I learned to knit out of a book that I bought at Barnes and Noble. There were two common styles of knitting, continental or English. The way you learned largely depends on who taught you and where you were from.

Fast forward two decades later to now, I've evolved my style to include multiple styles that I learned from people on the internet. Some styles aren't that efficient at doing certain things. Ribbing, for example, where you alternate knit and purl stitches to create the stretchy edging you find on cuffs and collars. I do the knits in continental and purls in Norwegian. It is way more efficient than doing it all continental style as I usually did for many years.

But if I were to knit a long row of purl stitches, I wouldn't use Norwegian. Instead, I'd switch to Portuguese where the yarn is held and tensioned differently relative to the work. In a way, it is almost as of you are working the back of the work as the front.

And again, I'd knit differently if I were doing colorwork where I have to manage multiple strands of different yarns.

Me knowing all of this and being able to apply it to my craft wouldn't be possible without the exchange of information among knitters in cyberspace. I don't know of any native Norwegians or Portuguese people in person, much less ones who would be able to teach me how to knit in their generational style.

I'm feeling grateful to live in such exciting times of information exchange 🥰 #knitting