TBL

This is just a tiny (by tiny, I of course mean really long) rant about knitting through the back loop. I LIKE DOING IT...I think it feels "right." When I stretch apart my knitting to look at the construction...those pieces knit TBL stretch in a way I feel is "correct." when I knit normally, and pull the piece width-wise, it seems like the stitches stretch to be TIGHTER with WEIRD little ladder type things. So, I hear that knitting through the back loop (TBL) twists the stitches, but I just don't see HOW they are twisted...I mean, they look a bit wonky, but STRUCTURALLY they seem LESS twisted to me!! Maybe I just don't know how to knit correctly...or maybe the problem is in the way that I purl?

So, here's a picture of what I am talking about.

TBL stitches flat:


Yes, they look odd, but when I stretch them:


Look how uniformly it all pulls apart!

Now, I knit this up "the right way"


Sure, it looks all normal flattened and un-pulled, but look at it now:


It just doesn't seem right to me...and when a garment is worn, it needs to stretch still look good! That's just my opinion, though. Did you notice how the stitches TIGHTENED when pulled and odd little ladders formed between them? Weird, huh?

As a "rightness" comparison, here is one of my FLAVORite commercially created sweaters. This is it in the "normal" position:


Here it is in it's "stretched" position:


See how it acts the same way stretched as my supposedly "twisted" TBL stitches in the blue knitting above? So, what is wrong?? Isn't the look and feel of a commercially knit sweater sort of what we all strive for as knitters?? I sort of thought so anyway.

The blue knitting (HELLO PROJECT SPECTRUM!!) I was using as an example above is the start of the Cambridge Jacket from the Summer 06 Interweave (when you click the link, it's the manly orange one). It's for The Russian. I think the baby blue color will suit his swarthy face. I will not continue working on it, however, until I figure my little mystery out. I'm going to see if maybe I've been purling wrong for past FEW YEARS...oh and if that's true I will be so PEEVED...that's right, I said it! PEEVED!

In other news I've been spending my day knitting and listening to some FABULOUS music, as well as researching some upcoming greatness from Damon Albarn (and crew). The new album "The Good, The Bad, and The Queen" is due to come out later this month! You better bet it's on my wishlist! You can hear a few complete tracks here.

I listened to some Damien Rice 9 today...and some Doves...and some Thom Yorke...and I do not feel my time was wasted.

****After I wrote this entire post and saved it as a draft, I researched the purl stitched and learned that I have, in fact, been purling wrong...through all of my knitting escapades...YEARS. I knit up this tiny little swatch to test knitting "the right way" whilst PURLING THE RIGHT WAY... and the stitches seem to be "just fine" and have lost that wonky wave that my TBL knitting with the incorrect purls created. See?:



This means that The Russian's Sweater slipped and fell into the frog pond!! He must've (the sweater) had too much vodka...

Kara...you need to come over again so I can show you the real way to purl! Your knitting won't fall apart or anything the way that I showed you, but you should probably learn to do it right...sorry :) The way I told you to do the knit stitch IS CORRECT...in case you're wondering.