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Especially for anyone who thinks knitting is hard, please try the Portuguese knitting method. It’s easy to master and fast. When I get going I can do a stitch a second. I have a few posts here about it under Techniques, but no basic instructions, so check out the youtube videos.

Again, Portuguese style knitting is VERY easy to learn. It’s easy to control the yarn, and purling is so easy it’s a sin. I also knit Continental style and Eastern European Knitting style depending on my mood or need, but I always switch to Portuguese style for runs of purl stitches.

You work with the yarn either around the back of your neck, or over a pin near your left shoulder, or with the knitting pendant I developed that helps a lot to correct tension issues and protect your clothes from pin holes. Check out the article on the knitting pendant.

It’s called Portuguese style in the USA but it is known across the Mediterranean. I’ve heard the style is used in parts of Italy, Greece, Albania and Turkey as well as many parts of central and South America such as Peru and Brasil where it was brought by the Portuguese. If you know where else it is used and what the style is called there, please comment this post!

Take a look at the links in the Information list on the right, further down the page. There are some great videos on youtube, and there are DVDs available as well, including one devoted to socks, both by Andrea Wong. The DVDs go into greater specifics for various situations you may run into.

Here’s a video to give you a quick intro to Portuguese style:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzfYS9_t27k

I plan to use that also in a test to see if I can give them crochet tips myself, as I want to experiment with hook knitting. I tried it with some crochet hooks a few days ago and it was quite easy to knit that way. It was mentioned that they use hooked knitting needles in Portugal and elsewhere, so this may come in handy.