Trying to teach myself to knit

[TwinSetAndPearls]

I am trying to teach myself to knit, I make clothes but thought I could knit in the evenings while sitting with dp as obviously it is not as intrusive as a sewing machine.

But i just can't do it, I started sunday evening and I think my tension is too tight so it is such hard work and gets untidy.

I bough a debbie Bliss how to knit book and a friend bought me a knitting magazine with instructions in.

I think it is the way I am holding everything that is causing the problem, I can't manage to pass over my yarn and keep hold of the right needle.

I am using double knit yarn and 4mm needles which are quite short as I thought that would be easier.

After spending another evening of listening to my grunts of frustration dp suggested I just buy a knitting machine.

Is he right, are there some peole who just can't knit? Should i give in and buy a machine, which then defeats the object of me taking up knitting as I will be shut away in the study again. How long did it take you to get the knack.

tsap add in bar of green & black's and you have the definition of heaven

I keep saying that I must get into crochet TSaP. I can do all the basics in wool as my granny taught me years ago but I have all her cotton and hooks and bits she didnt finish in a box upstairs from when she died and would really like to make a top or something. Jsut need to make the effort really. I find using the cotton difficult as it has a different feel to wool and doesnt have the same stretch at all. One day ill do it (when the moon turns blue probably)

last night it was green and black's chocolate ice cream!

intarsia. Nasty stuff, now where's that Green and Black's, I can feel my bp rising even thinking about it!

tsap

Message withdrawn

Our network died, so I went away. Merglemergle, as everyone says, continental knitting is when you hold the yarn in the left hand. I'm not left-handed (somewhat ambi), but I find you do a lot of the work with your right hand anyway. Rather than looping the yarn around the needle with your right hand (while you do what with the right needle?), you pick up the yarn with the tip of the right needle. (Some people call continental-style knitting "picking", and English "throwing".)

i tried to teach myself to knit once from a book. But the book was for right handed people and so i couldn't quite work it out in my left

juicychops, I've not seen any knitting instructions that allow for left-handed people. I guess you could reverse everything, and knit really backwards, but I'm not 100% sure, and thinking about it is making my brain hurt.

But I'd say continental-style is more lefty-friendly.

cheers NQS. Ive tried so many times but just never seem to get the hang of it. Even my mum has tried to teach me but she is right handed and its even harder than following a book!! One day i will succeed!

Juicychops, learning from a book is hard. I re-learned English-style from a book (but I'd done it as a child, and anyway, it wasn't working right) and then learned continental-style from a book, too, but only after watching someone do it.

Anyway, here is a page which includes instructions for left-handed knitting. She's doing left-handed English knitting, which would be particularly good for you if you're a not-very-ambidextrous sort of lefty, as it means you do almost all the work with your left hand. Hope this helps.