I learned to knit in third grade. I was eight, or perhaps nine, years old. I’d watched my mom knit all my life and had been to the yarn store (Kaleidoscope Yarns in Essex Jct., VT, RIP, you were the best store EVER) with her many times. Usually, I’d sit at the table and wait impatiently, after browsing every shelf and touching all the yarns. The staff there must’ve been saints – I can’t imagine I had very clean hands. I’d think, “how on EARTH can one person spend so much time looking at YARN?”

I had no idea what was coming for me.

One day, my mom must’ve asked me if I’d like to learn. I said, sure, and thus began my torrid love affair with wrapping string around sticks. She produced a pair of light blue metal needles—size 15—and some Lamb’s Pride bulky yarn. I knit almost exclusively on Lamb’s Pride yarn until the local craft store in my town started stocking Cascade 220 when I was in middle school. I don’t regret it. Lamb’s Pride has a special place in my heart. The main reason we liked it was that it felts easily, and in the early 2000s, everyone felted EVERYTHING. Purses! Mittens! Potholders! If you could knit it, you could felt it.

My mom cast on for me and showed me how to work the stitches. When I tried to do it, the needles felt very large and awkward in my hands – it wasn’t any use. I tried, I kept trying, but I hated it. I went back to my Knitting Nobby (Nancy? Some people have different names for it), which is a little doll-shaped thing on which you can make i-cord, and I made my mom some more i-cord for her next project bag.

The following year, fourth grade, just before Christmas, my teacher announced that we would all be learning to knit so that we could knit squares that would be sewn together into scarves for people in need of warm winter things. My teacher was a knitter, too. She’s retired, now, but I think of her often as someone who was integral on my journey towards becoming the knitter I am today. Mrs. Prescott, if you’re reading this, please know how grateful I am for knitting and everything else you brought into my life. 

“Can we start now?” I asked my mom, coming home on the last day of school before winter break. “I want to try again, but I didn’t like those needles.”

So, we went to Kaleidoscope that afternoon, to the best of my recollection, because my mom was so thrilled that I wanted to knit again. I picked two new colors of Lamb’s Pride bulky: a vibrant lime green and a very shocking violet (16 years later, I’m slightly shocked even contemplating this combination) and got some bamboo needles, which the staff recommended, in a size 11, which would, they assured me, fit my hands better.

Magic happened with that yarn and those needles. I became a woman possessed. So, I should add, was half of my class. My best friend and classmate Ivy (who is definitely reading this and to this day sends me snapchats of her knitting at least once a week) was also a knitter, and so were Alie and Maddie, other friends whose mothers were avid fiber artists. We’d sit in the hallway during recess (indoors, because Vermont winters) knitting on pencils, chopsticks, or whatever else we could find.

One day, though, my friends asked me why I knit differently from them. I watched Maddie knit—she was the most experienced of all of us—and noticed that when she poked her needle through a loop, she went into the front of the loop, instead of the back, like I did. I tried her way but found it awkward and difficult to move my hand fluidly to make the stitches. And then, they came out twisted. It didn’t look very good. “I don’t know,” I must’ve replied. “This is how my mom taught me.”

My mom explained to me, when I asked her, that it was a European style of knitting. I was fascinated by this. Maddie and I watched each other knit a lot, sometimes teasing each other that our own way was better, but mostly just interested that there were different ways to do it.

About ten years later, in college, my roommate Lexi and I decided one day to go down to the big knitting warehouse on Queen Street in Toronto (Romni Wools – the greatest place on earth) to get supplies, because we thought we’d pick up knitting again. I got some big needles and a bulky yarn, for a cowl, and Lexi got some lightweight cotton (she’s sensitive with wool) to make a lace shawl.

Arriving back at our Chinatown two-bedroom, we sat on our futon together and knit for a while, and Lexi, unsurprisingly, scrutinized my hands after realizing that they did not move in the same way hers did. She asked me why I knit so differently. I told her it was a European style, and she said, “oh, it must be Continental. You’re not throwing, you’re picking. It means you have the yarn in your left hand.”

“Yes! I’ve heard people say that before!” I replied, enthusiastically.

“But something else is weird about it,” she shook her head, still stuck. “You don’t stab the stitch the way I do. I can’t figure it out.”

After several more knitters in my life puzzled over this over the next five years, I finally decided to look it up. It turns out that the style of knitting I use is called “combination knitting.” It’s much more ergonomic, in fact, and this is why I can knit so quickly. Knitter Annie Modesitt was a huge promoter of this style and Anna Zilboorg has written a book that I believe mentions this technique (haven’t read it, but Google seemed sure). It’s called “combination” because it’s a combination of Eastern and Western knitting techniques. My mom learned to knit from her mom, who’s Ukrainian, so this makes a lot of sense to me. It’s also how I teach people how to knit, now, because it’s so much more comfortable.

How it works: instead of knitting into the front leg, from the left to the right, you knit into the back leg, from the right to the left. The stitches are twisted so that the back leg is the leading leg, so this makes complete sense while doing it.

Purling is also done through the back loops, although as long as you wrap the yarn in the same direction I am doing here, you’ll get the same effect. (I’ll upload a video of this later!)

Generally, this style is great. What it’s not great for is trying to figure out how to do new techniques. As someone who has been knitting for a long time, I am quite adept at what people call ‘reading my knitting,’ which means I understand the physics of the loops, their twists, and what needs to happen to get the fabric to look the way I want it to. I’ve tried and failed and tried and failed again and tried and FINALLY, maybe on like the tenth try, succeeded on things like short rows, increases, tubular cast-ons, and lifted-left-leg increases – when it says purl, for instance, do I slip it through the front or back loops? I’ve almost always found a solution (thank goodness), but sometimes it’s backwards from the normal way, and sometimes it mirrors it, and sometimes it’s exactly like it says. Guess and check.

One minor thing I should note: on the Wikipedia page for combination knitting (where you will see that people do, in fact, favor it for reasons other than comfort), it says that you must swap “k2tog” and “ssk.” This is NOT correct. Knitting two together must be done through the front loops—this creates a right-slanting stitch. When it says “ssk,” this means to knit two together through the back loops, just like the usual style of combo knitting. This creates a left-slanting stitch. You do these exactly as printed in patterns.

Someday, I may try to publish a short book or pamphlet about this. If I’m teaching people to knit in this style, I think it’s probably my duty to give them the advice and techniques they’ll need. I occasionally daydream about quitting everything else in my life and starting a combination knitting craze. (And having sheep. And my own mill. And dye studio. Lots of knitting dreams.) In any case, I think combination knitting is probably the best thing since sliced bread. Give it a try if you don’t believe me. I can’t talk it up enough.