Combination Knitting and 4 Reasons to Try it

[Music] hi this is Ellen from the chili dog today I'll be demonstrating an interesting method called combination knitting and tell you four reasons why you might want to give it a try it doesn't matter if you're an English knitter or a continental knitter combination knitting works for both styles so let's knit a few stitches on some basic 2x2 ribbing and look at how our stitches are formed conventionally most knitters are Western knitters even though they may not know it this method has to do with how we form our stitches not how we hold our yarn Western knitters wrap the yarn counterclockwise around the right needle so when I'm knitting I typically control my working yarn with my right hand when I make a knit stitch the knitting needle goes through the loop knit wise and I wrap the yarn counterclockwise around my right needle and then pull it through the loop again insert the needle knit wise wrap the yarn counterclockwise and pull it through when I'm making purl stitches I still wrapped counterclockwise I insert the needle purlwise wrap the yarn counterclockwise around the needle and pull it through the loop again insert the needle purlwise wrap counterclockwise around the needle and pull it through some people prefer to hold the yarn and control it with their left hand but they still typically wrap the yarn around the needle counterclockwise so in this case they would insert the needle knit wise the yarn again gets wrapped counterclockwise around the needle and then pull through the loop inserting it wise the yarn is going counterclockwise around the needle and is pulled through the loop for purl stitches the needle goes through the loop purl wise again the yarn is still going counterclockwise around the needle and then it's pulled through the loop insert the needle purlwise the yarn is going around the needle counterclockwise and pull through if you look closely at both the knit and the purl stitches for Western knitters the stitches form a little V with the loop of yarn that goes over the top connecting it and this right leg of the V is always positioned on the needle so that it's at the front of the needle the left leg of the V is at the back of the needle so no matter how you control the yarn in your hand Western knitters always have the right leading edge of the stitch at the front of the needle and the left or trailing leg of a stitch at the back so the stitches are mounted on the needle like this Eastern knitters form their stitches by wrapping the yarn clockwise around the needle so we'll do a couple knit stitches this time the yarn is wrapped clockwise around the needle and pulled through again wrapped clockwise and pulled through or when they purl again they wrap the yarn around clockwise and then pull it through and the yarn is wrapping clockwise and pull through when stitches are formed the in the with the Eastern method you'll notice that these stitches that are up on my needle our mounted opposite of what we get with the western style so this time the left leg or trailing leg of the stitch is at the front of the needle and the right or leading leg of the stitch is at the back so they're mounted backwards of western-style combination knitting is what happens when east meets west knit stitches are formed the western way by wrapping the yarn counterclockwise purl stitches are formed the eastern way by wrapping the yarn clockwise so first I'll demonstrate by holding the yarn in my right hand the knit stitches are formed like I typically do western style so insert the knitting needle and wrap my yarn counterclockwise counterclockwise but this time the purl stitches are going to be formed by wrapping my yarn clockwise around the needle and then pulling it through again wrap the yarn clockwise around and pull it through for those of you who control the yarn with your left hand again the knit stitches are formed the Western Way that most of us are used to you inserting it wise the yarn is around the needle counterclockwise and you pull it through wrap and counterclockwise but for the purl stitches we're gonna wrap clockwise let me see if I can show it here the yarn goes around clockwise and then through and again clockwise and pull through once you turn your work over and you start knitting across the other side of your fabric it's really important to remember that not all of the stitches on your needle are going to be mounted the same direction for the stitches that you worked western style this right leading leg of the stitch is going to be at the front of your needle for stitches that are worked Eastern style the left or trailing leg will be at the front of the needle whichever direction the stitch is mounted on your needle you need to work all your knits and pearls around this leading leg so let's work a few stitches and I'll show you what I mean the purl stitches are mounted with the leading leg at the front so I will purl around the leading leg my knit stitches are mounted so that this leading leg is actually at the back of the needle but I still want to work my knit stitch around the leading leg of the stitch also because some of the stitches are not conventionally mounted with the right or leaving leg at the front be aware that when you're doing increasing decreasing or twisting stitches you're going to have to manipulate this which is slightly different but I'm not going to get into quite that much detail today so why would you want to try combination knitting instead of regular Western knitting reason number one is for continental knitters it's physically easier to manipulate the yarn to make your purl stitches typically when you're making a purl stitch somehow you're going to have to push that working yarn down around the needle so that you can get it through your stitch with combination knitting all you have to do is bring that needle tip forward around the needle and pull it through so it's faster and there's less motion reason number two combination knitting can change your gauge and allow you to get more stitches or rows per inch so it's worth trying during swatching if your gauge is slightly off from a patterns recommended gauge this is the swatch that I made with the combination method this is the swatch I made with the regular Western method and you can see that this one is just slightly smaller even though both swatches were made with the same yarn on the same needles and have the same number of stitches reason number three combination knitting can make your ribbing a little bit firmer without having to change your needle size so this might be something you want to try next time you're doing ribbing around a sock cuff or the edge of a hat or even the sleeve or bottom of a sweater reason number four combination knitting can eliminate these wide stitches that happen in the transition between a series of knit stitches and a series of purl stitches since I know the combination knitting changes my gauge instead of using combination knitting for an entire piece I often use it only for the very first purl stitch after a series of knit stitches to just make these stitches a little bit tighter I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about combination knitting and if you did make sure to give this video a thumbs up and share it with all your knitting friends also if you have other reasons why people should give combination knitting a try leave a note in the comments below until we stitch again happy knitting

Channel: The Chilly Dog

Views: 419,581

Keywords: knit, knitting, thechillydog, the chilly dog, Slipstream Cardigan, combination knitting, western knitting, eastern knitting, continental style knitting, English style knitting, why try combination knitting, what is combination knitting, how to combination knit, English knitters, continental knitters, combination knitting purl, combination knitting knit, combination knitting ribbing, combination knitting method

Id: 5WP2MlICOWU

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 06 2018