enjoyment not productivity so I just accept it now and plod on.

    Reply

  17. Beautiful blanket. May I suggest you get the toddler twinnage set up for knitting in tandem? I will leave it up to you to decide whether to teach them English or Continental knitting. I am sure this will help productivity.

    Reply

    • Thank you! The A&C blanket is chugging along slowly but steadily. I’ll post again about it soon. It’s always the background project I go back to when other projects are out of he way.

      Reply

  21. 1. Love the blanket! 2. I’m for mastering new and efficient techniques, but I didn’t know they had names – I just thought some people knit funny and some people knit right (not saying which is which :)). 3. See, I knew the Stoic Spouse needs a blog too – now I know what it’s going to be about!

    Reply

  22. Beautiful blanket! I tried continental knitting once but my stitches were so sloppy I didn’t really like the finished result. The thought of knitting faster though is one that definitely appeals, like you I have so many ideas and things I want to knit! Maybe it’s time to get on YouTube and give it another go…

    Reply

  23. I’ve gotten rather fast with English style, but I know how to do Continental (very slowly), and use it “in reverse” when I need to do really short rows so I don’t have to turn the work every five stitches. English style is apparently slower for a lot of people, but definitely faster for me! I guess it’s because I have to look at my work Continental-style to scoop the yarn, but I can throw the yarn around the needle and just feel that it’s right without looking, English style. Anyway, congratulations on finding the way that’s best for you, and what a lovely blanket!!

    Reply

  24. I would call myself an advanced beginner knitter and learned continental from the start on, you guessed it, You Tube. I also quilt and I agree with your sentiment of so many projects, so little time. I have to continuously tell myself it is a journey not a destination. I’m commenting today to say I just recently found your blog and find it to be some of the best writing on the Internet. Very well done….your knitting and your blog!

    Reply

  25. So clever with your colour combinations. Always look so natural and subtle. Will try continental method after Xmas when rush is over – baby jumper to knit and scarves. Think this method may also help my Mum whose hands are getting more arthritic and finding English method tiring.

    Reply

  26. I have never met another knitter who knit English style and takes her hand off the needle! You knit just like I do! I am so happy. I thought I was an oddity. I have tried to learn other ways for speed’s sake, but the pleasure of knitting gets lost. For me it’s the process that I enjoy most.

    Reply

  27. You are not alone. I constantly need to remind me that knitting should be fun and relaxing, but how can you not want to knit everything when you’re constantly being confronted with so many beautiful patterns. I also knit english style but I think I’ve managed to work it into a style that seems somewhat efficient. But I’m sure I’m not a very fast knitter and maybe learning continental would help me speed up.

    Reply

  28. The blanket is completely beautiful!!! So glad about you and Continental knitting. I DO often wonder if I can knit faster!

    Reply

  30. I did okay with continental knitting when I wasn’t knitting anything too complicated, but went back to English style because I got in a muddle with my yarn forwards when knitting lace! I am glad I learned it though, as it is handy to be able to work with yarn in each hand when knitting fairisle. I’m only just doing little bits of fairisle though. Baby steps!

    Reply

  31. I’ve never before come across anyone who knits using the same way of wrapping the yarn as I do – until now! I also tried switching to continental a few months ago, but couldn’t get my tension anything close to consistent. Maybe I need to try again!
    And the blanket is beautiful – it looks so cosy that I’m sure the new arrival will love it!

    Reply

  32. I am an English-style knitter too. I experimented with continental, but revert back. The log cabin blanket is beautiful. I am fascinated with your labels. Would you like to share your source for ordering the labels, or did you stamp them yourself?

    Reply

  33. No shame in starting the good work before mid-December! Even the fastest knitter isn’t going to finish much if they wait til then 🙂 Btw, I thought myself to knit continental and find the purling easier…

    Reply

  34. This made me laugh. Don’t you wish you could knit in your sleep? I learned to knit continental, and then had to struggle to master English-style years later so I could knit an Alice Starmore sweater (stranded with steeks!) two-handed. After years of knitting I can now purl just as fast as I knit, but still can’t purl English-style. Congrats!!

    Reply

  35. Really enjoying your blog. I am an English gal (from Bristol) now living in Sweden. I am lucky to be a quick knitter thanks to yarn obsession and having a Swedish mum who taught me to do the continental (not the dance, obviously!) I remember seeing my grandmother on my English father’s side working much slower and with what seemed more effort with the English method. Glad that my Swedish side was the one to teach me to knit!

    Feel free to pop by sometime to my blog: http://www.garnharmoni.com

    /Christina

    Reply

  36. I do feel that overwhelming push to knit faster! knit faster! I think about how I only have 40 or so knitting years left, and there’s no way I’ll finish all the patterns I want to do at the rate I’m going. That doesn’t even take into account all the new patterns that will pop up along the way, begging to be knitted. What about the ones that want to be knitted twice?? Augh! I’ve tried continental, but my tension was a disaster with uneven stitches everywhere. You have my utmost mad respect, Twisted, for making the leap.

    Reply

  37. This was a great read – it seems we were going down the continental path at the same time. My friend has recently started knitting continental because of her sore hands and finds it much quicker. So one afternoon I found I had a few hours to work this out.

    After watching a few videos, both of the fastest knitters and continental ‘how-to’s’ I was off and running. It was remarkably easy to pick up and initially my tension was quite consistent. Tension seems to be directly related to how I am doing the movement – if it is heavier on the right hand movement (scooping the wool) my tension is tighter, if I use more left hand rotation (scooping the needle) it is looser?? Then I set to work trying to figure out purling continental.

    There are many ways to do this it seems and I believe it is the way that you purl that separates German, Norwegian, Russian etc varieties of purling. My brain was in overdrive thinking of loop making, and trying out each of these approaches.

    After a little work with the purling, true to my nature, I somewhat rebelled on the need to have an inward motion (requiring the finger bobbing up and down) to scooping the same way I was in the knit stitches, but with the wool in front. It seemed to work well enough until I got to the knit stitches- the result is ‘twisted’ knit stitches that required knitting into the back. So into the back of the knit stitches I went. The end result looks identical to ‘proper’ English knitting and i did away with all the awkward continental purling.

    It was after watching a bunch of different videos that I realized what I was doing was Russian knitting. Whilst the knitting was going well, my problem is teaching the fingers to feed the stitches along… I still haven’t figured that out! And I am switching often between English and continental styles.

    One last thing I thought about after these hours of playing with wool and technique, spurred on because of ‘anti-purl’ sentiments (why is purling so much more laborious and slower???) was why are we turning project over and not just knitting??? So I tried that out, continental both directions, needles staying in the same hands, work staying as is, and simply switching the wool from the left to the right hand – after all we who knit English are used to right hand wool holding. Well that worked like a charm – Continental with no need to purl!!!

    I am still playing with these different approaches and slowly gaining speed. Do you have any tips on how to move the stitches along the needle in Continental style?? Sorry for rambling on as I have – its just that its so much fun to think of knitting in a completely different way 🙂

    Reply

    • Interesting! And I confess that you’re far ahead of me, because I haven’t yet learned to purl continental-style. It is good to be able to work both English and continental style, though, isn’t it? Perfect for going two-handed in fairisle/stranded, and good for the hands to have a different technique. (I’m glad that your friend found it helpful for her sore hands.)

      As for jiggling the stitches along the needle, I haven’t worked out any miraculous solution, but I think I sometimes press the tip of my left needle into the pad of my right index finger whilst using my left hand to move the stitches along the left hand needle a bit. At least, I think that’s what I do! It’s hard to describe it when I’m not actually doing it. If you find a better way, let me know! And I’ve noticed that even the fastest and most accomplished knitters often do have to pause to move their stitches along, so there clearly isn’t really a perfect way of making it just happen.

      Anyway, thank you for your lovely comment. Happy knitting!

      Reply

      • Oh that made me laugh- what you think you do. My friend and I started to deconstruct what we do in English knitting and found all sorts of subtle movements that we had no idea we did, like the lower part of my index finger shifting slightly forward as a way of keeping the stitches moving.

        I can most definitely guarantee that I am not further along that you. All of the above happened in the span of a few hours and made my brain hurt 🙂 I simply never knew there were so many other ways to loop yarn.

        Reply

  38. I can’t understand the continental stitch by your explanation so Im you tubing it. Would be great for a video tutorial… 🙂

    Reply

Please do leave a comment - I love to read them.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: