Wrong way knitters
Here is the knit stitch. Perhaps you are familiar with it. The person who makes a fabric composed of stitches like this is called a knitter. This seems obvious to me, but the evidence presented to me recently shows that there are some who disagree. I believe that if a knit stitch is made, it doesn't matter if you made it with your teeth and it took you two hours. You are a knitter. It doesn't matter if you prefer to form it in complete darkness under an elderberry tree on the night of the new moon. You are a knitter.
So it further follows that I don't ever want to hear one knitter say to another, "You're doing it wrong." Twice in the last four days I have heard a story containing that phrase. Twice my blood has boiled. The first story was told to me by a young lady who seemed to hold no ill will for what happened to her. That's okay, I mustered enough ill will for the both of us. She had learned to knit from a book, and was finishing up her first project, a scarf. She went to dinner with a friend of hers. The friend's mother, a knitter, came along. This woman took one look at the scarf, declared "You're doing it all wrong!" and ripped it out. Yup, you heard correctly. Then the knitter proceeded to teach her how to do it "right". My guess is that the young lady was twisting her stitches (she couldn't tell me what exactly was wrong, only that now evidently, it was right). The other story was from a left handed knitter who knits by moving stitches from the right needle to the left, just like I do. She was told that she was doing it wrong (I could rant about this in particular, but Diane already has), and was very embarrassed as all the other knitters in the room looked at her as if they had suddenly discovered she had two heads.
If someone ever says to you "You're doing it wrong.", you have my permission to spit in their eye. And if you ever see someone knitting differently than you do, don't you dare tell him/her it is all wrong. Try something like this. "That looks uncomfortable to me. Do you find it comfortable?" "Your stitches are twisted. Did you know that?" "I've never seen anyone knit with their needle between their knees before. How did you come upon that method?" You could learn something intriguing instead of being rude. And the truth is, the knitter who is rude is the one that it doing it all wrong.
That reminds me of my very first sweater! I knitted it for my baby daughter. I had also taught myself from a book and I twisted every stitch. A knitting friend pointed out what I had done, but only when I asked her why it didn't look right. She told me it looked awesome that way (I wasn't so sure!). Although I wanted to knit correctly, I would have been devastated if someone ripped it all out and told me it was wrong!
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Amen. Lefties have been persuaded to do things the "right" way for too long. We are NOT wrong. We are lefties and damn proud of it too.
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I'm a right handed person that knits left handed and it makes me crazy when people tell me I'm knitting incorrectly. I've heard people say that left handed knitting doesn't exist! Really? Well, I must reside in a land of unicorns and leprechauns then because I knit left handed. I move my stitches from the right hand needle to the left hand needle while wrapping the yarn with my left hand. It may look strange to some, but it is NOT wrong. It works for me and that's all there is to it. I can't believe how judgemental some knitters can be when it comes to this topic. It's silly really. People should just let it go and knit in whatever way feels right for them and allow others the same courtesy.
But, if someone really gets on my nerves about it from now on, I'll just spit in their eyes. lol!
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I'm a thrice-taught knitter: once by my German-heritage great-grama, again by my mother, and finally from books, by myself! If anyone had pounced on me that third time, I probably would not be a knitter today.
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I am another knitter who has been told "you are doing it wrong"... this is because I knit both left-handed and continental style. I just told her that I didn't care because it worked for me.
I have been holding off teaching my eldest daughter to knit, because I didn't want to teach her to knit the "wrong way" - now I see that I was wrong - who cares if I teach her to knit the way I do - it isn't wrong, it is just different to how some others knit!
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So, up until a couple months ago, I've done ALL my knitting tbl. all of it. I think I first learned I was "doing it wrong" a while before that, but I didn't mind. I just had to remember that k2tog was "their way" and ssk was "my way" when doing laceworks and such. Unfortunately, I did a cashmere shirt recently, and it became very obvious that my knits were twisted and my purls wern't, and I was sad. But we live and learn and I don't do everything tbl anymore, but it was actually kind of fun knowing I was knitting "the wrong way"... I was a rebel
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What a delightful story. Thanks for sharing. You made a long insomniac night much brighter and made me laugh.
Thanks
Charlene
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I've only recently learned to knit (after years of hopeless trying) and I thought tbl was a legitimate stitch? I've made some interesting items using patterns incorporating tbl. Surely knitting is only 'wrong' if the whole thing self-destructs?! Anything my sister knits ends up triangular because somehow she picks up stitches with gleeful abandon!
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Great post!
My sister taught me to knit (barely as she was not a very patient teacher) through the back loop. I was happy and knitting away until I knit in front of other knitters. They never said that I was wrong but they would come over and exclaim over my knitting style which made me very self conscious.
Finally I got over it and became bold in my knitting, moving on from square projects to more complicated stuff. I retaught myself to knit continental style so that I could knit in the round with out twisting my stitches.
I taught a few knitting classes at my church and made sure that they knew that as long as they got the results they wanted there was no one judging them on their form.
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