(Hi, Mom. You can stop reading now. This is one of my knitting geek posts. And, no, I’m not trying to hide a discussion of your Christmas gifts.)
The other day I was sitting at my LYS and working on a swatch to make Wisteria from the Twist Collection. (Side note: The Wisteria model looks very similar to the Associate Pastor at our new church.) After a few inches, I measured my gauge and was annoyed to find it was 23 stitches per inch versus the eighteen required by the pattern. Just before I pulled all of my progress out, I asked Olga to look it over for me.
“I don’t mean to discourage you, but this isn’t stockinette…”
When I learned to knit, someone told me that purl and knit are opposite stitches. I assumed this also meant that you wrap the yarn opposite. I’m a bit strange so I “got” how to purl first then, applying the opposite concept, I usually wrap my yarn clockwise when I knit. I knew this was “wrong” and that it probably did something to the finished fabric but never worried about it.
What happens is that I twist the knit stitch once when I warp the yarn wrong and again when I knit on the next row which results in a really abnormal, highly textured fabric. As soon as Olga taught me to adjust for my odd wrapping (“Don’t reach yourself to change your wraps”), all was awesome. You can really tell the difference in my finished swatch.
I found you through tag surfing. And I though that I should mention that despite my Mum, Nanna & Grandma all being able to knit I’m self taught and also wrap strange. I wouldn’t worry to much. I wrap clockwise on my knit stitches as well just without the twist.
Mum tried to correct me once but I just couldn’t change it. I still get a decent gauge, just slightly different looking stitches.
Saw the title and thought – yeah, everyone knits differently. Saw the swatch and thought – yeah, you really do knit weird! Nice texture though.
Funny! I did the same thing and it drove me nuts that my “stockinette” looked so different from everyone else’s! It took me a while to figure it out, too, and I had to go look up videos on knittinghelp.com
Funny, that’s how I taught myself too!