Knitting Backwards

Way back in 2004, I taught myself how to knit. Rather than learning by a book I learned by dream. The dream applied basic crochet yarn handling to the process of knitting. From there everything became quite simple, or so I thought. Rather than going around the back side to pick up the yarn, clockwise, I would pick it up like in crochet, which twisted the stitches. Of course not knowing any better, this is how it went for some time. Also, I would knit from one needle to the other and back without flipping the work to the wrong side. For some reason this just wasn't the way to knit. For another reason I believed that knitting was supposed to be faster.

It wasn't until 2008, when my husband took up the knitting needles I learned everything was knitted incorrectly. Inadvertently I had also taught myself an advanced technique called knitting backwards or knitting to and fro. It was difficult to reteach myself the proper way to pick up yarn and to flip my work at first. Now, the work flies from one needle to the next and flip. Hooray! 

Knitting and then flipping the work still does not sit right with me. I could spend more time knitting and less time flipping my work if I learned to knit from behind properly. The last two weeks I've been working on knitting backwards. The basic knit and purl are down pat, but now the journey is coming to increases and decreases. This will be a fun journey this summer. 

Currently there are videos available on youtube. The knitwitch is one of the best tutorial people out there for knitting. 

Knitty also has a great article in the Summer 2006 issue. It explains some key concepts and applications of this process in current patterns.

Happy knitting!
<3