Knitting -- getting a new hold

I love watching old movies, as you know if you remember my Constance Bennet tuxedo post.

So I was watching a noir film and one of the women prisoners was knitting with the right hand needle held high and pushed through the stitches, then she wrapped the yarn and pulled the right needle out.

Recently I was watching a British series on YouTube and one of the women characters used the same hold on her needles.

So I started googling. Turns out that this is called lever or Irish cottage or Pit style, as well as a "pencil hold", because your right hand holds the needle like a pencil, instead of with the same hold as your left hand.

Apparently it is mostly used with straight needles, but I tried it while working a linen top on  a circular needle. I was using KTBL on the odd rows and having trouble working quickly.  Until I changed to the pencil hold.

Here's how it works. Tension the yarn on your right hand. Use your left hand to push the stitch onto the right needle. Use your right hand to loop the yarn. Use your left hand to pull the inactive side of the loop off the right needle.

This video is great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNlt_-F-3ZA

It shows how much faster purling goes with the pencil hold, because you don't have to move the yarn as much. The Continental style is supposed to work faster than the English style, but if you are uber-righthanded like me, your left hand cramps a lot unless you originally learned to knit Continental style. Pit style is more natural for me.

The video also talks about something I've seen on other websites. If you knit a lot, English or Continental style, you may have developed carpal tunnel or some other  repetitive motion syndrome. This is a different motion and it won't stress your hands or joints the same way.

The same person did a video for circular needles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdHCqMBrIfU

The pencil hold, if I work up some speed with it, might help me with skirt patterns at freevintageknitting.com. But I have a lot of summer tops to finish -- and that's the next post.