I work as a PA to an author/journalist who is so productive that I gave up knitting for years because of sore hands/wrists. The urge was always there, but no-one wants to talk about their urges, or at least no one wants to talk about mine! Thanks goodness for the internet though - I have found that a continental knit stitch and a combination purl stich has got me knitting again (as long as I don’t go too fast and seize up!). Learning a new technique made me feel like I was eight years old again and learning for the first time! What I am having trouble with now is two colour stranding work - how do you hold the yarns to make them feed through nicely? If I hold the yarn my ‘normal’ way (over the index finger, under the middle finger and over the ring finger and under the pinky, keeping tension by holding my pinky tight to the ring finger or relaxing it and letting yarn through) I can’t separate the yarns and they both feed through my fingers at the same speed (not good if you have 2 sts in one colour and 3 in another, one colour gets too tight and one gets too loose). I tried one yarn in the left hand and one in the right but can’t keep the tension. I have tried a Norwegian knitting thimble but I can’t seem to keep any sort of tension with that either. The closest I have come so far is to wind some wool round my index finger, and hold one yard one side and the other yarn the other side, but of course, the yarns still feed through at the same speed. Is there anyone out there who can tell me how it should go? Should I get more fingers?
Paula
