Disambiguation Part 1: What's Your Style?

As I embarked on the quest to create a nice, style-neutral listing of increases and decreases, it came to my attention that I can’t quite manage it. I can make one that is considerably more style-neutral than the majority I have seen, which assume a great deal about how stitches are laying on the needles, for example, but there are a few differences in styles that don’t go away just because I want to be able to make a universal guide. So, your first entry is not a listing, but an expository piece.

First, let’s get some terms defined, as I see some of them thrown around in ways that make no sense at all once you get a grasp of how many styles there really are.

Glossary:

Front: the side of the stitch that will face the knitter after being worked without twisting.
Back: the side of the stitch that will face away from the knitter after being worked without twisting.
Working Needle: the needle that is inserted into a stitch and has yarn wrapped around it to form a new stitch.
Holding Needle: the needle that holds stitches not yet worked in this row.
Pick: wrap the yarn to form a stitch by holding the yarn taut and catching it with the Working Needle
Throw: wrap the yarn to form a stitch by holding the yarn in hand and moving that hand around the tip of the Working Needle
Working Yarn: the yarn running from the yarn supply (e.g., ball) to the work.
Tail: extra yarn left hanging from the work when yarn is cast on, bound off, added, or ended; not connected to a yarn supply.

Clockwise and Counterclockwise are judged as if the needle is pointing directly at the knitter, with a watch face balanced on the point, facing the knitter.

What’s Your Style?

There are several different components that go into the definition of a knitting style, including how you hold your needles, how you get the yarn around your Working Needle to form a stitch, whether said yarn goes around the needle clockwise or counterclockwise, and whether you work through your stitches from right to left or left to right. However, only two are actually important when it comes to stitch instructions:

1. Do you knit from left to right or right to left?
2. Do you wrap Clockwise or Counterclockwise when forming a new stitch?

While the main debate in the US is Pick vs. Throw, the distinction is largely irrelevant to the actual instructions. Yes, if you pick your yarn and the person showing you how to do something prefers to throw, you will need to change your actual procedure somewhat from what they are doing, but what the yarn does will be the same as long as you knit and wrap the same direction, and most people will introduce variants into how they get the yarn to do that even when compared to other knitters in the same style.

Most knitters work from Right to Left. If you work from Left to Right, you are a Backwards knitter. (No judgment on you, and many knitters will be very impressed that you can. :-) All of the styles can be worked in either direction, and many knitters learn or want to learn to work both directions so they can avoid turning their work under certain circumstances.

If you wrap Counterclockwise, the stitches on the Holding Needle will face away from the Working Needle. This is Western knitting.

If you wrap Clockwise, the stitches on the Holding Needle will face the Working Needle. This is Eastern knitting.

If you work Knit stitches Western and Purl stitches Eastern, you are using Combination Knitting.

If you work Knit stitches Eastern and Purl stitches Western, you are using Inverse Combination Knitting.

Before We Start:

You may be a bit startled to see that you aren’t using the style you thought you were. In the Exotic Knitting Styles group on Ravelry, we have many members who taught themselves to knit from books, and thought they were knitting English or Continental, only to discover that when they tried to work in the round or try lace that things weren’t turning out quite right. It’s okay. You’re not “doing it wrong”, you just inadvertently reinvented the wheel. There are places where English and Continental are the exotic styles, and you would fit right in. The key is understanding what style you use, and adapting any instruction that was meant for another style.

Another common effect of learning from a book and changing the style somewhat is knitting Eastern Crossed. You get this if you wrap your yarn Clockwise, then insert your Working Needle into the stitch from left to right to form the stitch. This twists the stitch from the commonly-known V to a more complex cross shape (thus the name). It is very attractive, and I sometimes do it on purpose, but it can be very frustrating when directions assume you are not twisting your stitches. This is a result of a common bad habit I see in instruction for Western knitting styles, in which they tell you that the left side of the stitch is the “front”, and the right side is the “back”, rather than explaining the terms properly. If you want to try Eastern Uncrossed, simply insert your needle into the real front of the stitch, which will be facing your Working Needle, and continue as you usually do.

The Instructions:

For Backwards Knitters: If you work from Left to Right, my instructions should work exactly the same as they do for people working from Right to Left, but the stitches will lean the opposite direction. You may need to do some substitution if the direction of the lean matters for your pattern.

Note 1:

I default to using the versions of increases and decreases that involve the least modification from a standard knit or purl stitch. Thus, if there is a variant that requires you to Knit into the Back of a stitch, it will be listed after the variant that can be knitted normally. This might or might not reflect the preference of a particular designer, so check to see if they specify a variant.

Note 2:

Many instructions will list the lean of a purled increase or decrease as it will appear from the “right” side, as if no one would ever want a purl bump on the side anyone would see. As this assumption is what annoyed me into making this list, I do not do this. The lean mentioned is the lean you will see on the side the stitch was worked on.

The Basics:

For practice, here are some stitches you probably already know, written in the style I plan to use for the more complicated stitches. When I use these terms in the later instructions, I will be assuming that you are working them as described here.

With a few rare style exceptions, you will need to hold the yarn behind your work before a Knit stitch and in front of the work before a Purl stitch in order to avoid an inadvertent Yarn Over. Trust me, if you’re one of the exceptions, you will already know you can ignore this instruction.

See the Styles section if you are not sure which way the Front of the stitch lays for your style.

Knit Stitch- K:

1. Insert the Working Needle into the Front of a stitch on the Holding Needle
2. Wrap the Working Yarn around the Working Needle
3. Pull loop of Working Yarn through stitch on Holding Needle
4. Slip stitch off the Holding Needle

Purl Stitch- P:

1. Insert the Working Needle into the Back of a stitch on the Holding Needle
2. Wrap the Working Yarn around the Working Needle
3. Pull loop of Working Yarn through stitch on Holding Needle
4. Slip stitch off the Holding Needle

Knit Into Back/Twisted Knit Stitch:

1. Insert the Working Needle into the Back of a stitch on the Holding Needle
2. Make sure point of Working Needle is still behind the Holding Needle.
3. Wrap the Working Yarn around the Working Needle
4. Pull loop of Working Yarn through stitch on Holding Needle
5. Slip stitch off the Holding Needle

Purl Into Front/Twisted Purl Stitch:

1. Insert the Working Needle into the Front of a stitch on the Holding Needle
2. Make sure point of Working Needle is still in front of the Holding Needle
3. Wrap the Working Yarn around the Working Needle
4. Pull loop of Working Yarn through stitch on Holding Needle
5. Slip stitch off the Holding Needle