I made a discovery last week - kind of stumbled in by the back door :)

I knit English style.  When I make a stitch, I let go of the right needle to manually bring the yarn around the left needle.  I know about Continental style knitting where the yarn is tensioned in the left hand and sort of scooped through the stitch by the right needle (picking, as opposed to throwing).  I have tried it many times over the years because it’s supposed to be so much faster.  It may be because I’m just not dexterous enough or because I’m left-handed but I knit right-handed.  In any case, my fingers just don’t seem to be able to move the right way.

I didn’t waste any time worrying about it, just continued knitting and throwing as I always did.  Then, a couple of years ago, I learned about knitting backwards.  Really, this is a way of purling back from the front so that you don’t have to turn the work, nor shift your hands nor let go of the yarn.  It makes things easier in several cases.  For plain stockinette work, it’s a dream - things go quite a bit faster,  For things like bobbles and entrelac, it’s a dream come true.  I always did like bobbles but making them was a pain in the butt.  Now, it’s a pleasant little diversion from the regular row (or round) of knitting.  And I never even tried entrelac (barely knew what it was) before I learned about knitting backwards - and you all know how I feel about entrelac :)

My only regret about the knitting backwards thing was that while it covered purl stitches, nowhere was there any suggestion about how to do knit stitches.  I did, eventually, figure out a way that worked, but it’s awkward and still involves bringing the yarn from the back to the front of the work in order to make the stitch.  For some reason that I couldn’t quite pin down, this seems to be a much clumsier maneuver when working back from the front than when working forward from the front.

A few weeks ago, a knitter who designs and knits beautiful shawls and whom I knew to habitually employ the knitting backwards technique (see the Yahoo group Mmario Kknits) mentioned a way of making a knit stitch (while knitting backwards) that didn’t require bringing the yarn to the front of the work.  It was compared to the Norwegian purl technique (video tutorials here and here), a method of purling from the front that didn’t require moving the yarn to the front of the work.  I had investigated this technique a while back, but it’s aimed at Continental knitters.  There’s really no way for an English style thrower to accomplish it.  So I promptly forgot about it and moved on.

And yet, the idea of being able to knit as well as purl from the back of the fabric without having to shove the yarn back and forth kind of haunted me.  I went and looked at the Norwegian purl videos again.  And then I observed (closely this time!) where my hands and yarn were when I was knitting backwards - yarn tensioned in the right hand and being picked, not thrown.  And it dawned on me finally, when I knit backwards, I’m knitting Continental style!  Well, whaddya know!

So I went back to review the Norwegian purl videos.  I kept trying to figure out how I could adapt this to create a knit stitch when one was working backwards.  Periodically, when I was working on the blanket, I would try one thing or another as various ideas occurred to me and last week, I finally nailed it :)

I will try to put a tutorial together for those few who might be interested in this sort of thing.  I realize this is kind of esoteric, but it’s pretty cool all the same :)  English going forwards and Continental going backwards!

Seed stitch and ribbing will never be the same - and this is going change the way I knit forever!