When I came back to knitting after my divorce in 2000, I walked into a local yarn store. I asked the male presenting clerk about the various options for knitting socks. Now, I had never knitted a pair of socks, and, I had forgotten everything except how to knit and purl. I had access to lots of knitting books at the Portland, Maine, public library about knitting and so knew that the cast on I’d been taught at 8 years old was called “long tail cast on” and that I didn’t like it.
The books had a ton of options, but I had no idea of where to go next. So, after he sold me some yarn, a pattern and two sizes of needles, I asked the clerk about a cast on other than the long tail cast on to start the socks with that didn’t leave you guessing at how much yarn to use for the tail.
He suggested the cable cast on. I don’t remember him showing me how to do the cable cast on, but he did say it was like knitting but going between the stitches to draw through a loop to put onto the needle. I had some books at home that showed various options for how to do the cable cast on, along with a few other cast on. This was way before the days of Ravelry and YouTube. If YouTube existed, it didn’t have much in the way of being a knitting resource. Yahoo groups had email lists that you could join and email into the listservs and share information that way. Some folks had blogs, with a few static pictures to show the information, but not many.
Anyways, I looked at the books, figured out what the pictures were showing me and got started pretty well. The pictures did a good job of defining the difference between the cable cast on and the knitted cast on, so I didn’t make that mistake. I did the ribbing, and then read the heel instructions. What was that saying?!?! I figured that I would understand when I got there, and decided to trust the pattern. Not for the first time in my life when it comes to sock knitting.
I got through the heel turn and gusset pick up and down through the toe and grafting of the first toe. Then, I put the project aside for a while as one does and got to know someone special over the summer. It was quite nice and is still fun!
Then, I got to wanting to actually wear the socks, so got back to knitting them. I got to the middle of the foot. Then, my new sweetie’s sister-in-law mentioned liking to knit, so it was okay to bring over my project if I wanted to share some knitting time with her. I did, and so did. She had a strange look on her face while looking at the sock and a half I’d completed by that point. She asked to see how I did my stitches.
I showed her a few stitches and she stopped me. I asked what was up? She replied, “You’re twisting your stitches! See how mine lie so nice and flat, and your’s have a twist to them?”
Reader, you know what, she was right. My socks were twisting of their own accord!
I asked how to make stitches like she did. She showed me in the project she was working, and I did the same movements in the project I was doing. She was knitting English, and I was knitting Continental, so that added some fun. But, I just watched what the yarn was doing, like I had in the pictures in those books for the cast on.
Neither one of us thought to say or ask about frogging the socks and starting over. I just changed the way I knit in the middle of the project and that’s something I recommend folks don’t do, unless they want obviously different parts. For you know what, dear reader?
Those socks still exist and are the weirdest pair I ever made. One and half of the pair twists around my foot like it’s a fruit loop doing a pole dance, and the other half is a typical sock. But, I love them both. I just typically wear them in shoes so that they don’t twist too much and drive me batty with the textures changing and the heels ending up on top of my ankles.
So, that’s the story of the Twisted Stitches, without a purpose. Now, to move on to the Twisted Stitches, with a Purpose, part.
Sometime in the mid-2010s, I would look at the Craftsy website and look at the classes list to see if anything was worth paying for, or more likely, if they had any new classes in topics I liked. While searching for ergonomic knitting, someone was offering a class in combination knitting. Looking at the description of the class, I knew the term and techniques described would be better found t a basic level elsewhere on the Internet.
I searched for combination knitting, and found out it was using Eastern mounted purls and Western mounted knits. But, like with those twisted stitches earlier, not to be played with while in the middle of a project. So, I finished or frogged all my projects in knitting.
Not all my projects, there were still crochet and embroidery and painting projects going, of course. I can’t have no wips!
Then, I got to work learning how to do these stitches when desired. It eventually made lace fly, as you're able to set up for an ssk on the row or round before it happens, just by the way the yarn is wrapped around the stitch. Then, also, I learned to knit backwards through that experimentation period. And, by setting up an Eastern mounted stitch on one round, and working it as though it’s Western mounted on the next round, it results in a Twisted Stitch, on Purpose, with a lot more ease.
In one of the first knitting books I had ever read, I’d seen a reference to this way of purling. But because of the author’s lack of understanding and judgement, she called it a ‘lazy purl’ and so that’d kept me away from doing it for a long time. It was in Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I love her chatty writing style and her way of talking about yarns and patterns. But, this is one point I disagree with her about. It’s a different way of purling, it is faster for continental picker style knitters, and is easier for some of us with stress or rheumatoid arthritis injuries, but lazy, not really. I know she’s not here to hear my complaint, but others who uphold her way of thinking are, and like me, need their minds opened a bit.
Anyways, that’s how I came from Twisted Stitches without a Purpose, to Twisted Stitches with a Purpose.
Caveats for those who decide to experiment with the way you knit that might have an impact on your knitting gauge, Finish All Your Knitting WIPS First!! It’s best to practice on a fresh project rather than an in progress project because it will change the intersection of your hands, yarn, and needles known as your gauge. On a dishrag this could be funny, on a sweater this could be anger inducing! Ask me how I know!!! Those socks weren’t my only experiment in changing how I knit mid-project. They are the only ones still existing, though. Some things just needed to be cut and trashed. Hence why I don’t use semi-precious or super expensive yarns.
