Menokreatikkul; Saturday Stitches

Pencil or knife?

My Grannyma (dad's mother) taught me to crochet. She had one style... what we know and call the Granny Square. Every single item she produced (and there were a LOT) was created with varying sizes of squares, mostly of clusters of two double crochet (UK tc), sometimes single stitching, sometimes clusters of three, but essentially all exactly like this.

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Bless her, she wasn't renowned for her patience, but for some peculiar reason, with passing on this craft to me, she found a supply of it. Even my earliest, disastrous attempts were met with encouragement and delight. This resulted in my lifelong love of crochet. 

As a contrast, my mother taught me to knit. Her expectations of my skills served to scunner me of the thing, and now it is a very rare and exceptional reason that would cause me to pick up the double-needle craft.

One thing that Grannyma impressed on me was to hold my hook in what is known as the pencil grip. Quite simply, hold the thing exactly like you would a pen or pencil. This I adhered to all the way through my projects until 2020... you remember that year, don't you? I started to watch lots of crochet via the tubular, mainly for inspiration, but also discovered that I still had lots to learn.

Now, I never stuck to Grannyma's squares. I did have books and patterns over the years that took me down more creative paths, learning different stitches, varying my yarns and hook sizes.  However, the way crochet could move from craft to art fascinated me, then there was Tunisian crochet, there was amigurumi... and there was a different way of holding the hook called the knife style.

I watched this in action for a long while before deciding to give it a go myself. What really prompted it was the gift from Mac1 of a set of hooks... until that point, I had only ever used standard straight hooks. These new ones had 'soft grip' handles. These proved uncomfortable to hold pen-like. I was forced to switch to a knife grip, in other words. 

What a revelation! It was much easier on my wrists and shoulders - particularly when doing blankets and other larger items. I have noticed that when using very fine yarns and working on smaller items, I tend to revert to pencil, but almost everything else is now completed in knife grip mode. 

What is interesting is that in knitting, the knife grip would be my choice, but I know several knitters who use the pencil grip, which looks totally weird to me.

Which way do you go, either in knitting or crochet? Or do you spurn these and prefer fabric and thread-needle? 

Oh, and all you male readers (thank you for the support), don't think all this is beyond you - remember that tailors are almost entirely male, and that fishermen's guernseys were almost always knitted by the sailors themselves. Some of the world's best crochet artists are men!

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