Hello! I’m a rather inexperienced knitter who has recently moved on to slightly more challenging projects (and a bit of crochet!) and I’ve been using this lovely site to help me figure out stitches in patterns that I don’t quite understand.
However, I’ve noticed that in all the videos for the English method of knitting, when the yarn is thrown it is wrapped counter clockwise around the right needle. I have never done this but instead throw it around the needle clockwise.
All of my little projects up to this point have looked fine, but now I am wondering if my incorrect methods will actually make a difference in more complicated stitches beyond knit and purl? Or is this simply a matter of personal preference?
Thanks in advance to anyone offering advice. <3
Yes, it will make a difference.
In the pic below, all white stitches were entered from the front. In other words, knits were made by inserting the tip of the needle from left to right behind the front leg of the stitch; purls, from right to left behind the front leg.
the bottom rows are wrapped counter clockwise. The middle rows were wrapped clockwise. The upper rows knit with counter-clockwise wraps and purled with clockwise wraps (more often done in continental than English).
Things that will happen if you twist your stitches:
1- It’s really tough to enter the stitch. Knitting that sample was sheer agony on my shoulder and forearm from the amount of force I had to use to get the needle into the stitch.
2 - It’s much easier to split the yarn because the legs of the stitch are harder to avoid with the tip of the needle.
3 - When following instructions to knit/purl through the back loop, you’ll be UNtwisting the stitch instead of twisting it. Thus, where the pattern author intends you to have a tighter stitch, you’ll be making a looser one. In a pattern like Clapotis, this is a bad thing.
4 - The whole fabric is much denser. You’ll use more yarn and it will be less elastic. That isn’t necessarily bad, but it may not be what the pattern intended.
5 - I think slanting decreases turn out slanted in unintended directions, but I’m not positive. I’m also pretty sure that decorative pattern stitches won’t look as intended. I tried to knit a sample of k2tog, yo, k, yo, SSK but passed out from the strain of trying to k2tog two already twisted stitches.
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all that to me! :3
I have noticed that I split the yarn quite often, and now I finally know why. I’ll try to rid myself of this bad habit right away.