Many years ago I dabbled with Fair Isle knitting when I made Christmas stockings for Brad, Audrey and I. I carried one color in my right hand and the other in my left hand and managed, sort of, to do Continental knitting. It was clumsy and I wasn’t thrilled with the effect but I carried on.
As I was knitting away on the dishcloths for Audrey’s kitchen it occurred to me that I could practice Continental knitting while working on the dishcloths. I’ve already started picking up speed and so far, so good.
My left hand needs work in getting used to tensioning the yarn. I always had a problem with crocheting too tightly as a kid and still get cramps in my left hand when doing crochet for any length of time. I figure working on Continental knitting might just get me to relax the tension a bit and stop the cramps.
My grandmother taught me to crochet rugs with Aunt Lydia’s cotton yarn, back when it was really cotton yarn. In a hank. That needed to be wound into a ball before using it. Rugs need a firm tension and I became very good at it, but like I said, I got cramps in my left hand so I haven’t done much crocheting in my later years. That is something I would like to remedy and overcome if possible. Goals are good. Learning new techniques are good. Perfecting techniques is even better.
If I can manage to become comfortable with carrying the yarn in my left hand I would like to do some more color knitting. Maybe a hat for practice. I’ve got plenty of yarn to choose from in my stash, especially when it comes to fingering yarn.
Rural Texas Knitter 