Western, Eastern, and Combination Knitting
No matter if you hold your yarn in the right hand or the left hand, tension it through different fingers, or however… there are even MORE ways to knit. In this video and post, we are looking at Western, Eastern, and Combination Knitting, the foundation of which is looking at how your stitches sit on your knitting needles.
In this video, we are referencing the book “Confessions of a Knitting Heretic” written by Annie Modesitt and also “Knitting in the Old Way” written by Priscilla Gibson Roberts and Deborah Robson.
Modesitt’s book and also Priscilla Gibson Roberts’ book talk about how knitting is classified into different methods — Western, Eastern, and Combination. ll of the techniques that I’ve shown so far, English style, lever style, continental style, Portuguese and Norwegian, they’re all considered Western knitting methods. There’s a whole other world of Eastern knitting methods. And we can look at how the stitches are mounted on the needles and we’ll look at how you discern a Western method from an Eastern method.
Stitch Mount
Compare the two sets of knitting in the photo below. With a Western Stitch Mount, the leading leg is in front of the needle and the trailing leg is in the back of the needle. With a Eastern Stitch Mount, the leading leg is at the back of the needle and the trailing leg is in front.
If you usually knit with a Western method, you will look at the Eastern Stitch Mount and think that the stitches are flipped or oriented backwards… but really, it’s just a different stitch orientation.
Western Knitting
Eastern Knitting
Combination Knitting
Combination knitting is taking parts of the Eastern Knitting method and parts of the Western Knitting method and combining the two together.
In Combination Knitting, when you’re working the knit stitch, you have all of your stitches mounted in an Eastern Stitch Mount format, but then you are forming the stitch with a Western knitting technique (wrapping your yarn under the needle). And then to work a purl stitch, all of your purl stitches are mounted in a Western Stitch Mount format, but then you are purling and wrapping your yarn in an Eastern method (wrapping your yarn under the needle).
Continental Knitting and Purling can be very quick and efficient because you are making the same “scooping” movement whether it’s forwards or backwards. And so in this way, your purl stitches could be worked almost as quickly as your knit stitches because all we’re doing is we’re “scooping”.
Once we finish purling across the row, wrapping the yarn from under the needle, we turn our work and see that all the stitches are mounted in the Eastern format. Then we simply knit through the back loop.
Final Thoughts
I think that the important thing to know here is that no matter how your stitches are mounted on the needles, you will be able to figure out what you need to do in order to create the stitch that you want. Whether the stitch is mounted in Eastern format or Western format, you are going to be able to read your knitting better, you’re going to be able to understand what’s on your needles and how they need to be worked.
However you choose to hold your yarn, however you choose to hold your needles, however you choose to form your stitches, that is entirely up to you and it’s perfectly fine. As long as you’re making the kind of fabric that you want, everything is perfectly fine.
Once you understand how stitches are formed, you can make them any way you want. You can make them on these needles… You can make them knitting backwards… You can make them on a machine. Just as long as you know how a knit stitch is formed, you can create them in all sorts of different ways. It’s all about finding what’s best for you!
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