Understanding Eastern Knitting and Western Knitting Styles and Knitting Fast

In this article I will explain the difference between the Eastern and Western styles of knitting and how not to get confused. There will be some instruction in how to do them, yet while this is not so much a knitting lesson, what you learn here may be of great use to the beginner or transitioner.

Eastern European knitting style has stirred a lot of interest as an alternative to English and Continental styles lately. There is also a blended style called Combined or Combination knitting, which frankly confuses me so far. I will get to that later.

Western knitting styles are distinguished from Eastern by the turn of the loops on the needles. This is an important distinction and will help you understand what you are doing as you knit and purl. Western styles include English, Continental, Portuguese and a few others. Eastern European has a few varieties also, and there are “twisted” and “untwisted” methods. I like the Eastern because you don’t have to keep moving the yarn from back to front and front to back when you are knitting, but there are a few conversions you need to make to use western stitches and patterns. I can’t go into that here or now as I’m not fully edumakated on those matters, but maybe later.

How to tell them apart:
Go grab some knitting still on the needles. Imagine you are looking south. The left is your east, the right is your west. Now look at the loops on the left needle. If the leg of the loop on your side of the needle is closer to the left/East then it’s an Eastern loop. If it’s nearer the right/West and the tip of the left needle then it’s a Western loop.

How eastern and western loops are created:
When you insert the needle through a loop on the left needle (for right handers) you will be wrapping the yarn around the needle one way or the other. If your put your needle on the left/east side of the working yarn and bring the yarn across it, between you and the needle and to the left/east – wrapping counter clockwise – then you are going to create an eastern loop with that stitch.

Conversely, if you put your right needle to the right/west of the working yarn and bring the yarn across the right needle toward the west – wrapping counter-clockwise – you will create a western loop.

When I first started knitting I tried learning a form of Eastern European Untwisted knitting taught by a lys owner near me and got confused and had a mix of eastern and western loops that made everything a useless mess. I’ve been looking into Eastern again lately because Gail, my lys owner, uses that form and knits very fast and I want to knit faster, so I’m going to stop by there soon and get a refresher course.

My confusion with “combined” knitting is that it seems to have you freely converting your western loops to eastern loops so that when you turn the work it seems you will have to knit a different style or compensate for all the loops that are facing different ways. I watched a youtube video of “Russian” knitting that did just this. It just doesn’t make sense to me to do that. I will look into it more later and maybe write about it, but for now my recommendation is to learn a non-combined method if you are looking for a new style or want to be more efficient.

By the way, combined/combination knitting is not Eastern, as some people have stated, but a mix.

In combined knitting, just as in western styles, purls knits have you move the working yarn to your side of the left needle, and for knit stitches it’s on the far side of the needle. Eastern European knitting appears to have the working yarn always on the far side of the needles, and Portuguese has it always on the near side with the yarn passing around your neck or through a pin or pendant at your chest. These latter two options sound a bit more efficient but there are those who are very practiced and efficient at Continental as well and can move that yarn fast. Sorry, but English knitting is just too much movement for me, having to let go of the right needle to throw the yarn and all that.

As you will read in this blog, I’m fond of Portuguese style – made popular by Andrea Wong – and it’s fully western, easy to learn and moderately fast, but I want to go faster. I saw a youtube video of Eunny demostrating entrelac and she knits so fast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcLxMt9GehM&list=FL1BpX65EaVyBJXqac2Kxh-Q&feature=mh_lolz . By the way, her stitches are oddly uneven in that video but I think that is due to how she is working the entrelac squares. One thing that makes her fast is how she holds and manages the yarn in her left hand, which I have yet to master. This part of knitting – controlling the working yarn – is critical for successful and fast work. I tried to each myself knitting from books and almost gave up until I discovered I could hold the yarn the way I do for crochet, and then I also discovered Portuguese style.

Do you have some worsted weight or other yarn you aren’t crazy about, or don’t want to use for projects at that yarn weight? You can convert it to a bulky or super bulky yarn with a bit of elbow grease. Combine colors along the full length or create colorways as you go along, or just make one color, and the yarn will have new characteristics for unique projects.

While fiddling around with yarn I needed some matching cord for a knitted/fulled/felted sporran I was making for my kilt so I took some of the same fishermans yarn by Lion Brand and crocheted up about five feet of chain in this yarn, then went to work felting it in a sink full of hot soapy water, just rubbing it all in a ball and every half minute or so pulling it all apart so the strand didn’t felt onto itself. After about five minutes the squishiness of the yarn mass pretty much disappeared, indicating the felting/fulling had pretty much completed.

So I rinsed it all out in warm water, then quenched it in cold water and wrung it out. After drying it was perfect for my needs and matched the felted-fulled sporran perfectly.

Before you do a big batch I recommend you do a few yards worth of chain first to see if you like the resulting felted yarn and then knit a swatch to see how the fabric turns out.

You could do this with much longer lengths of yarn and I bet putting it in the washer would work for felting but I haven’t tried that. Use a small load setting and put in several pairs of jeans to fill up the tub. I would also put the yarn chain in a mesh bag so it has more contact with itself. You will want to check it every few minutes.

Of course you may get a big tangle, so one thing I know works is you can do it by hand in sections. Gather up a good handful of the crocheted chain and work it in the sink or tub – maybe this would be a good bath time project? – and massage the yarn into felted/fulled goodness. Stop whenever you think it is felted enough. You could even just felt it part way so the fibers are about half matted and you can still see the chains, but everything is firmly unified for knitting purposes.

Like I said, as you are crocheting the chain you can combine colors for a striping effect, especially if you are using thinner yarn, where you can crochet two strands at once.

Let me know if this lights up your life. I’d like to hear what results you get. I haven’t made the time to do a bigger project with this, so can’t show you anything at this point.

A couple years ago I bought a bunch of bamboo needles direct from China, which you may have read here I had to sharpen as they were sloppily made. I got about 45 needles for about $40 US. Among these were two sets of circular knitting needles in two lengths, but I did like them because the clear vinyl tubing cables were sticky and the yarn would not slide on them easily.

Just solved that problem. I needed an unoccupied set of #3 us needles for a necktie I’m working on and grabbed one of these in desperation. Then it occurred to me to put a little oil from my forehead on the cable to occupy the tackiness with some molecules other than my yarn. It worked! I put on just a tiny bit and rubbed my fingers back and forth until they moved smoothly, and now as I knit the yarn doesn’t drag on the tubing. It doesn’t feel oily either.

I’ve been doing another of that great scarf pattern but I’m starting to realize I don’t like the look of the double decrease, which is supposed to mirror the sk2p (slip one, knit two together, pass slipped stitch over). It doesn’t look as nicely defined as the sk2p. I’m going to try k3tog instead, which is supposed to lean right, as well as my own concoction: k2, slip new loop back to left, pass next unworked loop to the right and drop off left needle, then slip new loop back to the right. I haven’t had time to try this yet, but wanted to post it here in case you are trying the pattern and want to see if it looks better before I can get back to you on it. Happy Knitting….

By the way, I’m also adding a 2+2 cable crossover in the middle for added vine effects.

Hey there. I just wanted to let you know what I’m finding out as I work on a scarf using super bulky yarn on US 15 metal needles. The taper on the tips of these needles is kind of long, and what I’m finding is that it has me moving my hand sideways at the wrist in both directions more than on smaller needles, resulting in significant soreness in short order. I think it’s in part due to using the Portuguese style of knitting combined with these big needles.

It would take a lot of attention to make myself not do that movement. I even restarted the scarf on #13 needles in metal but they are also long tapered. My Knitpicks circulars have a shorter taper and were better, but still had me worried. So I’m using my bamboo 13s which have an ever shorter taper – altered by me last year – and paying attention. I also needed the longer needles as it was hard to do the cables fast on the circulars.

It may be that I’m a bit knitted out after xmas, having done five scarves and two shawls. I wasn’t sore when I finished them, but now I’m getting sore. Be careful and don’t think you can tough it out. If you get sore, give it a rest. I know this may seem insane, but you do not have to knit all the time.

I almost always try to modify patterns or design my own stuff. I can rarely do something as designed, and when it comes to knit ribbing my experience is that where it asks for p1k1 ribbing I know that will just not pull in very tightly. I’m currently looking for a pattern for fingerless hand warmers things and I want them to hug my hands, or the hands of whomever I’m making them for. That way sizing is not such an issue. They size themselves.

One pattern I found has some nice cables along the wrist and at the knuckles but nothing on the back of the hands, and the whole thing is done in p1k4 ribbing, which doesn’t make sense to me either. So if I use that one I will certainly reverse the locations of the cabling and switch it to p2k2 ribbing at the wrist and knuckles. I will probably change the cables to two columns crossing instead of four, or maybe find a way to transition from the ribbing to four column cables.

So be brave and smart. Try swatches of the p1k1 and p2k2 ribbing and you will see the difference.

By the way, I know ribbing can be a bother in English or Continental knitting styles, but it’s pretty easy in Portuguese knitting style. Portuguese knitting is pretty easy to learn and I always use it for ribbing or any pattern that has a mix of purls and knits. There are a few tricks, which I write about on this blog, so check it out.

Related articles

• Projects ” How-To’s ” Quick Knit Wrist Warmers (cutoutandkeep.net)
• Projects ” Creations ” Fingerless Mittens (cutoutandkeep.net)
• A Bunch of Scarves, Some Cable Knit, and a Shawl (knitforbrains.net)
• Fixing and Preventing Ladders after Cables (knitforbrains.net)

When I was working on a cable knit hat for my brother-in-law for this Christmas I was pleased that I found a way to defeat the dreaded laddering one can get when switching to purl stitches after knitting a cable. I looked on the web for solutions but while what I found were good, they didn’t cut it for me. http://techknitting.blogspot.com/ is brilliant for so many things but I didn’t like the answers.

The two-part solution is pretty easy.

Part one is that when you finish the last knit stitch before doing a purl be sure you pull the knit stitch tight. This will reduce the extra yarn that can end up in a ladder next to the cable. You have to be mindful to do this each time.

Part two: As you are knit stitching across a cable set you will find that the last loop you are going to knit in in the set is pretty loose. Knit it, then when you go to purl the next stitch you will probably see a big ladder forming. Too much yarn in there! So what you do is this: with your working needle pull that un-worked loop on the left needle a bit to pull the ladder yarn up into the loop. Purl the stitch and move it off the left needle.

Now, be careful not to pull your needles apart too much or you will defeat the solution. Next, you probably have another purl stitch coming. If so, or even if not, again pull some of that extra yarn from the last purl you did into the next loop before you purl it. What you are doing is redistributing the wealth of yarn that was ending up as ladders. If you have another purl or knit coming, do the same, but pull less yarn across. With practice these corrections will look nice.

You can also do this if you look back across your recently stitched row. Check for ladders you missed on this round or row and use a third needle to move the extra yarn out of the ladders and into the surrounding stitches.

This technique is pretty easy and doesn’t require any funny stitches. I tried twisting the purl stitches after a cable but that didn’t help enough. You will find other suggestions on the web, but this is the simplest that I’ve come up with and very effective. I hope it works for you.

Related articles

• The Secret of Correct Yarn-overs in Portuguese Knitting (knitforbrains.net)
• Knitting Backwards Without Twisting Stitches (knitforbrains.net)
• Knit A Really Fast Scarf for a Christmas Gift (knitforbrains.net)
• Better Short Row Ideas (knitforbrains.net)

Edie wrote to me and asked about yarn-overs in Portuguese style knitting. Glad you asked, Edie. Thanks for writing. A yarn-over is very easy in PK.

If you want to do a yarn-over between purl stitches – P YO P – you already have the yarn under the right needle. To make a proper yarn-over lift the working yarn up your side of the right needle and then back down the far side so it is back where it started. You will notice that you are in effect wrapping the yarn counter-clockwise around the right needle tip if it were pointing at the ceiling.

For a K, YO, P sequence: you have the yarn on top of the right needle. drop it below as if to purl, then lift the working yarn up your side of the right needle again and back down the far side so it’s under the right needle again, just like for P YO P.

To do a yarn-over between two knit stitches – K YO K – it’s a bit simpler. The yarn is already on top of the right needle. Just put it below it as if you were about to do a purl stitch. When you knit the next stitch you will see that you are lifting the yarn up your side of the right needle and down the far side – as always – and thus wrapping it counter-clockwise around the needle tip.

For P YO K you likewise just leave the yarn below the tip of the right needle.

This counter-clockwise secret is very important for all knitting except maybe eastern European knitting. It assures you will get loops on your needles that are not reversed/twisted. If you look at your loops on the needles you will see that all of them have the yarn leading off to the right on your side and to the left on the far side. If it were reversed you would get twisted stitches.

My cat Lucy demonstrates her version of the yarn-over.

Above, my cat Lucy demonstrates her version of the yarn-over.

There is a myth in p-style knitting that you can do a purl, yo, purl sequence by just lifting the working yarn up on top of the right needle as if to knit, but if you did that you would get a twisted yarn-over that might complicate things when you went to knit or purl into it on the next row up. You can see that it would be wrapping the yarn clockwise on the right needle and you mustn’t do that.

I figured all this out for my article on knitting backwards, which is on the blog. It’s a good thing to know this bit of mechanics, so you can tell what you are doing.

• There Is No Wrong Way To Knit! (teachstreet.com)
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How to save the planet with Knitting.

More and more lately I’ve become irritated by the prevalence of plastic in my life. Even when I try to buy less plastic, more of it comes home with me. I’ve been trying to use less, as well as shift to BPA-free containers. I stopped drinking out of the large plastic tumblers I’ve been using for years now. I won’t store food in plastic unless it’s just in the freezer, and I’m no longer buying baked goods that come in those plastic boxes at the grocery. For a while I was still buying my croissants there and couldn’t bring myself to throw away the tubs, which are about six inches deep, fifteen long and twelve wide. I have a stack of six of them with their lids and hope either to find a use for them or a friend who has recycling in their neighborhood.

So what about knitting in all this? I have all these plastic grocery bags. Yes, I can take them to the recycling box at the store, and I keep some in the car and take a few in to use when I shop, but I came up with another idea for recycling these spawn of petroleum.

Last weekend one of my cats, Lucy, got hold of a ball of yarn and was nuzzling it to death. I rescued it before it became a hopeless tangle and gave her a small ball of Wool-ease bulky to play with, but she wasn’t crazy about the acrylic any more than I was, so I sat down and crocheted her a ball out of the wool she was nuzzling. It is just a simple free-form ball you can make up as you go, so don’t look for instructions here. Anyways, when I was done I stuffed one of my stash of grocery bags inside and crocheted it shut.

Lucy loves it. The plastic bag inside makes a soft rustling noise, but the toy is soft and squishy and she can nuzzle it all she wants and it won’t come apart.

So my next thought is that a great way for us to recycle these bags is to use them to stuff pet toys and kids toys and even pillows. It occurred to me that the bags would shift around a bit in a pillow so, thinking about plarn, I came up with the idea to knit or crochet a pillow blank from bags to make a stable foundation for a pillow or other toy. Crochet is easier to do for this and all you really need is structure, not appearances.

But as you know, plarn can be laborious to make. So I came up with Super Plarn. To make super plarn take a bag and find the two insets or gussets on either side of the bottom of the bag. Pinch them together and then pierce a hole across the bag with your fingers. Then take the handles of the next bag and thread it through this hole. Next, thread the bottom of the second bag through it’s own handles and pull it tight. Keep repeating this until you have enough to work with. Because of the varying thickness of the result – handles are less bulky – it won’t look so good but this works fine for stuffing material since it won’t show.

Because of the bulky linking “knots” you may not love the feel if you draw them very tight, but if you keep those links between bags a bit loose it won’t be bad. You could also just cut the bags sideways in very wide bands and link them that way but you would be wasting the handles and bottoms.

Here’s a pic of five bags finger-crocheted together:

I tried crocheting this with a size Q crochet hook but it was difficult and tight and not really necessary. Just finger-crochet a chain wide enough for your pillow, chain one or two more, then turn and skip one or two links and begin either a chain stitch or single crochet back in the other direction. IMPORTANT: start crocheting or knitting with a handle end of the super plarn chain so you can add more bags to the bag-bottom end if you run out.

Keep going until you can fold up this pad to the bulkiness you want for your pillow or toy or whatever. The result will be a stable, squishy pillow form with a soft crinkle sound that will remind you of how you are saving the planet, one pillow and dozens of plastic bags at a time.