Tuesday, October 25, 2022

21st Century Classical Greek -- the cognate accusative

Book I section 51. This is a good section for going over all the conjugated verbs; id the aspect, flavor, person, number and gender to test yourself.

ταύτας οὖν προϊδόντες οἱ Κορίνθιοι καὶ ὑποτοπήσαντες ἀπ᾽ Ἀθηνῶν εἶναι οὐχ ὅσας ἑώρων ἀλλὰ πλείους ὑπανεχώρουν.

[2] τοῖς δὲ Κερκυραίοις ἐπέπλεον γὰρ μᾶλλον ἐκ τοῦ ἀφανοῦς οὐχ ἑωρῶντο, καὶ ἐθαύμαζον τοὺς Κορινθίους πρύμναν κρουομένους, πρίν τινες ἰδόντες εἶπον ὅτι νῆες ἐκεῖναι ἐπιπλέουσιν. τότε δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ ἀνεχώρουν: ξυνεσκόταζε γὰρ ἤδη, καὶ οἱ Κορίνθιοι ἀποτραπόμενοι τὴν διάλυσιν ἐποιήσαντο.

[3] οὕτω μὲν ἡ ἀπαλλαγὴ ἐγένετο ἀλλήλων, καὶ ἡ ναυμαχία ἐτελεύτα ἐς νύκτα.

[4] τοῖς δὲ Κερκυραίοις στρατοπεδευομένοις ἐπὶ τῇ Λευκίμμῃ αἱ εἴκοσι νῆες αἱ ἐκ τῶν Ἀθηνῶν αὗται, ὧν ἦρχε Γλαύκων τε ὁ Λεάγρου καὶ † Ἀνδοκίδης ὁ Λεωγόρου †, διὰ τῶν νεκρῶν καὶ ναυαγίων προσκομισθεῖσαι κατέπλεον ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον ἢ ὤφθησαν.

[5] οἱ δὲ Κερκυραῖοι (ἦν γὰρ νύξ) ἐφοβήθησαν μὴ πολέμιαι ὦσιν, ἔπειτα δὲ ἔγνωσαν: καὶ ὡρμίσαντο.

In 51.1, Jowett ignores the negation oukh hosas, “not those that they saw, but more [as well], slowly retreated.”

In 51.2, tois….oukh eoronto is not explained in LSJ or Middle Liddel. The meaning clearly is that the Kerkyraeans did not see the Athinaian ships coming to help them, but there is no entry in LSJ that hinges on the -ois case.

Note that 51.5 sort of has reported speech. What modal does it use and why?

Now for another concept in the old grammars that I can explode.  If you have studied Greek before, you were probably taught about the cognate accusative. If you wound up confused or were never able to recognize it or use it in your exercises, that’s more damage from the old grammars. When you studied the dictionary entries on eoronto, you saw an item that referred to cog. acc. That’s what I’m going to destroy.

All the Greek grammars I looked at (White, Goodwin, Gildersleeve, Smyth) have different definitions of this subject. Gildersleeve copied his from his Latin grammar, and it differs from the definition in Allen & Greenough’s Latin grammar. When there’s no objective definition, there’s no there there.

There is something in Arabic and Hebrew that is called the cognate accusative. It is two words in close association from the same root. One is a conjugated verb; the other is a substantive derivative. The structure is an adverb of manner. Since there is no accusative morphology in Hebrew, it’s obvious that “cognate accusative” is another misleading label, and since the structure is used as an adverb it’s clear there should be no case assignment anyway.

What I’m going to call it is adverbial equative, which is an actual noun case in Hurrian. I don’t have examples of the Hurrian adverbial equative; Wegener doesn’t give any. If you know of some, ante up. The adverbial equative appears to be endemic in the Arabic Thousand and One Nights, if the Burton translation is to be trusted. I found a copy of Arabian Nights online but haven’t learned enough Arabic to study it.

It turns out that poets like Aeschylus, and Demosthenes in his rhetoric, have structures using two derivatives of the same word, although Thucydides hasn’t used it in any of the sections we looked at.

See Demosthenes’ Against Aristocrates 121, καλήν γ᾽ ὕβριν ἦμεν ἂν ὑβρισμένοι. “what a fine insult by them insulting us”

Aristophanes’ Plutus, 1044: τάλαιν᾽ ἐγὼ τῆς ὕβρεος ἧς ὑβρίζομαι. “wretched me the insult being insulted.”

Or, “could this possibly be more insulting”.

There is such a thing as the adverbial equative in another ancient Indic language. I found this structure in Book IV of the Mahabharata, chapter 66, verse 22. There is no reason to deny that Classical Greek has an adverbial equative since its close cousin Sanskrit has it. The issue is that scholars writing about Classical Greek have committed the fallacy of broad redefinition to pretend that the a.e. is as common in Greek as it seems to be in Arabic. Instead, it seems to be restricted to specific uses, and as the Mahabharata is a long verse composition from an oral tradition, there shouldn’t be any surprise at finding that the Sanskrit poets used the adverbial equative.

So there are a couple of projects for you:

a)                  study the Thousand and One Nights in Arabic to see if the a.e. is as common as Burton makes it appear;

b)                  study your favorite Greek author to see under what circumstances he uses the a.e.; and

c)                  look for more examples in the Mahabharata.

But stick to my definition.

Sunday, October 23, 2022

Knitting -- holds and techniques that reduce tendonitis

I found a video on how to purl Fair Isle when you are working on the flat and my fingers hurt just looking at how the demonstrator was holding her yarn. She had it wrapped like 3 times around her finger and I  knew she was cutting off her circulation. There's also the problem of tendonitis in frequent knitters.

I have found a couple of solutions or preventers for tendonitis.

One solution is the pencil hold. This is an old technique that I have seen in classic films as well as more recent videos. I can't find a good video on it. I'll try to explain it.

1. You hold the right hand needle as if it were a pencil resting on your hand. Your hand is under the needle, not on top of it like with the knife hold.

2.  You hold the yarn, wrapped gently once around your little finger for tension. I have tried this with both continental and English (in the right hand) yarn styles, and it works. I'm used to doing pencil hold with the yarn in the right hand.

3.  You do not bunch up your work toward the tip of the working needle; you cover the work with your hand and slide it to the right as you go.

4. Your left hand finds the next stitch and stabilizes it; this helps you work faster. 

5. Put the point of the right needle to the left of the next stitch and swipe it to the right through that stitch but don't take it off the needle.

6. Because your hand with the yarn is close to the left needle, it's a slight movement forward and around to loop the yarn under your working needle and bring the point through the stitch you are knitting into, then pull off the new stitch. With the knife hold, this looping movement has to travel farther, and that's a more extreme motion that promotes tendonitis.

One of the great things about this technique is that it goes faster if you DON'T watch what you're doing. Once you get good at it, you won't miss much of your TV show.

Another way to prevent or solve tendonitis is the continental hold with your left hand with the knife hold. Once again, your yarn is lightly wrapped around your left little finger. But the problem is that you may be running the yarn over your index finger when it is raised off your left needle. This tires your finger out.

And then I learned Norwegian style knitting. You can't use this with the pencil hold; it requires the knife hold. But your index finger stays down on the needle, and both hands work about equally, and it's much more relaxed. 

What's more, there's a Norwegian style purl. Watch Carlos do it on video, starting about 6:20. Slow the speed down to .75 for your first demonstration. Three things to watch out for.

1. You don't bring the yarn to the front of the working needle, you take the working needle to the back of the yarn. That's the first step of Carlos' cha-cha-cha.

2. When you have put the working needle into the stitch you are purling into, you rotate the working needle to the back again and you also take it over the working yarn to the back, then rotate it under the working yarn.

3. Here's how you avoid making an extra stitch. When you bring the working needle to the front again, do not take off the stitch yet. Bring the point of the working needle to the LEFT of the stitch you are purling into. Continues from left to right UNDER the working yarn. This is important; if you continue from left to right IN FRONT of the working yarn, you will actually make an extra stitch.

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

And now for the all-important question. What if you drop one of those fancy purl stitches? I've already done it, and it's no harder to pick up than your usual purl stitch. 

Norwegian knitting not only relaxes you and distributes the work over both hands, it makes your knitting tension more even. I used this on a project I was working in the round that had a couple of purl stitches every so often. Try it both in the round and on the flat and see what you think.

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

21st Century Classical Greek -- some more idioms

Book I section 50. I was going to do several sections in one post but then I found a number of things I thought you ought to know about.

τῆς δὲ τροπῆς γενομένης οἱ Κορίνθιοι τὰ σκάφη μὲν οὐχ εἷλκον ἀναδούμενοι τῶν νεῶν ἃς καταδύσειαν, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐτράποντο φονεύειν διεκπλέοντες μᾶλλον ἢ ζωγρεῖν, τούς τε αὑτῶν φίλους, οὐκ ᾐσθημένοι ὅτι ἥσσηντο οἱ ἐπὶ τῷ δεξιῷ κέρᾳ, ἀγνοοῦντες ἔκτεινον.

[2] πολλῶν γὰρ νεῶν οὐσῶν ἀμφοτέρων καὶ ἐπὶ πολὺ τῆς θαλάσσης ἐπεχουσῶν, ἐπειδὴ ξυνέμειξαν ἀλλήλοις, οὐ ῥᾳδίως τὴν διάγνωσιν ἐποιοῦντο ὁποῖοι ἐκράτουν ἢ ἐκρατοῦντο: ναυμαχία γὰρ αὕτη Ἕλλησι πρὸς Ἕλληνας νεῶν πλήθει μεγίστη δὴ τῶν πρὸ αὑτῆς γεγένηται.

[3] ἐπειδὴ δὲ κατεδίωξαν τοὺς Κερκυραίους οἱ Κορίνθιοι ἐς τὴν γῆν, πρὸς τὰ ναυάγια καὶ τοὺς νεκροὺς τοὺς σφετέρους ἐτράποντο, καὶ τῶν πλείστων ἐκράτησαν ὥστε προσκομίσαι πρὸς τὰ Σύβοτα, οἷ αὐτοῖς ὁ κατὰ γῆν στρατὸς τῶν βαρβάρων προσεβεβοηθήκει: ἔστι δὲ τὰ Σύβοτα τῆς Θεσπρωτίδος λιμὴν ἐρῆμος. τοῦτο δὲ ποιήσαντες αὖθις ἁθροισθέντες ἐπέπλεον τοῖς Κερκυραίοις.

[4] οἱ δὲ ταῖς πλωίμοις καὶ ὅσαι ἦσαν λοιπαὶ μετὰ τῶν Ἀττικῶν νεῶν καὶ αὐτοὶ ἀντεπέπλεον, δείσαντες μὴ ἐς τὴν γῆν σφῶν πειρῶσιν ἀποβαίνειν.

[5] ἤδη δὲ ἦν ὀψὲ καὶ ἐπεπαιάνιστο αὐτοῖς ὡς ἐς ἐπίπλουν, καὶ οἱ Κορίνθιοι ἐξαπίνης πρύμναν ἐκρούοντο κατιδόντες εἴκοσι ναῦς Ἀθηναίων προσπλεούσας, ἃς ὕστερον τῶν δέκα βοηθοὺς ἐξέπεμψαν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, δείσαντες, ὅπερ ἐγένετο, μὴ νικηθῶσιν οἱ Κερκυραῖοι καὶ αἱ σφέτεραι δέκα νῆες ὀλίγαι ἀμύνειν ὦσιν.

τῆς δὲ τροπῆς γενομένης may make you think of “tropics” and in a way that’s correct. The tropics are where the sun holds its course. This is different from but related to tropos in section 49, the custom of doing things in war. In a military context, tropo means turning your back on an enemy and fleeing so, “the flight [of the Kerkyraeans] taking place…”

Look at …τῶν νεῶν ἃς καταδύσειαν… Why the epistemic? Surely the ships had been destroyed. The issue is who destroyed them? The previous section makes clear that the large number of ships in a cramped space made it impossible for the damaged ones to get clear and possibly save themselves. Any given ship might have been the victim of attackers from its own side, which had been sent crashing into it while trying to flee the enemy.

The phrase after that uses an intransitive imperfective eventive with an impersonal gerundive complement. Goodwin has no discussion about such a structure; LSJ has an example from Thucydides Book 2 section 65.10, again with an i.g. complement, …ἐτράποντο … ἐνδιδόναι. Etraponto has an object in the -ous case each time, so these are not ergative structures. I’m continuing on with Thucydides to see if I can find other examples of this and what the nuance might be.

Subsection 1 has τούς τε αὑτῶν φίλους, the friends of them, and in subsection 3 καὶ τοὺς νεκροὺς τοὺς σφετέρους ἐτράποντο, they turned to their own dead. Auton and sfeterous both refer to the Korinthians who are the subject of each sentence, but the relationship seems to be closer in the second case.

If you didn’t learn pleo last week, you should learn it this week because of all the related verbs in section 50, which I underlined.

Now I have a Victorianism to explain which has warped ideas about what the Bible says and which Jowett of course pursues to his destruction.

ἔστι δὲ τὰ Σύβοτα τῆς Θεσπρωτίδος λιμὴν ἐρῆμος…

He translates this as a desert harbor. Say what?

Well, any uninhabited place, or any place intermittently inhabited, is deserted by fixed settlers. That doesn’t mean it’s a hot sandy waste. That just means nobody lives there. Erimos means desolate, and also solitary, and from that comes the medieval word eremite and the English word hermit. Hermits don’t all live in hot sandy regions, but some of the earliest Christian hermits were Egyptians (forebears of the Coptic church) who had access to such places beyond the floodplain of the Nile.

When your Bible translation talks about the Sinai as a desert, you think of the Sinai as it is today. Archaeology, paleontology, and paleoclimatology give a very different picture up to the Roman period; the modern Libyan desert could never have supported the city of Carthage that the Romans destroyed and later rebuilt. Don’t fall for this “false friend”.

Look up ἐπεπαιάνιστο in subsection 5. The Paean was first addressed to healer gods and was a choral song. As a victory over illness or injury, it became a military victory song and seems to also have been something like the cadence used in military training school marches or the soldiers’ songs described in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Finally, it seems to have been used to inspire troops before a battle.

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Knitting -- Men Who Knit: Arne and Carlos

Arne and Carlos have a Youtube blog, mostly about Norwegian traditions, a lot of which have to do with knitting. They discuss brioche, but their description is a lot like the one from the 1892 Butterick book I told you about.

https://www.youtube.com/c/ARNECARLOS/videos

There is a huge amount of stuff on their site but although they have playlists, you'd have to go through all of them to find gems. I picked some out but it's worth your time to go through all of them.

Twined knitting hat. Watch this. It will drive you crazy at first if you are used to Fair Isle knitting, but you have to do it the way Arne does it. Make sure to go to minute 6:40 where he reverses the twist to get a fishbone effect on the inside. The outside looks the same. At minute 8:15 he starts showing decreases for the top.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zey5fQll6UQ

Pattern in purl hat. Arne uses the hold you are used to from Fair Isle, English on the main color and continental on the pattern color.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uVTDggeJwY

This is their video on reversible two-color knitting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cNh-rTc34k

Long-tail cast-on. Also known as slingshot cast on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcvzB_9o8qc

I-cord cast-on using DP needles. Knowing this technique means you don't need to carry around ONE MORE GADGET so you can make an I-cord. I don't see a lot of point in I-cords and neither do Arne and Carlos. But they show you how to pick up both loops of the top stitches to start your fabric and they refer to joining the ends to work in the round.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lQU5QsdNs

Yet another cast-on, the German twisted. It's too much like cat's cradle for my taste.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abHaswcSNGI

And the "tubular" cast-on, which is a lot like a one-needle version of the cast-on for the toe-up socks pattern I talked about long ago. The advantage is that the cast-on is practically invisible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAH5vT_UIxc&list=PLElv_tSbHW3rwK8GSfGtRqUtOJJ14A9tp&index=2

Arne and Carlos also do the closed toe cast-on much like in that link above -- BUT WITHOUT CIRCULAR NEEDLES. I have tried multiple times to do that on DPs and it never worked. This will work so you're not always tugging a needle out. I'm definitely going to learn this one because, once again, it means you don't need one more tool before you can cast on a sock that you will knit on DPs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crMdybZVt3M

The next technique is called twisted rib and Arne and Carlos say they see it on very old sweaters. It is more elastic than your ordinary straight rib. Go to minute 1:49 to see how Arne does it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MuVk343imk

This is their video on brioche. They point out that when  you are not doing brioche in the round, it's the same two things every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2zJadaVeRI

In another video Arne shows a pattern his grandmother used to make something for his grandfather. The pattern has her notes on it. It was named Dovre kofta but it is also known as Dovrefjell and when I googled with that term I got a pattern like this. The detail lets you see how to design your work.

This is a free pattern from Sandnes Garn:

https://www.sandnesgarn.no/dovrekoft

This is another pattern that came up, and the photo on Ravelry can give you an idea of how to reproduce it.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/dovrefjell-herre

It works for both women and men.

While they talked about this sock, Arne and Carlos explained that the heel and toe used "eye of partridge" stitch because it makes the toe and heel as thick as the rest of the sock. You wouldn't get that with stockinette. It's a thing; I found a second video on it and not from a Norwegian. Here's Arne and Carlos' video. Go to minute 4:20 to catch the beginning; the actual eye of partridge starts at 5:16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUNfdBv14RY

Arne and Carlos design housewares and here is a video about knitted cushions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBxe3Vgr6GY

Here's a tutorial on intarsia. Once you grasp the technique you'll be able to design your own.

https://tkga.org/wp-content/uploads/issue_archives/2009/Intarsia%20Pillow%20Lesson.pdf

So go to town with this site and get some new ideas. Or rather, old ideas, but things you didn't know about. My nephew-in-law says his Norwegian mother loves this site, so this is not one of your faux ethnic things adopted for bragging rights, it's the real deal.

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

21st Century Classical Greek -- an Anatolian remnant?

Book I sections 47-49.These sections have some vocabulary you’ll need for the rest of the work.  In these sections the war between the Korinthians and the allied Kerkyraeans and Athinaians starts.

προσπλέοντας from πλέω, which you should learn since there are lots of sea battles ahead.

ἐστρατοπεδεύσαντο from στρατοπεδεύω, make camp

πεζὸς foot soldiers

ὁπλῖται, ὁπλίτης, heavy troopers. “Hoplites”

βεβοηθηκότες and παραβεβοηθηκότες from βοηθέω, assist, help

ναυμαχία is a sea battle

ἀντιπαρετάσσοντο from τάσσω which conjugates like prasso. Source of words like tactics, taxonomy.

δεξιὸν “right side”

κέρας literally horn (“rhinoceros”, nose horn), but wing as a part of a military formation

μέσον “middle”, in military terms, “center”

εὐώνυμος literally “of a good name”, euphemism for left side

σημεία, identifying flag. Apparently nobody knew which side other ships fought on until these were raised.

κατάστρωμα deck of a ship

τοξότης archer

ἀκοντιστής javelin thrower

In section 47.1, we have this phrase:

…ὧν ἦρχε Μικιάδης καὶ Αἰσιμίδης καὶ Εὐρύβατος,…

There are three people leading the force, but irkhe is singular and it is executive voice, not passive or ergative. This may be a parallel to Biblical Hebrew. If you know BH, then you know that from Exodus on, a number of verses start with a singular verb and then mosheh v’aharon, Mosheh and Aharon. These are verbal sentences; they always start with a singular verb, even when they have a compound subject. The same thing happens in Arabic. This might be an Anatolian thing but so far I can’t find anything on line that says Hurrian worked this way.

In section 49.1 we have this phrase:

… τῷ παλαιῷ τρόπῳ…

It’s the -ois case. This phrase is an adverb of manner, “the ancient manner” specifically, which Thucydides says is more like a land battle fought on the decks of a ship, with the ship moving the soldiers into place. This argues against the trireme as a “guided missile” which has its greatest effect as a ram against other ships. That tactic may have developed later in the war, we’ll know when we get to it.

Section 49.3 has epistemics.  Identify them and remember what they mean: though I have defined conjugated verbs as definite, it is not possible to use a gerundive in the epistemic. You can’t be less than definite in the epistemic (or oblique), the modality itself backs off of making a direct statement. In this case, Thucydides is refusing to say that any specific ship charged another; the story he got back says that the mass of ships prevented easy maneuvering. The same is true of diekploi.

Section 49.7 reads:

οἱ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι ὁρῶντες τοὺς Κερκυραίους πιεζομένους μᾶλλον ἤδη ἀπροφασίστως ἐπεκούρουν, τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἀπεχόμενοι ὥστε μὴ ἐμβάλλειν τινί: ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἡ τροπὴ ἐγίγνετο λαμπρῶς καὶ ἐνέκειντο οἱ Κορίνθιοι, τότε δὴ ἔργου πᾶς εἴχετο ἤδη καὶ διεκέκριτο οὐδὲν ἔτι, ἀλλὰ ξυνέπεσεν ἐς τοῦτο ἀνάγκης ὥστε ἐπιχειρῆσαι ἀλλήλοις τοὺς Κορινθίους καὶ Ἀθηναίους.

This is a perfective eventive, negated (in base voice). So far, the Athinaians have held aloof but they acted to end that when things started going bad for the Kerkyraeans. Jowett’s translation of this subsection is as bad as anything he did.

Sunday, October 9, 2022

Knitting -- the Double Knit three times

In old books I saw references to double-knitting but no explanation of how to do it. After some research, it turns out there are three versions of the double knit. 

The old one is perfect for working in the round: I found it on page 8 in The Art of Knitting from 1892, published by Butterick which is now better-known for sewing patterns. You can see that it looks as if it is knitted on both sides. 

https://archive.org/details/artofknitting00butt/page/n11/mode/2up

You bring the yarn to the front, SS purlwise, take the yarn to the back, knit the next stitch. On the next round or row, you knit the slipped stitch and slip the knitted stitch. 

The new one, Johnnie Vasquez shows on his website. You work it back and forth instead of in the round. Notice that it looks as if it is garter stitch on the back but knitted on the front.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDRDvGDO8LY

Cast on an odd number of stitches. I recommend multiples of three if possible.

K1, slip purlwise (yarn in back), K1

K1, P1, K1

These are not the same as brioche. Brioche uses a genuine yarn-over; the old double knit wraps the slipped stitch. Johnnie's double knit does neither. But the Butterick book does have something it calls "the patent stitch" which sounds like a description I've heard of brioche: “This method is frequently used in knitting children's underwear. It is worked as follows: * Throw the wool forward [this would be a yo in our terminology], slip one, knit two together, and repeat from * across or around the work. In knitting on two needles, work back in the same way.”

The third version is a two-color technique which is reversible, has two layers, and works the same design on each side but in reversed colors. Joanne shows you how to cast on and how to start a design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JroP84tUmJA

And here is the example. The reverse has green around the yin/yang. There are mistakes on this; you may be able to see them. I finished it in the wee hours so I could go back to another project and I was pretty tired. You've been there, I know you have.


Some guidelines.

1.         When you cast on, don’t worry about getting the stitch colors in line. You will fix that when you do the first row.

2.         You need to have both strands of yarn in one hand or you will forget to move both of them at the same time. Use English knitting, not Continental.

3.         How do you follow a pattern? I had to start my first pattern over again 4 times. Follow the pattern from one side to the other, then in the reverse direction, just as if you were doing cross stitch.

4.         BUT when you reverse direction, you reverse colors. If you had a row knitted in color A with purls for color B, in the next row you knit color B and purl color A.

5.         Whichever color is supposed to show up on the side you are looking at in the current row you are working, that color gets knitted. The other color gets purled.

6.         Whichever side of the pattern you are on, if the next stitch is supposed to show color A on that side, knit it, even if you are knitting into a stitch of color B. This causes two adjacent stitches of the same color when you change from A to B in a given row. Finding these double stitches will help you find where you are in the pattern.

7.         MOST IMPORTANT, work the pattern bottom to top. That way most of us will get less confused about what row we’re on or what stitch to do next.

This technique has limited applications, most of the things being square or rectangular. 

You can make great hotpads or pot holders. 

Make six blocks, each in a different color with a different design, join them three at a time, and add lace above and below, and you have sturdy kitchen curtains. 

Make a bunch of squares in different colors with different designs or some repeated designs, and sew them together into a patchwork quilt. You can use the obverse and reverse of repeated designs in different places of the quilt and have both sides look the same.

Make a tote. Plan how big a tote  you want and what the pattern will be. Choose a sturdy yarn -- Dishie for a large weave, Lindy Chain for a small weave. Work from bottom to top, as I said. When you finish the pattern, knit the end stitch and the one after it in whichever of the two colors you want the welt at the top to be. Move the next stitch onto a holder, knit, move, and on around to the other end. Knit the last stitch as usual. Use the circular needle you worked the tote with, to knit all the stitches off the holder. Now knit 5 to 10 rounds, depending on the weight of your yarn. Do seed stitch at the top and bind off. Insert a lining if you want; you can put pockets in this, just make sure they are on the inside of the tote and not between the lining and the fabric of the tote. You can glue the lining to cardboard for extra stiffening. Attach a strap and some kind of closure. You may think that this won't work, but when I unraveled a few rows to fix a mistake about the middle of my first pattern, I could see that there was indeed an inside that went down to the initial cast-on.

This is not a good technique for a jumper. I need 1430 yards of worsted yarn for a jumper and most skeins of worsted yarn are far smaller. You would have to work in wool and do the invisible joins; knots in linen, cotton or silk would have to be tucked into the inside of the piece and might be irritating. The double fabric is very warm so you would want to work in lace or fingering weight yarn. The best recommendation I can make is a patchwork in multiple colors with different designs on different blocks.

While googling for videos, I found another site with Men Who Knit, Arne and Carlos. I'll talk about them next time.