Knit for Brains dot Net

Archive for the ‘Techniques’ Category

(To learn more about Portuguese knitting follow the link to the youtube videos in Information box on the right, further down the page, or visit andreawongknits.com to order her DVDs.)

Hi,

As I practice more with Portuguese knitting, becoming more aware of the rhythm and movements and reading my stitches, I’m finding ways to refine my knitting technique. I also found I was getting into a bad habit of “nursing” the yarn as I work a stitch, meaning using my index fingers to secure, hold and manipulate the yarn and loops rather than trusting the right needle tip to move the yarn. I realized part of this was due to a flaw in my technique where I was pulling the yarn to the right for purls and left for knits, trying to keep the right needle in front of the left, and this left the yarn at an insecure position, so I felt I needed to hold it with my fingers.

Fortunately that was easy to remedy. In Portuguese knitting you do insert the right needle through the front loops and bring it up between you and the left needle to pick up the yarn. My error was thinking I had to push the right needle to the left or right and then up on top of the left needle – my side of it – to finish the stitch. Again, this is the wrong trajectory and doesn’t hold the yarn securely. So I forced myself not to use my index fingers to stabilize the yarn and loops and this forced me to discover how to do it right.

For purling, you insert the right needle from the left and up in front of the left, then flick the yarn around the needle with your left thumb, then PUSH the right needle under and back and slightly to the right – diagonally away to the right as if toward where your right knee would normally be. Moving in this direction keeps the yarn on the needle tip and there’s no need to use your fingers to secure it. For knit stitches it’s the reverse direction you want to go. Pull the new loop you are making toward your left bicep, more or less.

(Remember that the essential difference between knit and purl stitches is that in a knit stitch you pull a new loop toward you and in purling you push a new loop away from you. Knowing this also makes it easier to read your stitches and know what you need to do next or how to fix what you just did!)

By refining my technique in this way I find it’s not only easier but my knitting fluidity and speed have increased significantly.

Thanks for stopping in to the blog today!

- Eric

I am very pleased to say that the first comment (it’s attached to the Knit for Your Brains – Really! post) my young blog has earned comes from Andrea Wong herself, author of the DVD Learn How to Knit Portuguese Style, with which I learned to knit that style, one of the two I favor.

I wrote to Andrea with some questions to clarify yarnovers in her style and she kindly replied as follows:

Andrea Wong created the Portuguese Knitting DVD. Visit her site to order.

“Purl- YO-purl: When you finish the first purl you have the yarn below right hand needle. Use your left thumb and flick the yarn counterclockwise around needle and purl next stitch.”

There you go. It was easier than I thought. I was deliberately wrapping the yarn around the needle but it seems yarnovers in PK are almost automatic.

By the way, you will get a k-yo-p yarnover if you don’t move the yarn under the needle before doing the pearl stitch. I haven’t tried yet, but I betcha a p-yo-k yarnover is done by not putting the yarn on top of the left needle before doing the knit stitch.

Thanks Andrea!

As I’m learning to knit it’s been important to understand what I’m seeing so I can know what to or what I just did in case I lose track or need to fix something. Also, learning to knit you grow into knitting from memory, knowing what you are doing and applying the stitches based on where you see you are in the pattern, not just on your chart or instructions.

What’s a knit and what’s a purl? I see that a knit stitch is when you pull the loop through toward you and a purl is where you pull the yarn loop through away from you, leaving a sort of bar across the stitch on your side. As you stitch along you will learn to recognize what you are about to stitch onto and that will help you do the right stitch in the right place.

You will also want to be able to recognize when you twisted a stitch, or are about to. The front of each loop – your side of the needle – on your needle in rows after your cast on will be either to the left or the right, depending on your knitting style. Be aware that if you stitch into the loop end that is closer to the tip of your needle it will NOT twist the stitch below it.  If you knit into the side of the loop that is farther from the needle you WILL twist the stitch. It seems all twisting will twist the stitch below the one you are doing, not the one you are doing. I may be wrong, but that’s what is see so far. So unless you are planning to cause a twist, always be sure you adapt your stitch so you are pulling through the center of the loop, just left of the side nearest the tip of the left needle, or it will twist.

Another reason to know what you are seeing is if make a mistake and catch it after a few loops and dare to unknit to correct it. If you do, be sure you put your loops back on the left needle so they are turned the right way (see below).

In the clever diagram below you are looking down on the top of the needle with yarn loops on it, and would want to work around the upper/far side of the needle to avoid twists as that side is nearer the tip. I ran into this loop orientation in eastern European knitting.

Example A: |——-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/—–>

In the clever diagram below you would want to work around the bottom/near side of the needle to avoid twists.

Example B: |——–\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\—–>

PK is always looped like B above regardless of the stitch.

Sometimes with eastern European knitting I would get a mix of loops, which confused me, as shown in the clever diagram below:

Example C: |———-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/——-> 

This would happen if I was doing kpkpkpk for ribbing in this example. So I watched more youtube videos and found I was doing something wrong and now I don’t get that error. So when you see the videos watch very closely and observe your resulting loops to see if there is evidence you are getting twisting errors like in example C.

As I mentioned elsewhere, EEK doesn’t work for knitting in the round, so I will be doing Portuguese knitting for many projects, including two color work like Fair Isle when I get around to it as from watching the Andrea Wong DVD it seems like it’s easy to manage the yarn, which is what I like best about PK.

EEK it’s great for fast flat knitting. Gail is really fast at it, and she says her tension is very even.

Thanks for visiting.

- Eric

POST UPDATED May 9, 2010

One snag I found with knitting this style is that MY knitting in the round resulted in twisted stitches. I checked with Gail at Gail Knits and she pointed out that you have to watch the loop you are working on. I learned that if you always work with the side of the loop nearest the tip you won’t get a twisted knit or pearl. With EEK you need to watch this, but regardless of your knitting style you always have to understand which way to wrap the yarn and what will twist and not twist the loops. When I asked Gail she said you can’t knit in the round with EEK. But now I wonder what style of Eastern European knitting she is using. Apparently there are different ones.

I also learned from Gail that k2tog and ssk are kind of reversed with EEK. Ssk is just k2tog through the back of the loop, and k2tog is slip and turn 2, slip back to the left and then k2tog through the front loops. So remember that if you are switching to or learning EEK that some stitches will be done differently.

Since I use both, i find swapping between EEK and PK is like speaking two different languages. You have to change how you think. Practice!

UPDATE: I had written in a previous version of this post that couldn’t knit in the round with EEK, but Cyndi commented a few days ago that I was misinformed. So I watched more videos on Eastern European knitting and tried it again and found I was NOT getting twisted stitches in the round. I don’t know what I was doing before, but it was wrong, and maybe Gail is doing a different method of Eastern European knitting.

Last Sunday I went to my nearest local yarn/knitting shop, Gails Knits, to take advantage of their summer sale and bought yarn for my first project, the cabled scarf with seed stitch border you see in the page header (That’s a pic from the book – I haven’t started the scarf yet, but I did pick red. ) and as I was checking out I told Gail about the Portuguese Knitting DVD and how much I liked the style. I showed her the basics, and she in turn showed me her style, which is eastern european knitting (EEK). Apparently, it’s pretty rare. She said there was an article some years ago in a knitting magazine that listed the top ten styles of knitting, and it was number 9.

It turns out it is a bit faster than Portuguese knitting, seemingly having one less step in that you don’t have to flick the yarn over the needle. That’s not a big chore, but when I was watching Gail demonstrate it she was amazingly fast. I’ll have links to videos and pages here soon. It’s a variant of continental knitting, a pick style, and is quite worthwhile.

I’m still practicing but I did find that it wasn’t so great for a bulky yarn. I am doing a cossack hat from the Folk Hats book by Vicki Square and even with my nice and pointy new Options Nickel Plated circulars didn’t work so well on the thick, bulky Wool-ease yarn by Lion Brand when using EEK. I couldn’t catch the yarn and pull it through. So I tried the Portuguese knitting and it was much easier.

That’s interesting and handy to know. Now we have more tools with which to knit. I’ve learned one should choose carefully from knitting style, yarn material, yarn thickness, needle material and pattern. When I started out I would never have thought it mattered.

Here’s what the hat will look like when done:

The cossack hat in the book.

This one uses a bouclet yarn which seems to emulate shearling. I may do one with black later. For now I’m just re-using the yarn from the crochet scarf I killed playing with my new ball winder.

Just got the Andrea Wong Portuguese Knitting DVD and it is great. Plays fine in my computer – someone said it wouldn’t play on any of her DVD players. I tried it on my Sanyo DVD player for my TV and it works fine.

This is great! As I was first attempting – literally – to get a grip in knitting I kept thinking I needed to be an octopus to knit. Controlling the yarn tension and moving the yarn around the needle in the continental or English style of knitting is insanity-making for me, and probably for many newcomers. But I bet that even seasoned knitters would love this just for watching a few seconds of the lessons in Portuguese knitting.

The stitches are fluid and simple, and the knitting pin controls both the trajectory and tension of the yarn just so beautifully. From knit to pearl you don’t have to move the yarn from back to front, but with a flick of your thumb you move it to be over or under the right needle depending on what stitch you are doing. In effect, this puts it behind or in front, but as the yarn is always coming from your pin or pendant its still easier than moving front to back or back to front as in other styles.

I’ve only watched a minute or two and felt the tension leaving my body. I feel so much better about learning to knitting. I admit, I’ve barely learned the knit and pearl stitches English style and have hated every minute of it. Now I’m free! You’ve got to learn this method!

Sunday I joined Netflix to get the knitting dvd they had and it arrived yesterday, but I may not even bother with it. It is called Knit Stitches in Motion. I guess I should see if there’s anything on it that is generally useful, or maybe patterns. I’ll let you know. (UPDATE: not worth your time, even for learning other styles.)

Again, I haven’t watched much yet, but I’ve heard that they also use hooked knitting needles sometimes as well. That would be handy as well, but it looks like if done right you wouldn’t need them. I may modify a pair of my bamboo units to see how that works. I fiddled with knitting with a couple of crochet hooks and it was a lot easier to control the yarn, but that was with English style. I didn’t need to fret about losing the yarn off the tips of the needles when pulling it through the stitch. In Portuguese knitting the angle of the needles and the yarn almost guarantee you won’t lose it. Yea!

I’m thinking of starting a movement to have continental and English styles banned and all the books burned. Memory and mention of them should be removed from all books and web sites, like how Rameses removed the name of Moses from all monuments in Egypt! Just kidding of course. But that’s how much I like the Portuguese style of knitting. It was so much easier to learn. Give it a try.