Wednesday, February 23, 2011

One hitch...

the way I knit.

Up until yesterday I had decided that in order for me to knit more intricate sock patterns I needed to knit on circular needles instead of DPN's.

Yesterday I moved my coral socks (see previous post for photo) onto a 40" (same size 4) circular needle.  I am still at the ribbing stage of these socks so after I moved them I knit one more round to get a feel for circular sock knitting.

Extremely awkward.  Why?  Because of the way I knit.  A few years ago when my mom taught me how to knit I just couldn't hold the needles in both hands.  It felt awkward.  Hold one needle in one hand and the other needle in the other hand.  Control tension by wrapping your yarn around one finger... and that's the finger you'll use to wrap it around the needle.  My mom was a very good teacher and showed me more than one way to knit.  We tried the continental and English method.  I couldn't get it.  I understood the mechanics of the knit and purl stitches but my fingers just weren't cooperating.  I was in my 30's.  

Finally I said "Couldn't I just hold one needle between my legs?"  My mom looked at me kind of strange and then said something like "whatever works".  And I've been knitting like this ever since.

This picture was taken on Monday while knitting in my car (no I was not driving):
 My work is in my left had and my yarn is to the right of me.  My needle is being held between my legs and my right hand, which was at the moment holding the camera, controls the tension.

Therefore it's almost impossible for me to knit with circular needles because I can't hold the right needle between my legs.  Like I said, I knit one round of the coral socks holding both needles with my hands but my tension was off and it took me forever to do just one round!

I went on Ravelry last night specifically looking for DPN sock patterns and they are out there.  So I transferred my coral socks back onto 4 DPN's and knit 2-3 more rounds to get the tension right again.

So again stay tuned for the development of my coral socks!

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