I’ve always been an English style knitter. A thrower. And a rather clumsy one at that.
I learned to knit when I was eight. Mom showed be the ropes (pun intended), but after that I taught myself most of what I know. I knitted in the way that felt most natural to me, clutching the yarn firmly in the fingers of my right hand. And since then, I’ve never deviated from this technique.
When I knit, my whole hand moves, not just my fingers. It works, but it’s terribly inefficient. I’ve observed other knitters forming stitches with only slight flicks of their fingers. It looks so calm. So slick. So fast! I’ve decided that I want to teach myself to knit that way.
Now comes the hard part: overcoming more than twenty years of muscle memory.
I’ve decided to start this process by practicing my new technique on a simple garter stitch project: The Hitchhiker shawlette. Over the next mile or so of yarn, I’m going to repeat this new technique thousands of times. Will that be enough to retrain my brain? Probably not. But it’s a good first step.
Wish me luck.
By the way, the above is my first knitting video. (*Yay*) After the 4KCBW blog week, I decided that one of my goals for the next year was going to be: getting comfortable with video blogging. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but I wanted to get over the first hurdle and simply GET A VIDEO OUT THERE, DARNIT. Now that I’ve taken that first step, I feel much more confident about what I might be able to produce next time around.
Related articles
- Hand Spun Yarn Becomes Hitchhiker Shawlette (all-she-wants-to-do-is-knit.com)
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