Finished Mitts

I did run out of green yarn, as expected. Luckily I was able to finish the thumbs and then use gray yarn to finish the cuffs. I originally chose a lighter shade of gray but the spouse disapproved. So I ripped the light gray cuffs and let him choose another yarn. I think I am spoiling him.

I spent Friday teaching a friend to knit two socks at the same time from the toe up. I was very surprised to find out that she knits the same way I do: with the yarn in the left hand, knitting from the back and purling from the front with the yarn below the needle. What she did not know was that when knitting in the round you purl from the back and knit from the front. Up to now she had been making socks with twisted stitches and had not noticed.

Although she is American, she spent her childhood in Mexico, and apparently that is where she learned the basics. Why is it that many of us in Mexico knit this way? I know that at least Andrea knits this way too. It was the Spanish who brought knitting to Mexico, but in Spain they knit using the British method.

I used to think that what best defined my style was the combination method, but in Anne Modesitt's book she never mentions purling from the back. In fact, she says that when knitting in the round you have no choice but to purl the "traditional way", which means wrapping the yarn above the needle when purling. This I find clumsy and unnecessary. The important thing is to pick the stitch from the leading edge. How you wrap of pick your yarn does not really matter until the next row, when again, you just have to make sure you pick the leading edge.

It is the Russians that use this method. How this came to be used in Mexico remains a mystery. Anyway, this is the video I shared with my friend to use as reference: