True Confessions of a Self-taught knitter

At first, I blamed the yarn. Certainly that had to be why I was getting such an extreme bias on when I knit in the round.

I read about a post from someone else asking for help with that sort of a problem. The answer was that she was likely twisting her stitches. That wasn't me, I thought. I know how to knit. I'm doing it just like it says in the book. Maybe it's the needles?

But then I was knitting with what I knew to be very good yarn. Three inches into it I realized I was getting that extreme bias. I had just knit a straight swatch with no problem. I studied the stitches, taking a close look at them - could they be twisted? Could I be doing something wrong?

I consulted the Stitch and Bitch book that my former secret pal, Loribird, http://spinknit.blogspot.com/, was kind enough to send me. The stitches are like little gymnasts straddling the needle, the book says. The leg on my side should be in front. My little gymnasts were backwards! It turns out I was catching the loop clockwise when I should have been catching it counter clockwise!

There may be no rules in knitting, but there are apparently some basic guidelines that must be followed if one wants the piece to turn out as expected.

Off to frog...