In my experience, I’ve found knitters to be a very
inclusive and friendly group of people. The staff at my local yarn
store are always very friendly and will ooh and aah over my yarn
purchases as we discuss what I’ll be making. The podcast
and blog community all seem pretty open about their personal lives as
well as their knitting adventures (or misadventures) and openly
encourage discussion in the comments section or on the Ravelry group
page.
That being said, there are still a few lines drawn
in the sand that occasionally divide knitters into “us” and “them”.
That is, until someone drops a stitch and needs help or someone else
manages to catch an elusive shop update from their
favorite indie dyer and everyone wants to take a look. As with most
things in life, these splits aren’t always black and white. I like to
think of it more as a spectrum. Some people may be 100% on one side or
the other, but I feel most of us will be somewhere
in the middle with a preference one way. Here are some of the
dichotomies I’ve noticed in the knitting community:
Product vs Process
This is probably the most famous division in the
knitting community and most knitters know which side they identify
with. For those who aren’t familiar, I think of it as what drives you
to knit. If you are driven to make something because
you want the finished object no matter how tedious or complicated the
pattern, then you’re a product knitter. If you’re driven to make
something because of a new technique or particular design element but
perhaps don’t want the finished object, then you’re
a process knitter. I am certainly more of a process knitter which
makes Christmas knitting a year-long event. Most of the time, I find a
pattern I want to make and then figure out after the fact who I should
give it to. I also made a personal goal for each
pair of my Box o’ Sox KAL socks to have a new skill or design element
in them. I feel like most people easily identify with one side or the
other, but then have an example of the exception to the rule. My
exception is the cardigan I’m knitting for myself. It is my first garment so I wanted it to be
fairly simple but all that stockinette isn’t calling my name and I
instead reach for the intricate cabled hat that will be for either my
mom, my sister, or one of my grandmas (I haven’t decided
yet).
Chart vs Written
When it comes to lace and cable knitting, most
knitters have a strong preference on whether it is best to follow a
chart or written instructions. It is handy that most patterns come with
both and let you pick, but you’ll still occasionally
come across a pattern that is either one or the other. Here’s an
example on what the difference looks like. These are the Java socks:
This is the chart for the main pattern repeat:
And here are the written instructions for the same pattern:
The pattern also gives instructions for the cable abbreviations that are used in both the chart and written instructions:
My local yarn store had a blog post about why
everyone should at least try to knit from a chart. (Natural Stitches
Blog on lace chart:
http://naturalstitches.com/
I prefer to follow charts for lace patterns and
written directions for cable patterns. For some reason, my brain has a
hard time keeping all the squiggles in the chart straight and I’ve found
myself (multiple times) having to tink back
to correct a cable that I twisted the wrong way. I'm giving some more charted cable patterns a try recently to see if I can at least get a bit more friendly with them.
Toe Up vs Cuff Down socks and Bottom Up vs Top Down sweaters
These divisions seem to be less severe which, I
think, is because a lot of times patterns are written for only one way.
Sure, sometimes you can reverse engineer the pattern to fit your bottom
up or top down preference, but that isn’t possible
all the time. I do find that most people stick with whichever way they
originally learned. My first pair of socks were toe up and that is how I prefer to knit socks. My main reason is that I'm scared I'll run out of yarn and if you're knitting toe up, you can see when you're getting close to running out of yarn. That being said, I always have extra yarn left over, usually at least a good 20 grams so I really don't need to worry about it. But still, when given a choice, I'll go toe up for sure.
This, again, really depends on how you learned to knit. Once you learn one way, most people are hard pressed to knit the other. Not that this really makes a difference too much. I've never heard of someone being shunned from a knitting group for being a Continental style knitter. Once person I have heard who switches styles is Andre Sue, host of the Andre Sue Knits Podcast. In the first few minutes of episode 44, she discusses why she switched and the differences she's found between the two styles when it comes to her gauge. I knit English style, but flirt with Continental when it comes to colorwork patterns.
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