Continental Knitting vs. Throwing the Yarn

And! a new book! Bargain at the reduced price! "The New Knitting Stitch Library" by Lesley Stanfield contains just about every possible pattern and stitch combination one might ever want to know about!

I've decided also to buy "Knitters Handbook" by Montse Stanley as this is such a lovely and good indepth book for having to read for information as well as guidance!
From this book I finally decided to set time aside to try out new ways of hand knitting!
At the outset it describes the various ways in which knitters generally go about it with some rather odd methods eg wrapping the yarn about the neck! (now I've often felt like doing this, but not necessarily for enhancing my knitting style!).
Woops! it appears that I am doing it all "wrong"! We are advised, generally, to consult a Doctor FIRST with our arm and hand cramps, stiff shoulders, neck ache, back ache etc just in CASE there is something seriously wrong - and there then follows a list of points headed "Do you:-" and it seems that : I Do!

Now I've had this before. When knitting in public, or at a couple of knitting clubs. Sat there. knitting tucked under the table, ducking left shoulder for extra privacy and head generally tucked the opposite way. bit of squinting too. often its dark under the table. in order to avoid having to lay myself open for ridicule at the obvious, which is that I knit like I'm STILL 5yrs old sat at Grandma's knee!
After discovering that in fact I'm not the ONLY one to have learned similarly to fashion their own style at Grandma's knee I was pleased to hold aloft my knitting, uncrick the neck and knit in the full glare of every body else in the light! My knitting is neat. stitches are uniform. tension is generally pleasing and appropriate. WHY should I need to bother or worry?

Except. if I go on this posh new course for creatively handling textiles and have to sit with lots of clever and artistic ladies knitting like I'm still at nursery I might feel embarrassed!
Our teacher, whom I know already from various clubs, classes and events, was actually the lady to bring my knitting OUT from under the table (mostly, I admit because she thought I was doing something either awfully clever OR terribly secret!) and to not FUSS SEW about it! But I do. fuss. SEW, with that in mind I set to and began to try out new techniques and methods of wrapping yarn and generally knitting "properly".

I am further reminded, that MY style (I don't so much "wrap the yarn" as first take it for a good long scenic walk about the park and THEN wrap it, the needle can take care of itself balancing precariously while we feed the ducks and make our way around to slip off the next stitch ..) is "the slowest, most awkward, most tiring and least even way of knitting. Very little control over the work is maintained .." hmmm.

Still. I tried. and have to say that although initially I felt rather awkward having a tangle of yarn running through fingers and I ached in a way reminiscent of a time decades ago when callanetics was popular and one would stand hanging onto the mantlepiece, dangling a leg over the back of a chair and make a 2mm movement of the ankle 10times before deep muscle spasm set in and about 4lbs in weight dropped off to reveal a flat blancmange free middle. except it didn't. After an hour of perfecting my NEW technique of knitting "needle as pen" with pin tucked under my arm and yarn wrapped creatively about my fingers I decided to go all "continental"!

Further inspiration to try "continental knitting" came from a discussion thread about this very topic in which this link was shared to best demonstrate a lady with a rather whizzo technique of knitting continentally while talking very slowly and showing even complete idiots like me the way to do it!
I must be more of an idiot that I previously thought. I can't do it. I can if I start off the other way just about manage about 3 stitches, but I can't seem to get the hand of wrapping the yarn and flicking it about the needle from the left.

On balance I decided to abandon the continental knitting and resolved to spend the evening knitting my sideways wrap cardigan. Slight problem, however, in that my armchair is not positioned right with the armrests for this and I ended up having to balance on one cheek and the opposite knee dropped to a cushion on the floor and with it being double episode of Coronation Street by the end I'd got muscle cramp all over which had to be relieved with half a block of chocolate! (so much for my knitting losing my weight for me).