"You're knitting backwards!"
Combined Knitting is the name that self-described "knitting heretic" Annie Modesitt gives to the style of knitting that she teaches her students. Combined knitting leads to much neater stitches than the so-called "Western" style (also known as the "English" or "throw" method) that is most often taught in North America and the U.K. It also uses slightly more yarn and, according to Modesitt, it leads to less wrist strain. It is not the same as so-called Continental knitting (which is characterized by keeping the yarn in the left hand and "picking at it" with the right, rather than both holding and throwing it with the right hand).
As it happens, what Modesitt calls "combined knitting" is a very common way of knitting in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and it is not considered the least bit heretical or unusual technique in many countries. It is the way I learned to knit when I was a child. When I picked up the needles again after twenty-five years away from them, it was the method that my hands remembered. I had assumed that I would not remember how to knit, so I bought myself a book with which to teach myself. For more than a year I actually did believe that I had learned to knit, as an adult, from a book, until a friend watched me knitting and expressed surprise that I was doing it "backwards". All that time, I had been staring at the pictures in this how-to book and yet doing exactly the opposite, without even noticing that my hands were following much older instructions.
It took quite a while for me to figure out what had happened, since Eastern styles of knitting are not well-represented on the Web. For a long time I wondered whether I had simply read the book wrong, developing a weird sort of knitting dyslexia. But a careful look at the diagrams on Modesitt's web page made it clear to me that the two are equivalent, and I have since seen references to the "Eastern style" in a few scattered places.
So how does one knit in the combined style?
The simplest answer is that combined knitting is like knitting through the back loop. Most intermediate or advanced knitters know how to do this already, since it is a technique that is occasionally used to create effects in the fabric. The combined knitter simply does this all the time.
Rather than inserting the right needle through the leg of yarn that hangs in front of the left needle, the combined knitter inserts it through the leg that hangs behind it. There are some good, clear photographs of both the Eastern and the Western techniques on this web page:
http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/basic_techniques/knit.php
Knitting this way requires purling slightly differently, or else you will be afflicted with twisted stitches. Basically, a combined knitter will purl by wrapping the yarn clockwise around the needle rather than counterclockwise. This is nice because it allows you to "scoop" the yarn rather than wrap it, saving a tiny bit of time with each stitch.
You've won me over. Now is there anything I need to worry about?
As I mentioned above, some patterns ask you to knit specific stitches "through the back loop" in order to create a certain effect. Sometimes I manage to "translate" these instructions into the Eastern style, but sometimes I don't, and my results are a mess. If any of you have developed a consistent way to reproduce these effects in combined knitting, I'd love to see them.
The other concern is with knitting stockinette stitch in the round. I've never much cared for knitting in the round, and recently I have learned why: it is much harder to do it in the Eastern style, and the stitches don't look as nice. This is because combined knitting gets its neatness from the relationship (as it were) between the knit rows and the purl rows. Knitting row after row in the round without doing any purling means the stitches are not seated properly.
Modesitt recommends one of two solutions to this problem: either switch over to the Western style when knitting stockinette on circular knitting needles, or remember to wrap the yarn clockwise rather than counterclockwise when doing these projects. This warning does not apply to seed stitch or garter stitch, by the way, which both use a combination of knit and purl and which can be done safely in the round.
More information:
Annie Modesitt's web site is very helpful for learning the technique:
http://www.modeknit.com/combined.html
I only wish that she had more to say about the history of this style of knitting, including its use in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Update!
yclept was kind enough to explain to me that combined knitting is not actually identical to knitting into the back of the stitch, although English/Continental-style knitters tend to think it is. This is because there is a difference between the "leg of yarn at the back of the needle" and the "back of the stitch." For a combined knitter, the back of the stitch is actually in front of the needle. This is very hard to explain without pictures, but luckily fine pictures exist at the following page:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/djinnj/124712.html
Quoting yclept: "As Lily Chin says, knit the leading edge of the stitch (which opens the legs of the stitch up, rather than causes them to twist across one another). There's no need to wrap differently for stockinette in the round, simply knit the leading edge. I've also never found circular to have any difference in regularity from flat knitting.
"To modify patterns designed for those who knit Continental or English, you have to remember that the stitches are oriented 'backwards', therefore the effect of a ssk would be done with a k2tog, etc. It's a matter of learning to read patterns and one's knitting for the desired result rather than the proscriptive 'rules.'"
Many thanks to yclept for taking the time to explain this in such helpful detail. I hope one day she adds to this node with more of her observations.