As someone who has been crocheting and knitting for nearly 50 years and can knit right to left, left to right, left handed, right handed, double handed, Turkish, Peruvian, English, Scottish, Indian, German, lever, cottage, loom, machine, and blindfolded… Continental is the least efficient way to knit because knitting is not crochet.
If I had never crocheted before but had been knitting for years, not one crocheter would ever recommend that I hold the yarn in my right hand to crochet because it will make the transition easier since I already know how to do that.
When the yarn is held in the left hand for crochet, you have the hook in place to catch the yarn as it’s pulled to the left. When you hold the yarn in the left hand while knitting, you have to work differently to keep the yarn from being pulled off the end of the right needle while making a stitch and pulling the yarn to the left.
While holding the yarn in the right hand while knitting you are pulling the yarn to the right and onto the needle as you make your stitch. The world’s fastest knitters do not knit continental, as well as most master knitters, because there are some stitches that just can not be easily done in continental, and you will limit yourself.
Let me be clear, I am not referring to the “throwing” method they teach children who are still learning the concept of how interlocking loops work. I mean actual professional knitting meant for all those fancy texture and lace stitches that make knitting the fine art that it is.
Knitting is not crochet and you should not approach it as an extension of crochet just because it also uses yarn.
10 Likes
I respectfully disagree… I’ve heard MANY professional knitters say continental is faster… Also, I feel like many things, it is subjective. Just because it’s not fastest for you, doesn’t mean it isn’t for others 
3 Likes
A great many knitters are first taught “throwing”, which as I said, is how they teach children. It is wildly inefficient but gets the basics down. Then they are told that continental is the only way to go and they learn that… And it is infinitely faster than “throwing”… But they just stop there and then proceed to tell everyone they meet that it’s the only way to go because it’s the fastest or that it’s the way they should learn because it’s the way they do it.
I don’t tell people that they shouldn’t learn it, just that they should not stop there and limit themselves because they think that it is the only or best way since that is all they ever hear.
One will never know the best/fastest way they knit if they are never encouraged to try.
2 Likes
i dont approach knitting as if it were an extenyion of crochet, but because i crochet more i use continential but only in the round
4 Likes
Yeah, I hear a lot of complaining about not liking something in knitting due to it being more difficult in continental. I can knit with either hand but I favor my right for the reason I said earlier about the yarn working with and not against the needle… I’m rather fond of what is now called mirror knitting (knitting left to right instead of turning work when doing flat rows) but there are some stitch patterns that are very difficult to perform that way… Especially Armenian knitting.
To me continental feels as bad as trying to crochet from left to right while holding the hook in the right hand
4 Likes
Ohh so that’s what’s going on. I’d seen people do it and had always wondered why. It looks uncomfortable to me. 
3 Likes
