How to Knit Continental Style

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Jan. Today I'm going to show you the continental method of knitting. There's two types of knitting methods, one is the continental and one is the English. The end products the same, it just depends on where you hold your needle and how you get it around the needle. The yarn is held on your left hand, the best way is to go all the way around your little finger, bring it up and over your pointer finger and hold it up like this. Your needle goes from front to back just like in the English method, but you wrap the yarn, grab it, pull it through the loop and off. Put it through, grab the yarn, pull it through and off. This is why it's sometimes also called pick knitting or picking because you just put the needle through, pick it off your finger and pull it through. There's a lot less movement then there is if you do the English method since you're not wrapping the yarn around with each stitch and you don't have to stop and hold the needle. Some people find it a lot faster, some people enjoy it because there's a lot less movement of your arm and your fingers. So that's the knitting stitch. On the purling stitch, you hold it the same way but like in the English method the yarn is to the front of the work. Your needle goes from back to front just like in the English method, you let the yarn float up and over the needle, hold it down with your finger, pull it through the stitch, and take it off. Back to front, pull the yarn down, let it go through, and take it off. You just continue that way all the way across. The finished product of continental or pick knitting looks exactly the same as the English method. So which ever method you choose kind of depends often on how you were taught or which way you enjoy doing it. But give it a try."