I finished the Nicky Epstein’s Medallion Capelet from the Winter Vougue Magazine 2007-08. Yipeee!!! I REALLY like how it turned out. It reminds me of a moth. Isn’t that ironic? Making a moth looking cape when moths are things we wool-lovers hate to see around our wool? Moths like to nibble wool. 
I steam blocked the cape since it was made with Acrylic. This helped prevent the edges from rolling in. I must buy or make a closure of some kind. I wore it tonight to church in about 40-50 degree weather and am thinking I need to make one in wool or alpaca. This one in acrylic would be great for spring or summer. It has lots of air vents that the cold can penetrate easily. However, it sure looks good. I am seeing more people try to knit this on Ravelry. One person knit it in one night! Of course, she was a very petite size and this is a project that seems to go quickly and keep one’s attention.
I steam blocked the cape since it was made with Acrylic. This helped prevent the edges from rolling in. I must buy or make a closure of some kind. I wore it tonight to church in about 40-50 degree weather and am thinking I need to make one in wool or alpaca. This one in acrylic would be great for spring or summer. It has lots of air vents that the cold can penetrate easily. However, it sure looks good. I am seeing more people try to knit this on Ravelry. One person knit it in one night! Of course, she was a very petite size and this is a project that seems to go quickly and keep one’s attention.
Combination Knitting
I discovered a group on Ravelry for Combination Knitters. We have been having a very interesting discussion. Some have shared their thoughts on the “knitting bullies” who like to tell them they are knitting “wrong”. My opinion is that there is no wrong way to knit, only a multitude of different ways. It’s the finished product that counts, no matter how you got there.
I have tried to make a short video of the way I knit and purl in Eastern Uncrossed knitting. I had thought I knit just like Annie Modesitt, designer extraodinaire, but the more I look at her video, I realize that she purls through the front loop and I purl through the back. We might even wrap our yarn in a different direction.
Edit: I have since learned that there is a difference between Eastern Uncrossed and Combination knitting. My style of knitting is Eastern Uncrossed which knit and purl opposite of Western. In Combination knitting one knits or purls in Western and does Eastern in the opposite stitch (knit or purl), therefore, a "combination" of the two.
Initially, I had trouble uploading the 2-minute video to YouTube until I downloaded their YouTube downloader. It took about an hour but it finally uploaded. Now I see that it could take hours before I actually see the video on Youtube. There has got to be a better way of doing this. When I get a link I will include it here.
If this works, I’ll upload my other demo videos on the way I do different kinds of stitches: decreases….the right slanted (SSK) and the left slanted(k2tog). I know you Western knitters will say this is backwards and you are right. This is how I do it when I knit the way I do (Eastern Uncrossed ) the Continental way. I also have mini demos of double decreases…the SSK-psso dbl dec and the vertical dbl dec. These techniques may actually be the same as for Western Knitters.
5 comments:
This is exactly how I knit, too! I do a lot of circular knitting so I find it is much easier to have ALL my stitches presented with the leading stitch in the back of the needle.
Ravelry ID: tzlsh
This is exactly how I make my stitches! I just found your you tube videos and I am so very relieved to know that I am not the only one. I would love to see more videos or any other info you have about how you knit eastern uncrossed.
Thanks!
Your video is perfect and I've watched it many times. My grandmother taught me to knit (I'm 60 now) and to crochet. I knit just like I crochet!. Unfortunately I still can't purl. My problem is that I am left-handed. I crochet and knit by holding the yarn in my right hand and the working needle in my left. I can do ordinary continental and for two colours I use the American way too, but I am way way faster and more comfortable using this Eastern method, I just need to figure out how to purl left handed. I must have known once upon a time. Maybe I will try to hold a mirror up to your video. Anyway thanks for giving this method a name for me (I never knew it had a name and every knit shop thinks I am crazy when I show them my method. If you know a book or any other material which could help me, please let me know. Thanks
Diane, I've been knitting since I was nine (that makes it 37 years). I was taught the Eastern Uncrossed or Combined method, and while I've always loved it for knit stitches, I think it's slow and clunky for purling. Many years ago, at about the same time I was teaching my college-age son to knit, I was reading Elizabeth Zimmerman and Meg Swansen. My son "invented" knitting back backwards at just about the same time I ran across a reference and explanation in one of Zimmerman or Swansen's books. It works wonderfully for purling, and I think it's smoother and faster. Here's a link to a pretty clear explanation: http://members.tripod.com/knitchnotes/kkphotos/purlfromfront.pdf
Thanks so much Anon. I'll keep working on it. I have an extra problem, though since I am left-handed and hold the yarn in my right hand. So I have to 'convert' everything. I can also knit right handed, but it's just not as fast or comfortable. Thanks again for the response.
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