Portugues Knitting.... and... oh these twisted stiches, challenging but fun ;)

I've been practicing most the whole day on  two different things. I'll tell about the second one in a moment. First, of course, I'm trying to get these twisted stitches figured out in my pattern. I have the right twisted just fine and easy but the left twisted stitches are a bit hard for me.  It's the latter half of the left twisted stitch that's giving me a bugger of a fit each and every time.  Now I imagine if my tension were a bit looser I bet this part of the step wouldn't be so fiddly.   And of course I think the most important part is to remember to slip the first two stiches knitwise individually, than replace them back on left needle. Once that's done getting under the second stitch to knit it is rather easy, but than hard part becomes where you than knit both of the first & second stitch tbl.  Getting that needle tip under my first stitch and lifting it up is the exact point of difficulty for me. oh well, that's what practice is for!

Now onto my second find of the day..... Portuguese Knitting!  Now this is a cool concept.  This should be in the knitter's dictionary under Ergonomic.  I took a break from my twisted stitches and watch a few YouTube videos on this.  So far the best videos I think are the ones made by Chaunavit.  She also shows the Portuguese cast-on. Their cast-on is interesting. I will have to check that out later as my mind is full right now with twisted stitches and the basic steps of Portuguese Knitting.  I got the hang of it rather quickly for the basic knit & purl st, but than I was trying to incorporate it along with learning the twisted stitches.... whoa, a bit more than my brain can manage! lol.  But I can definitely see where this type of knitting is going to bring relief to my hands and fingers wrists & arms as you keep your hands in front for both the knit and purl. It is much easier to flick my thumb in that short distance of space than to hold my arms while I throw my finger up over and around with other knitting styles.  It will relieve the pressure on my middle finger & knuckle that I always use to throw the yarn.  Check out this site

Stock photo of Wire loop ring for
stranding colorwork yarn catalog says.

Now in the video... Chaunavit uses a pin attached to her blouse that she strands the yarn thru. When I went looking in my basket of inherited items & tools and I did find a different looking wire ring that was my aunt's so I tried it out.  It looks like this stock photo I found in a knitting catalog which describes it commonly used for color-work stranding; but, it seemed to work well for the Portuguese knitting style. Than I just put the rest of the yarn around my kneck and let the skein rest at down my side. It'll have to do me until I can find a more proper pin like Chaunavit was using.

I can see right now that it is going to be fiddly challenge trying to figure out how to keep my yarn from two different skeins from getting tangled up as I flip and turn my work. I've got one skein running thru one of the loops and the other skein running thru the other loop with rest of the yarn around my neck. What a sight! But if others can do it in color-work stranding surely I'll be able to figure it out as I really like to make socks two at a time.

   

I've been surfing the web about Portuguese knitting and found these....  
{btw... I've no affliation with any of products you see here, yadda yadda... just researching.}

  

Andrea Wong has some pins that she sells.  She is a well know advocate and teacher who travels the Country helping knitters of whole new generations discover this age old method of knitting ~ Portugues Knittng.

And I found some real pretty magnetic pin-hooks that you can wear that doesn't require you to put a hole in your sweater!

http://knitforbrains.net/2009/09/20/cool-new-idea-for-portuguese-knitting-pinhook/

Also found a site by this guy named Eric that shows one of his homemade pinhooks or knitting pendant as he calls it. He has used what he calls a sock hanger and made a weighted necklace with beads. Now this has really caught my eye!    Well I've had a right full day of messing around as you can see. So back to practice my knitting skills. ~ tah tah for now.