Must give knitting it's fair share of time

In the last post I detailed how I held my yarn while crocheting. Hopefully it will help some people, if not, well it's still there.

Now, one would think that as a crocheter who twists the yarn intricately around her left hand to crochet with it would do the same as a knitter. You would be wrong. Again, it's all in who taught me. My mother could never learn to knit, but she had a friend who did and she taught me.

So, how do I hold my yarn? Not in the continental way, as most might guess. I simply hold the yarn in my right hand, along with my working needle. No twisting it around my fingers or anything fancy, I just hold it and throw it. This is known as the English method, though some who hold the yarn this way would also wind the yarn around the fingers as well. But I don't. It's most comfortable for me to simply hold it.

So, how do I avoid dropping my working needle while I'm throwing the yarn? Once I insert the working needle into the stitch I use the index finger and thumb of my left hand to hold the end of the
needle in place for the bit of time it takes to throw the yarn for the stitch. After a few stitches, the needle is held in place that way. Am I a fast knitter? No. I'm not too much of a slowpoke either. I'll never be lightning fast and I don't want to be. It's a bit annoying to watch someone knitting faster than I can see the stitches dropping off the needle. I prefer my sedate pace that doesn't make me look like I'm frantically trying to finish my project before suppertime.

Not that I'm disrespecting fast knitters. I'm not. It's just not for me. I applaud anyone who can knit that fast and not drop stitches or lose their place in the pattern.

Knit on, turtle slow or hare fast.