Combined continental was how my grandmother taught me to knit. It took me the longest time to figure out why when I followed patterns, my K2tog always leaned the wrong direction. Once I understood the difference between left-leaning and right-leaning increases and decreases, following patterns was a lot easier. With this method of knitting my flat Stockinette is much faster than most knitters I know. You did a great job of explaining this method.

That sample you show with the obvious "stripes" of slightly looser stitches was what I was creating for years before I even realized it WASN'T supposed to look that way! When I got married, my wife had impeccable tension, every stitch and every row was uniform! Huh! That's not like mine! It took an additional 30 years of experimentation to find how I could accomplish what my wife did so effortlessly. I, by the way knit continental, and my wife knit english style. Turns out continental style inherently creates looser purls than the knits are, so those obvious stripes result UNLESS it is mitigated by changing the tension on the purl rows. Yeah .... long time to learn how to do that!

I am an English great grandmother and was taught to knit by my grandmother 60 years ago. I thought the way I was taught, and have always knitted, was the only way to knit. Watching you tube I discovered the continental style which the majority of the rest of the world uses. I have never had the ‘rowing out’ problem that you are demonstrating. Is this problem peculiar to continental style. I have tried knitting with the yarn in my left hand but find it very awkward to do, I am naturally right handed so maybe that’s why. I love your videos, always cheer me up, we may not share a knitting style but we do share a sense of humour!

Appreciative of the jumbo stitch visual for my old eyes

Great video and demo. Thank you! When I first learned to knit I held my right hand needle in my armpit English cottage style, except this is how my Spanish family and friends held the right needle, so I thought it was Spanish LOL. Years later I learned to hold the yarn continental style and liked it much better. I had similar tension issues as yours. I tried continental combination knitting and the change was not much. I must have been doing something wrong. I gave it up and tried Eastern knitting. I knit and purl totally in Eastern style and I got the results I wanted, beautiful even tension. My gauge also changed. It got much tighter so much so that now I consider myself a tight knitter when doing Stockinette stitch. I switch back and forth between Western and Eastern depending on the project especially if the stitch pattern is a sea of Reverse Stockinette! I Eastern knit when I do ribbing and cables as well.

After 16 years of continental knitting its not every day I learn something new about it, though I always wondered why my flat knitting was never as perfect as in the round. I can almost always get stitch gauge but not row gauge like you mentioned which is why I started knitting a swatch during this video with some cotton I want to design a tank top with. Ive done a patch in combination and a patch above it in continental to compare, and I'm currently adding on another section like that in a needle size up to test the drape. After just an hour or so trying it I'm already faster at purling this way (and I was pretty quick at it to begin with), and I can definitely see the difference it makes in the fabric. This may have changed the way I knit forever!

Thank you for this explanation. My grandmother was from Eastern Europe and taught me how to knit in the Continental Combination style. Every woman I knew growing up knit this way. When I had more time and joined a knitting group about 12 years ago, no one knit the way I did. Everyone said I was knitting wrong. Most were throwers, English style, and other Continentals did their purls differently, but hated purling. I liked purling as wells knitting, so I didn't understand what they were talking about. My tension was always even and I don't mind color work in purl. I figured out that I needed to remount my decrease stitches, but that's not a big deal.I'm so glad that I learned that way!

This is awesome! I didn’t know why my transition from knit to purl stitches in ribbing was wonky…now I better understand. Thank you! As a fairly new knitter, it may take time to wrap my head around this to incorporate these tips in my knitting, but I’ll get there. 😊

First I have heard of Continental combined knitting. Interesting. I detest purling in Continental so this may work. Thanks

When I learned to knit almost 3 years ago I tried first english style (not for me), then I discoverd continental style, I practice it ...and then I started my first project: a sweater with cables 😂😂😂. You may be wondering what came out? You won't even imagine what I did 😂 Soooo, I knited the knit stitch in western continental style and the purl stitch in...eastern continental style 😂😂😂 And at that time I didn't even know that there are two continental methods. Of course I frooooged what I've knited, I sterted again to practice and I made a hat (like a normal biginner kniter) and only after some months I found out about this eastern style. But now I knit my knit stitch in regular continental style and purl stitch in...a kind of portuguese style 😅😂 I mean I use my left thumb when I purl. My tension is great, but I think this eastern style is faster and I will try it with my next project. Thanks! You are such a funny and cute lady, I discovered your podcast a few days ago and now I managed to watch almost all your videos because I like you so much and you provide good content and you are a great knitter and etc etc etc 🤗🤗🤗 Hope you know you are great! ❤️❤️❤️

I am a thrower and recently discovered combination knitting really helps to tidy up my wonky ribbing. Much of my knitting seems to be in the round these days. Now I am very curious to see a comparison of flat knitting in regular stockinette and combination.

I’m a combination knitter and much faster than my friends! It helps because I am a project knitter also. Nice tension and beautiful ribbing are my greatest joy! Thanks for letting others know just how wonderful combo knitting is!

I’m an English knitter, however, I do sometimes pick my net stitches if I’m on a really long row like making a blanket or something, because I get tired of throwing. For the pearl stitch, however, on a long stretch of stitches, like a blanket, I knit backwards. I can’t pearl with my left hand, as in Continental, it just won’t work for me. However, I have a friend who has only ever crocheted, and she wants to learn to knit. I’m going to share this video with her, so if you can see this method, I have started her on knitting a washcloth. She also is left-handed, which makes it difficult for me as a right handed person to show her how to knit. I think that this will help her to see a method that may be comfortable for her, and because you showed the anatomy of the knit stitches, that will also be useful to her to see how the knitting works. I too, gave her an lesson in knitting anatomy, but your lesson on knitting anatomy is much better than mine.

Oh my 😳 the difference in the size of those swatches!!!!!!! I’m an English knitter but don’t (seem to?) have this rowing out problem. MY issue is with ribbing where I get a big gap between the K and P stitches. I’ll have to re-watch this video as I didn’t know if you were going to address this until I saw you did at the end. Great discussion thanks Nicole!!!!!!

I really need to give continental another try. I’ve “thrown” mostly, I’ve “flicked” a fair bit, but shouldn’t get the hang of continental. I did try “Russian”-style (where the yarn is held in your left hand, and held very close to the tips, usually pinched between your index and middle fingers), and that made my left hand hurt… but maybe from the movements being new (I also have small hands, so. ‘Yay’). I think it’s time to start practicing for my TV knitting again, thank you!!

I think I will have to try it. Thanks.

This was a great tutorial. Thank you ! Im going to try this

I am a combination knitter, dont see them a lot on the internet. At first i thought i was doing something wrong :D

I've seen this method a couple of times and as a recent self-taught knitter I did quite a bit of eastern wrapping in error, I have to say I haven't the need for this method simply because I'm a tight knitter... I've actually had to try to loosen my tension because I had to go like 3 needle sizes up just to meet gauge... It was ridiculous. Of course I figured that this is typical of new knitters NOW but when I just started recently it was discouraging for me. Everything is working out for me bc I know I will never be able to do continental knitting because of my RA and with my ulnar deviation in my hands it's a miracle I can knit at all 😅 It took a while to keep the counter clockwise wrapping as a standard... No way I'm going to jumble that up... 🤷🏽‍♀️

Thank you! Super video!

This tip is so great! I'm using it in a mosaic project, and it makes the colorwork look so much tidier! Thank you!

Thank you for the tip :) Probably another way to solve this problem is to take one needle a size or a half size bigger if it is hard to switch to combined knitting 🤔. Actually my mother also showed me the combined way at first, but I gave the knitting up that time. And then when I was learning knitting years later from YT I realised that "it was wrong". Now I knit continental way and switching to combined knitting will take some time, but I see it is worth the effort due to such neet and regular effect :) Though when I was watching me kniting I realised that it might not be the problem of purl, but of the knitted stitches. I mean when I knit I don't block the knitted stitch by my right hand finger so it is more tight then when I purl. When I started blocking it (putting my right hand finger on the knitted stitch) the yarn did not tighten so much so it was similar to the purl stitches. It may be just my case of course, we all hold needles and needlework differently :)

Every lesson on stitch anatomy is welcome. How does this work with patterned stitches, e.g., brioche?

So, all those knitters that told me I was wrapping my purls backward, should just have let me alone, but told me to do my knit stitches from the back loop???Sheesh. I canNOT wait to go to knit group tomorrow and go na-na-na-na-nahhhh. Now my reverse stockinette looks better than their 'traditional' ❤😂

I changed knitting methods in the middle of a project. I'm still busy with the project, I'm hoping blocking will fix it though🤣

Thats how I knit but I do it because it hurts my hands less. I knit thru back loop. Ive had a few people ask me if I knew that I was doing that, well yeah, ha ha I like how it looks, its faster, my hands hurt less. For some reason though, the 6mm circular needles still hurt my hands. Don't know why. I finished a long, long piano scarf (88 keys) and had to use long straight needles, bamboo no less. Crazy.

Great tutorial, thanks. Do you knit combination for all projects? I've considered combination knitting but always got put off by having varied stitch mounts if I was working something that had knits and purls scattered together, or slip stitch colourwork, for example. After seeing that it's what you do I'm tempted to reconsider, but I'm worried I'm setting myself up for hassle and twisted stitches when my tension seems to be "good enough".

This was very helpful. I'm a lifelong combination knitter. Do you have anything on how to handle cables abd reverse purl stitches and when the pattern calls for knitting through the back loop???

Thank you for this explanation Nicole! I was wondering if I try this technique on a piece with cables that is knit flat, will I need to remount the stitches in the cables before cabling them? Now that I am getting a bit more experienced with my knitting I am trying experiment with different methods to finesse the overall look of my work and I think this might be a good one to try.

Is this a Continental issue because I knit English and have never had a problem with rowing out?

Thank you for explaining the right and left leaning decrease, and the anatomy of a stitch. I wonder if this is even an issue in Norwegian knitting? I’m a very raw learner, so I’m flummoxed by all the terms still, but Norwegian purling really helped me!

I was taught the 'throw the yarn over the left needle' method. It's not as fast as holding the yarn with your left hand, but that is all I knew. I've tried the other way and I get frustrated quickly and return to throwing🤨. I am making a sweater now with ss and the wrong side looks good. Is that because of the way I knit? Love your vids!

I'm a combination knitter but if I'm knitting two together I don't reorient them, I just knit them through the back loop together. Is there a benefit or a difference to remounting them?

If you knit up to the armholes and then have to knit back and forth, do you knit through the back loop up to the arm holes or regular knitting? Great tutorial by the way.

Perfect. Pls can you help? I never manage to get the sides of my knitting perfect. Loose knit stitches on one side... Tighter knit stitches on the other.. Why? Thankyou

I knit Continental but i purl Norwegian and i do not row out. Did you try Norwegian purling to see how it compares when you were testing?