Continental Knitting help

[vergull]

Hi again. For the past day and a half I've been trying to figure out the continental knitting. I've gotten the hang of it (sort of!).





As you can see from the pics, it gets very messy towards the end.

Some questions I have:

- It gets very very tight for me when I'm trying to do the knitting. How do I loosen it? I try to adjust the string tension with the pinky (I make sure it's loose like in the video on this site) but it's just as tight.
- Are the strings supposed to be like that? [See picture] For some reason the tail is lower than the actual string I'm using. It doesn't seem right for some reason.

Edit - 06 Nov 08 - Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the tips. I've been sort of experimenting on how to hold the string and it's helped a lot.

[teachermom]

I'm going to do my best to describe how I do continental knitting...

I hold my yarn a bit differently then they do in the video and I have found that it is easier for me to control tension.

I hold the yarn in my left hand, put the yarn between my pinky and ring finger, over the back of my hand and then wrap it around my index(first) finger twice. I find that my first finger can pull a bit tighter when I start to loosen up or I can put my finger closer to the needle and give a bit more slack when I get a bit tighter. Now I do have to re-thread through my hands from time to time to get back to correct tension. I also use my index finger to wrap the yarn around the right hand needle, instead of using the needle point to wrap around (not sure if that makes sense)

I hope that helps... if not let me know and I'll try to take a picture of how I do it and post.

watch your CO tail yarn on the first row - it looks like from the pictures, it got picked up and knit into your first row or CO row. I saw on another post that someone uses the plastic tabs that hold the plastic bag on your breadloaf closed and wraps the CO tail around that to keep from knitting it into the work. I usually just watch and if I do grab it, stop and gently pull it out, and give a slight tug to straighten it out.

Keep practicing... it may be worth it to knit a few swatches using continential till you get the hang of it... My grandmother taught me and I spent a summer CO, knitting a swatch, taking it out and starting it all over again. I didn't appreciate it then, but I do now.

[suzeeq]

Just go on to the next row, the cast on and first row can look very messy. Tension comes with practice, try holding your yarn a different way until you find something that feels comfortable for you. I think teachermom is right, the tail got into some of the sts, but that's alright, you can pull it out and if this is just a practice piece it won't matter. Just keep going and it will improve.

[Becky Morgan]

I don't wrap my yarn around anything. It goes over my little finger, under the middle two and over the index, and the slight drag is enough. YMMV, of course!

[crazykntter83]

I just kinda let the yarn "chill" on my left pointer finger, and sorta clench the rest of the rest of the yarn underneath the rest of my fingers. I don't know what this method is called, or if there's even a name for it, but it works for me.

[Hildegard_von_Knittin]

I don't wrap or weave the yarn at all when I'm knitting. I knit continental (yarn in left hand), but I "throw" the yarn, like English style knitting.

See how everyone who's responded so far does something different? After you practice for a while and get comfortable with holding the needles and yarn, you'll find what works best for you.

[crazykntter83]

I've been knitting for sever or eight years, and up until a week ago I would hold the yarn in my hand and manually wrap it around the needle. My dad taught me the knit stitch, and tried to teach me how to hold the yarn, but it never really caught with me b/c he was trying to teach me how to do it with my right hand. Finally I got tired of wrapping the yarn around my needle manually, and I finally came up with the method that I talked about before, and found that it was comfortable for me. It really is all about what you're comfortable with. I would say to just explore different ways of holding the yarn and find what is comforable for you. Good luck!