A chance to purl

Some of you may remember that my sister Erica learned to knit last time she was in town.  Everyone on  her Christmas list got scarves.  I really thought I was well on the way to getting her addicted, but I was wrong.  What I didn’t realize is that they were all garter stitch scarves!  Nothing wrong with that of course, but I guess I just assumed she would seek out the purl stitch when she got home (I told her all about KH).  All knit and no purl makes for some boring knitting y’all!  Now that she has a baby on the way (NOT hers…a close friend) the interest to knit again has been sparked.  So this visit I taught her to purl.  Because of the way she holds the needles, continental purl was  a little awkward.  So I showed her the Norwegian purl method instead…for some reason that was the easiest for her.  Since she didn’t have much time to practice I promised a tutorial. (By the way, I hope all this messing around with my blog feeds didn’t totally screw things up.  It seems like my post from yesterday isn’t showing up in bloglines!)

Norwegian purling is fun to try (every time I think of Norwegian purling I think of the Olympics…seems like it should be the name of an intense sport).  It’s not my preferred method (I do regular continental) but it can break up monotony and is great for ribbing.  Why?  Well…Norwegian purling allows you to keep the yarn in the back same as the knit stitch.  No annoying front, back, front, back when switching from the knit stitch to the purl stitch.  (If you prefer video to stills, scroll to the end of this post.)  To begin, hold the yarn behind just as you would for a knit stitch and place the right needle under the yarn and then into the stitch on the left needle, approaching it from the right.

Then, rotate the right needle back to the right (the right needle is still in the stitch to be worked)

Next use the tip of the right needle to scoop up the working yarn.  The yarn will go around the right needle counterclockwise.

Then the right needle rotates back down towards the left.

 As the right needle rotates down towards the left the tip will go down and under the stitch to be worked.

Finally the right needle comes out behind the left needle and the stitch is complete.  Allow the finished stitch to come off the left needle and onto the right.

I also made a video for Erica.  It may be easier to try the Norwegian Purl after you’ve seen it done in real time.