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.
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