What is your knitting style?

Do you knit Western, Eastern uncrossed or Combination?

I have tried all three, and found out Eastern uncrossed produces the tightest gauge, Western produces a looser fabric and Combination is somewhere in between.

lidabet

I didnt even know Eastern Uncrossed existed and now Im sinking into a youtube rabbit hole! I knit Western, I think, with the working yarn in my right hand, and I have to admit, my gauge is always way looser than the pattern suggests and I have to go down multiple needle sizes. Do you find that Eastern Uncrossed makes you tighter than patterns suggest?

ghiromi

Hello.

I reckon this is the first time I read about these names. I heard of Continental and English style: the first has the thread on the left hand and the English style has it on the right hand, kind of a "thrower". I knit English style because it gives me a better gauge but I admit that the Continental style allows a knitter to work faster. Im going to do a search on YT and check the styles you mentioned. Always a blessing to learn new things! :)

Marty109

I knit what you call western style or English style. I tried Eastern uncrossed and can knit faster but I went back to English style. Im a tight knitter and my gauge is just too tight when I knit Eastern style uncrossed. I like learning new ways but I reverted to my "old" ways.

pitussa

I learned to crochet before I learnt to knit, so I knit continental, having the yarn in my left hand felt much easier to me, and a lot faster! I never have to let go of my needles.
When Im doing colorwork I knit continental and I throw  with the other hand! I learned watching youtube videos by verypink.

Very nice thread, love the replies!

kinsella7

Heres my ideas about different knitting styles and trying to categorise them, since some of you arent familiar.

Different aspects of knitting that vary between styles and knitters.

1. How you tension your yarn. Holding the yarn in the same or opposite hand of the working needle. Commonly called Continental or English knitting.
Now, there are so many variations of both. For continental knitting, also known as picking, you could wrap your yarn differently between your fingers, you could keep your index finger up in the air, leaving a long "lead" or you could keep it down on the needle, leaving basically no lead, just picking straight from your finger.
In English knitting, you could let go of the working needle, and wrap with your hand, you could flick the yarn without letting go - just using your finger and theres Irish cottage, also known as lever or pivot knitting where you also flick, but the needle is held/supported differently.
Theres also Portuguese - yarn behind the neck or in a pin and Shetland knitting - yarn tensioned from hip.

2. Mirror knitting - so-called left-handed knitting, but in practice there are left-handed people who dont use this and ambidextrous people exist. The difference between which hand holds the working needle or the holding needle.

3. How your stitches are mounted - commonly called western mount or eastern mount. The easiest way to expain this is if you knit western, and you drop a stitch or unravel and accidentally pick the stitch up the wrong way - if you knit it with the western knit, it produces a twisted stitch. But in Eastern Uncrossed, the stitches are always in this opposite position and you work knits and purls differently - always through the back leg - so no stitches twist.
   There are 4 different knitting styles that come from this. a) Stitches always western mounted - called Western knitting b) Stiches always eastern mounted - called Eastern uncrossed/Eastern European uncrossed. Switch between the two - c) Eastern mount after purling, western mount after knitting - called Russian knitting/Combination knitting. d) Western mount after purling, eastern mount after knitting - I dont think this has a name because its very rare.

The most interesting or annoying thing is that the vast majority of English knitting patterns are written for the western mount. In Eastern mount, you cannot follow the instructions, terms like "enter knitwise" dont mean the same thing, and decreasing and increasing have to be translated to the Eastern mount. For example, if a Western pattern says ssk, you should actually k2tog, if it says k2tog, you k2togTFL. Combination knitters actually have to do exactly what the pattern says sometimes, but not other times, depending which mount theyre currently on.

Strangely a lot of combination knitters dont know theyre combination knitters. This is what happened to me in school, I accidentally switched the mounts while purling and then naturally "untwisted" the knits on the next row. Ive also seen so many comments from people who say they didnt know they were twisting their stitches and always wondered why their fabric ended up so different, which is a whole other aspect.

4. Knitting backwards - not turning the work and using both hands and needles to work the stitches.

5. Doing knits/purls with yarn in the back/front. For example you can do purls with yarn in the back and knits with yarn in the front. The Nowegian purl, for example, is a purl done with the yarn in the back so you dont have to switch the yarn back and forth. While the most common way to knit in Norway is to hold continental and pick from your finger, you can of course do Norwegian purls with English hold, it doesnt matter. Sometimes there are only a few knits in a row of purls and some knitters find it comfortable to do those few knits with the yarn in the front.
One aspect generally doesnt require another aspect. You can use Continental hold or English throw or English flick with Western/Eastern uncrossed/Combination knitting.

diystuff

Its all too complicated for me to know.  :(