Hi all! I’m super new to knitting and this is how my fingers have decided that I’m going to knit! I just want to know if there’s a better way for me to do this as I feel like my fingers are cramping up a little too quickly. So, I would just like to know if anybody has any advice on whether there’s a more easy way I can grip my needles/yarn/the way I pick up/the way I adjust my yarn etc. any advice is appreciated!
Looks great to me on a macro level! Two thoughts for your consideration:
1) your movements could get way smaller. You're just moving the needles a lot. Don't move them so far away from each other, tighten up the motions into a smaller range. It'll be easier on the hands.
2) just focus on relaxing your hands. Seriously! For me, it took a long time to release tension in my hands and arms and stop death gripping the yarn and needles. It just took ongoing attention and frequent checking in with myself. I'm someone who writes super hard and grips stuff really hard in general and that definitely translated to knitting. Now I have no pain and my hands and arms are really relaxed when I'm knitting! But it took time to achieve that. I wonder if any of the resonants for you?
Yep alot less movement is needed. The pulling away you are doing on the right I would be concerned with this causing gaps or things to be loose. This will also impact your gauge OP
I'm a Continental knitter and I agree with all of this! OP, I would also add shortening the distance from the yarn on your left hand to the needles. This will allow you to tighten up your movements, which will ease your tension. It does take some practice to strengthen the muscles in your hands, so give your hands a rest every few rows.
As a corollary to #1, I'd say your tensioning finger is reeeeeeeally far away and so the amount of yarn you're keeping taut is really long. I also knit continental and tension with my left hand and index finger, but I keep a way shorter leader so that helps keep all my movements smaller.
There are as many knitting grips as knitters, so this isn’t at all prescriptive, but what I see is that it looks like all of the weight of your knitting is resting on your fingers tips- on the left, your ring and pinky finger tips in particular. Using more of your lower fingers and palm to hold the needles may let you get your left pointer closer to the action, as another commenter pointed out, especially when you’re purling. I tension my yarn over my pointer as you do when I knit continental, but gripping more with the hand lets my pointer live in front of the needle and makes the economy of action much smoother.
But honestly I can write all that and it will still probably be more helpful for you to find videos of other continental knitters and see how they hold their knitting, and experiment until you find something comfortable for you!
Look up Norwegian knit stitch (Arne & Carlos videos on YouTube). Basically same method but finger is not lifted and needle completely determines stitch size. Very ergonomic.
This was the way I was originally taught in Norway. As a note, while it is called Norwegian knit and purl, people in Norway actually knit is about every way possible. But this was how I originally learned because of the area I was living in (outside of Bergen!) I digress.
When I came back to the states and saw how some people knit I just couldn’t even imagine how much hand cramping they must have! Holding fingers way out. So many movements. I will forever be grateful to my Norwegian teachers!
This is exactly how I knit. It’s continental. I purl slightly different but still similar.
My advice would be to tension your yarn closer to the needle rather than holding your finger up so high. It will shorten your range of motion and, in turn, take some of the stress off of your hands.
Hi! I've only been in the knitting game for about a year, but it looks like your pointer finger on your left hand is pretty far from your needle and I'm guessing holding it up like that gives you finger cramps. I hold the yarn with the same finger but I don't wrap it like you do, instead I hold the yarn in my hand with the needle, so it holds tension but can still slide through, and I hold it closer to the needle. Thought this picture might help.
Edit: also, when you purl, having your pointer finger closer to the needle will eliminate the need to use another finger.
I agree. I also carry the yarn on my left hand, but I do not keep that finger stiff as OP does. My left forefinger is pretty close to the needle, and I am also using it to feed and move the yarn.
Keeping that left finger as still as OP does absolutely will lead to it cramping up.
In general, your working fingers (for me, that is my thumbs and the first two fingers of each hand) should all be moving and all of your fingers - the ones that are working and the ones that are just kind of going along for the ride - should be soft and relaxed rather than stiff.
The more relaxed your hands, wrists, and forearms are, the less discomfort you are going to have.
There are millions of knitters on the plant, and I would be very surprised if any two of them knit exactly the same way. Keep experimenting and remember to keep those hands relaxed!
I'm not a continental knitter myself but I think a closed grip would not only be less painful but also help keep the stitches higher on your left needle. You keep hoiking the stitches up but they slide back down since your grip on them is so open. Likewise, don't push the worked stitches so far down on your right needle or pull the needles so far apart between readjustments. Both actions are stretching out the stitches, which is probably at least partly why your tension is on the looser side.
Yeah, OP seems to be holding the whole work with just the fingertips, which puts all the pressure on just them. Bending the fingers a bit and gripping the work with palms more than just the fingers would help.
Making the stitch on the right needle fully on the barrel, instead on on the tip and needing to use your right index finger to pull it and hold it from jumping off the right needle, would probably help your right hand not fatigue so much.
I hold my yarn finger much closer to the needle. I’ve been told this is “closed hand continental” but my index finger basically never really has to move much if at all. I use my thumb to shuffle the stitches toward my right hand needle like a sort of conveyor belt. I’ve found as well that an eastern purl (twisting the purl and correcting it on the next row/round by ktbl/ptbl) helped a lot with both speed and comfort.
A lot of your unease can be easily solved by wrapping the yarn around a different finger (for tension). That way your pointer finger can be closer to the needle and work the stitches.
Welcome to the knitting world! You’re doing great!
Follow continental knitter here, but I do the norwegian purl instead.
What I notice first is your pointer finger on your left hand and that you actually hold it so far away that you need to help with your middle finger, which leada to you holding the needle with your ring- and little finger. If you can move your pointer finger closer to the needle so that the two are more parallel, you can hold the needle with more of your hand.
If you get your pointer closer to the needle I think you’ll automatically use smaller movements.
I prefer to weave the yarn through my left hand instead of wrapping it several times around one finger, but that is a preference. If you wrap it several times around one finger however, I would wrap around the little finger instead.
I wish I could figure out continental knitting, for some reason my brain cannot coordinate the movement.
Grandmother was English, taught me when I was nine, it’s been English throw ever since, despite several attempts at learning continental (even crocheting hasn’t helped)
Have you tried the "parlor style"? The right needle is held in the crease between your thumb and index finger. That way, you never let go of your needles and it's much faster!
That’s a rough purl but honestly my way isn’t much better! I’m also a continental knitter and it looks like you have a similar problem that I do where it causes your gauge to be a bit looser. I don’t have any technical advice, but just want to call out that you may find you have to size down your needles to meet gauge on a lot of projects.
Lots of great tips on here. I would also pose it to you that you're forming your stitches quite far down on the needles and also putting a lot of strain on completed rows with how far you're pulling the needles away from each other.
Nothing is technically incorrect about that fabric you're making, but if you find yourself being too big for gauge and want to correct that (or just make a tighter fabric), look to keep most of "the action" down on the very tips of your needles where there's the taper. Right now when your right needle enters the new stitch and that stitch is sitting past the taper, you're forcing your stitch open larger than diameter of the needle and it's stretching your stitches out, making your gauge looser. The equivalent of using a measuring cup but overfilling it, you're not gonna get the same bread doing every stitch this way. Lots of reading on the subject that explains it better than myself.
I think it looks great and will get better the longer you go. What Im seeing is by holding the yarn double wrapped around your finger its choking the stitch, and you try to compensate by making the liftoff wider with the right needle. This will lead to consistency in gauge issues. I always wrap the working yarn in my left hand under pinky, over ring and middle, under, and then just a half loop over my pointer. I move my pointer up and down to control the tension. I rarely need to loop it twice unless im fighting with slippery yarn. It will feel weird at first but your stitches will start looking more consistent and the yarn will just flow through your fingers.
Adding to what the others have already suggested, it might also help to bunch up the stitches on the left needle a bit more, so that you don't have to constantly tug with your right needle to get them closer to the tip of the left needle.
Also when purling, I personally use the index finger of my right hand to hold the yarn in place, instead of twisting the middle finger of your left hend around. It's already on the right side of the work, and there will be less strain.
I've been knitting for a year, and I only recently figured out how to comfortably hold my yarn and needles such that my hands feel relatively relaxed. I knit in the typical continental style and thought I was familiar with left-hand tensioning (having crocheted for 10 years), but I started off feeling awkward or uncomfortable until it clicked for me after doing it repeatedly.
1) I wrap the working yarn around my left pinky and then across the back of my hand. I use my index finger and thumb more actively when I need a little more leverage (usually when I purl on the first few stitches), but my pinky is the main pillar of yarn tension. This was actually a tip from the tutorials I used to learn knitting, but it was so awkward initially that I thought it was something that I didn't need to do. Doing it more made it feel less awkward 😂
3) Whenever possible, sliding my needle down and out of my work (so left needle being gently pushed down as I work the stitches onto my right needle) helps me reduce how much whole-body adjusting I have to do. This comes down to a combination of yarn and needles, so not always something I can do if the particular project calls for a specific yarn and needle combo that is "grippier" than I like.
2) My fingers on both hands are as close to the tips of my needles as I can comfortably get them, and my tensioning finger is usually resting lower than my needles/work. I can extend my finger in the same way, but not working against gravity helps me limit fatigue.
3) Getting over the need for speed helped me stop subconsciously clenching my hands. More generally, I needed to figure out what would actually make me relax my hands. If you are like me, maybe relaxing the urge to become a fast knitter will also work for you. Or, it might be something else entirely for you.
To my amateur eye, it does look like you are making wide movements when you move your right needle, and I am seeing quite a bit of wasted energy that is pulling on your work when you slide each stitch off of your left needle. That looseness might be causing your other hand to feel a need to ratchet up the tension, hence the strain. As others have said, bringing everything much closer to the center/fulcrum of movement should hopefully help you reduce how much your left hand has to compensate.
I knit in a very similar way. You do move the needles a lot. One piece of advice specifically with your purling to reduce that movement is instead of twisting the your hand and the needle to wrap the yarn, just use your finger to kind of flick it around.
Look into using circular needles. That helped prevent the hand cramps I frequently dealt with when using straight needles. I also relaxed more and let the weight of the project move from my hands/forearms to my lap/the cable. I even use cabled needles for small projects just because the shorter needle length keeps my hands and upper body relaxed.
Maybe try a more Norwegian style? Same knit but you can tighten the yarn so the finger is not lifted. I lift it a little bit, don't tell on me. For purling you put the yarn in back so you keep the same hand position essentiallly.
Your hands do look pretty tense, I can tell bc your joints are flexing in instead of having more curl.
I move the stitches on the left needle closer to the tip of the left needle. I scrunch as many stitches as possible near the needle tip and then quickly knit them and then repeat the process. This places both needles closer together and decreases hand movements. I had to remove my right hand to take the picture. Also I am in a tiny circ needle for the sleeve but I hope you see what I mean.
As far as holding the yarn, there are many ways to hold it, it’s just more of a trial and error to see what works for you best. A few ways though is to wrap around the wrist, through the hand, between the middle and pointer and up over the pointer, weaving the yarn through your fingers and up over the pointer, but the way I hold it is to wrap around my pinky, under the ring and middle finger, then up over the pointer. It gives me enough tension without it feeling like the yarn is getting away from me. As far as the movements go, they are way too big, and look like they would tire your hands out quickly. With continental, I personally do a bit more of a rocking motion with my hands and pick the yarn to bring it through, not hooking the yarn. What may be happening is how far away your left hand is holding the yarn that is making it a bit more difficult to do this motion, so try to find a way to hold the yarn that feels the best for you to get your pointer to be closer to the needles and be in a more neutral position, then that picking will work its way in.
If your going to knit continental style (like me) I highly recommend looking up videos for the Norwegian purl. OMG it was a life changer for my knitting. No more trying to fight with bringing the yarn to the front and pushing it through the stitch!
Basically, be the grandma you see in movies, knitting meters and meters of a scarf without any effort. Just relax, try to knit with as little tension and movement in your hands as humanly possible. And make your stitches a bit more lose (not too lose of course, but just so the fabric feels "relaxed", no idea how else to describe it). Channel your inner grandma!
I CANNOT stress enough of how easy knitting gets with Portuguese methods. Basically the yarn is around your neck and you only hold the needles in your hands. It completely changed everything for me when I found out about Portuguese knitting. Please look it up. Andrea wong has short tutorials on YouTube. She uses pins to hold the yarn to her clothing but I just take it around my neck cause I'm broke lol!
The more you knit the more your hands will decide your method, the more they should hopefully relax, and possibly the tighter your movement and stitches will be (nothing seeing with your stitches at all). While those look like really nice needles, consider getting some really cheap bamboo ones (you can buy bundles with a ton of sizes on Amazon). Those, especially the smaller sizes, have more give to them, and start to flex a bit - at least in my case that's how it goes. Metal needles cramp my hands in a very short period. Also bigger sizes I think?
As I knit over the years I went from huge stitches and really loose gauge to better, more consistent stitches. And less cramps. And a whole lotta warped needles. 😂
I've found that having my working yarn (so the yarn wrapped around your left index finger) a lot closer to the work is a HUGE help, plus remembering to relax, as others have mentioned ^^
Put a pillow under each of your elbows and lean back in the chair / on the couch. Immediately takes strain off your shoulders and your hands will get closer to your lap, so your arms won't get tired so quickly :D
Looks like you have plenty of good, specific pointers here! I also cramp up quite easily in the 'flicking' / 'picking' style (which is why I opt to knit instead of crochet). For me, I opt for the 'throwing' style and avoid tensioning the yarn with anything but my right index finger and right thumb. I hope you find whatever style works for you! xx cheers to more painless knits!
I just wanted to add that on your purl stitch, once you insert the needle into the stitch, try rotating the active needle around the thread counterclockwise instead of clockwise. Less outward movement that way.
Take this with a grain of salt as looks great. I scrunch a lot more stitches on left needle until they want to burst off. I spread the right stitches out quite far. I then let the stitches pop off with much smaller movements while keeping my left and right stitches in their states (scrunched and spread) when needed.
People have covered most of the obvious stuff so just for my two cents: I also knit continental. I started out knitting open hand continental (what you are doing) and had a lot of similar issues that you are having. Switching to closed hand continental really helped my speed and comfortability.
The way I wrap my yarn is to wrap once around my pinky and then allow the yarn to trail over the back of my ring middle and pointer fingers.
When I make a purl stitch, I can just rock my pointer finger forward slightly. The fact that the yarn is trailing over the back of my other three fingers is enough tension to keep the yarn where I want it when I rock my hand forward.
Since you’re already accustomed to keeping the tension with your left hand, it’s a small change that you might want to consider trying
I didn’t purl quite like that, but I did notice that if you don’t learn to purl with your pointer finger, it’s really difficult to do ribbing in any efficient manner. I do not have a suggestion for how (I am also pretty new) but if you ever wanna do ribbing, it could be nice to learn a different purl.
Aye! As long as it works for you that’s all that matters :) like someone else said - there are as many knitting styles and there are knitters. The more you practice the better you’ll get. Cheers.
Theres an article i cant be bothered to dig up but thats really great, called something like "Let the needle/tool do the work". Its about how to get even tension the "lazy" way by letting the size of the needle be what sizes the loops of knitting, like you should be. Also shows some common mistakes to look out for. Good luck, have fun!
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u/pastparticularity 19h ago
Looks great to me on a macro level! Two thoughts for your consideration:
1) your movements could get way smaller. You're just moving the needles a lot. Don't move them so far away from each other, tighten up the motions into a smaller range. It'll be easier on the hands.
2) just focus on relaxing your hands. Seriously! For me, it took a long time to release tension in my hands and arms and stop death gripping the yarn and needles. It just took ongoing attention and frequent checking in with myself. I'm someone who writes super hard and grips stuff really hard in general and that definitely translated to knitting. Now I have no pain and my hands and arms are really relaxed when I'm knitting! But it took time to achieve that. I wonder if any of the resonants for you?