Ktbl & ptbl in Continental Knitting

How-to Questions
1

I am working on a sweater that uses the stitches ktbl & ptbl. I knit Continental Style, and need some help figuring out how to do these stitches.

Thanks!

2

I’m guessing this means knit through back loop (or purl)? For knit, you still wrap the yarn the same way, I personally use the middle finger on my left hand to hold the yarn a bit back to make sure I get it through the stitch.

You’d think I could tell you how to do it for purl, seeing as how I did a whole row of it last night, but for the life of me, I can’t remember.

3

I believe both of them are covered in the increases videos here, have you watched them?

I knit conti, and the only difference is where the working needle goes - yarn is the same, in the back to knit, in the front to purl - but the working (right) needle goes either DOWN through the back loop to ktbl, or UP through the back loop to ptbl. After that, I pick the yarn just as if I was knitting or purling.

4

You don’t do the actual stitch differently, but you insert the needle in a different spot. Each stitch has a front and back `leg’ that straddles the needle. Normally you knit or purl in the front one. To do so through the back loop, you stick the needle into the back leg and wrap it the same way as normal. This page http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knitting-glossary has videos for both ktbl and ptbl.

5

I believe both of them are covered in the increases videos here, have you watched them?

They’re not increases, you may be thinking of kfb and pfb. But they’re on the glossary page.

6

Sorry, I should have been more clear - since they are part of the increases (kfb, pfb) you can see how to do the “through the back” part them by watching the increase videos, or that’s how I did it (but I’m also a video junkie :teehee: ) then you when you do it, ignore the first knit or purl, and just do the “through the back” part.

One more place I’m sure I’ve seen at least knitting through the back loop, is on the video that shows picking up dropped stitches - one of the stitches is twisted, so Amy shows how to correct that by knitting through the back of it. Knitting through the back of a non-twisted stitch is the same movement.