Bats In My Belfry

I am doing it. I didn’t know I was doing it. First taught myself to knit back in ‘66. Think I knit a couple of scarves and then decided I was going to have a decade or so of craziness and quit knitting. Then I took up crochet back in the late 70s through the 80s. Didn’t do much again ’til 1990 when I started crocheting again (wanted afghans for the CO winters) and charity drives. Then, to avoid going completely batty after moving to Germany, I took up knitting again almost 3 years ago but really only the last 2 with a vengeance. First year of that was desultory, mainly doing the ol’ “Grandma’s dishcloth” thing. I then decided that I truly wanted to learn to knit. Been quite a journey and the end is nowhere near in sight.

But I do have SOCKS!!! And they fit and everything.

Lever knitting…well, it seems that is how I knit. I did give Continental a go but, despite being a crocheter, it Continental struck me as being horribly awkward. Watched my MIL knit a bit (she showed me how she was taught) and my head almost exploded. It seemed to me that there was a whole lot of jiggering about to accomplish the “right” and “left” stiches (knit and purl respectively, at least that’s what I think it is but given my capacity to completely misunderstand all things German, I could be off. Still “recht” or “links” is pretty clear). She was equally mystified by my method. Near as I can tell, she’s doing some sort of version of Continental knitting which she learned from her mother. I have never seen pictures or videos of that particular method, so I have no idea quite what to call it.

Didn’t occur to me until recently (due to watching instructional knitting videos on Knitting Help and YouTube that I was not knitting in the method I thought I was (English/American). Apparently I do a version of knitting called “Lever Knitting” as best illustrated via this link to HeartStrings FiberArts.  I did wonder how folks could knit with the exaggerated “throw” that I saw in various videos. Seemed to me like it would slow one down quite a bit and wear one’s wrists out in short order. My right hand never lets go and the yarn is moved via my right index finger. Economy in motion (okay, lazy). It is somewhat similar to The YarnHarlot’s method but, of course, I am nowhere near as graceful or fast (ye gods that woman is blindingly fast) and she moves her yarn with her middle right finger. And is faster. Way faster. But I’m still pretty quick.

And it’s comfortable. I’m kind of tickled that I managed to teach myself this method. I just ended up doing what seemed to be the least motion intensive (again, lazy) and the “standard” English/American “throw” struck me as waaaaay overkill.

And I knit socks. Yup. I do.