.. but you have no adventures in your life! Yes! I have! I am knitting a shawl! :D

[antimatter]

I was tiptoeing and being very indecisive what to do. I used to knit and crochet many years ago. In some way big choice of yarns intimidates me. Bur I like a bit of a challenge too.

I went to the local wool shop and my eye got caught by this pattern (as there was a shawl made with the same colour on the shelf).

I had so much adrenaline in my bloodstream trying to work out al lthe stitches - who needs parachute diving!

I've just started a hitch hiker shawl. I've pulled it out four times now though.
I think this time it's right. The pattern never says how many stitches you should have at any given point, so I can't check easily if I've got it right.

never seen hitch hiker shawl pattern before! (I was away from knitting for ages!)

I have been looking at some videos of fast knitting and trying to work out how to change positions of my fingers for this technique:

I knit european style anyway but to change habit of many years seems nearly impossible!

I looked at that, it's v. Interesting as I'm a self taught slowbie.

It's very hard to learn a new technique but if you keep persevering you will get there. I was taught to knit 'English-style' like many of us, and self-learnt continental a couple of years ago. I would now try and teach people continental to start off with, rather than have them learn it later, although so far everyone I've taught wants to do it English-style, as they've seen people in their own families!

antimatter, it sounds as if you may not be aware of Ravelry (here's a link to the Hitchhiker pattern on it). This is where hundreds of thousands of patterns are indexed, and many can be bought through it.

I've registered in Raverly ages ago and need to check my account tonight. Thanks for reminding me!

I also watched russian style of knitting and there are few shortcuts which would help me to speed up my knitting

In terms of techniques, is an interesting one, but I wouldn't attempt to learn this myself :)

it's useful knowing both continental and english styles for stranded work. i learnt english to start with but taught myself continental so that i could do stranded work two-handed

Agreed, although I now use for my right hand when doing stranded knitting - its similar to continental so it makes it go faster.

Oh that's what I do! I assumed that was the same as English knitting but it's not! (I had to actually get some knitting and check to make sure because it's so instinctive now that I hadn't really thought about it )

(They do blether on at the start of these videos don't they)

Interestingly my mum taught me and she is left-handed, but doesn't do continental style, so maybe that's where I got it from

They do - the worst ones are where it's sponsored by some random American yarn brand and we have to go through 'thank you to xxx for the ball of whatever-it-is yarn etc etc'. Cut to the chase for god's sake! :)