Portuguese Knitting

When I was at K's this weekend she told me that the way I had been hand knitting I was twisting my knitted stitches so I got out my DVD on Portuguese knitting and practiced on that technique. The item I took to her house was a pair of pants that I had put hand ribbing on. On one leg I had used straight needles, on the other I used a circular needle. I was wondering why the circular ribbing had a lean to it then it dawned on me it was probably because I was twisting my knit stitch. I practiced all day Sunday and part of today and I think I'm pretty comfortable with this technique. The problem I was having before was on the tension of the yarn but I think I've got it. I still have a little trouble when I switch from one row of knit to the next row of purl but I guess that will just take practice.
If you're not familiar with the Portuguese technique they use a pin with an open hook that is attached to your clothing up on the left shoulder and the stitches are worked with the yarn to the front. The knit stitch has the yarn over the needle and the purl stitch has the yarn under the needle. So it goes from the left hand, over the hook, then to the right hand, on to the yarn ball. The yarn is put over the second finger on the right hand for tension control. I was knitting it way too tight to begin with but finally got to where I'm a little looser. I like the bind off they do too. You don't have to pick up a stitch and try to slip it over another stitch. You basically knit one stitch, put it back on the left needle, then knit 2 together, or something like that, going from memory here! I practiced the yarn overs too and they came out ok. I think I will try to stick with this technique for now. I've done the throwing method, continental, half of the eastern Europe method where they work into the back of the stitch, and now this technique. I like the eastern European method for knitting but the purl stitch is kinda funky to do. 
Well I was almost finished with this post and the power went out, again! Just long enough to muck up all the clocks. I swear I don't know what's going on with our power lately. This is the 3rd time in 10 days we've lost power. The first two were brown outs and now this one. Thank goodness I didn't lose my post!


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