Knitting thru the back

[Eccie]

My grandmother taught me to knit when I was young but I didn't keep at it and so forgot most of it. A year ago i retaught myself and I've been going along fine til this happened. My pattern says knit through the back loop the problem is, I always knit through the back loop. Yes yes I know it's not the right way but it works for me :P (I've tried to knit through the front and it doesn't work for me now.) So in order to follow the pattern when it says to knit through the back should I knit through the front? I hope this made sense.

[Jan in CA]

What you are doing by knitting through the back loop is twisting your stitches. You should be "untwisting" them on the next row..if you're not then all your knit stitches are twisted. This isn't a problem if you are happy with the way it looks. The problem when you do it all the time though is that it can affect your pattern. I don't know exactly all the changes you'll have to make to patterns, but here are some websites that might help.
http://www.anniemodesitt.com/
http://www.grumperina.com/knitting.htm

[of troy]

with out seeing a photo there could be several things going on..

1 all your stitches are twisted.

look at the base of the KNIT Stitch (especially on stocking knit.

is the base crossed? then its a twisted stitch.

2-you are purling combo.

if you purl combo, you will need to knit into back of the stitch to NOT TWIST IT.

many knitters (especially self taught knitters) knit combo. there are scads of info about combo knitting on the web.

IT IS A PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE WAY TO KNIT.
but most WRITTEN DIRECTIONS need changes to work with combo knitting (the decreases need to be changed/adapted)

World wide, there are many combo knitters, but in europe/english speaking world, on 10% of knitters knit combo!

3--something else is going on!

If you read Anne Modisett (the knitting heretic) blog and learn you knit combo, you can also learn how to twist a stitch (and the instruction "knit into back" exist to create a twisted stitch (which is never wrong, but sometimes not the desired effect!)

[suzeeq]

I think you're knitting combined style too, and to get the effect the pattern wants, you can knit through the front loop instead. That'll keep the knit st twisted.

[Becky Morgan]

There's nothing "wrong" about knitting combined. Just think backwards when they say knit tbl or whatever. Same thing when you come to a slip, slip, knit--we don't have to slip and turn the stitches to knit them together, and if we do, they won't slant properly for that decrease.

[Eccie]

groovy gravy Thanks guys

[nstssj]

That makes sense about thinking backwards, Becky, but can you explain more for what you would do about the ssk? How would that go 'backwards'?
nstssj--who can always be counted on to be confused

[suzeeq]

In conti/english knitting ssk is a left leaning dec and k2tog leans right. In combined knitting, they're opposite - k2tog leans left and ssk leans right.