Portuguese knitting

It's hard to believe I've not written this post before. It is kind of a big deal for me. So, here is my late confession: I knit Portuguese.

As you'd know if you've read one of my first posts, I've learned to knit only recently using the internet. I used the videos I recommended on that post and learned both English and German style knitting. At the time I preferred German-style since I found it easier. I believe the explanation is that even though it may use the left hand more, German style involves less hand movement and specially less coordination between the two hands and I must be one of the least deft people you'll ever meet. So learning to knit was quite challenging for me.

I learned only as an adult because, funny enough, neither my mother, nor any other member of my small family, or any of her friends knitted. I think knitting had gone completely out of fashion for their generation, even though I remember seeing enough shops selling yarn when I was a kid to know that people knitted in those days a lot more than they knit now. At school I had a single friend that wore beautiful hand-knitted sweaters that were done by her mother. She had good taste and the sweaters were much nicer and more fashionable than what one could find on the shops of the small town we lived in at the time.

So I grew up hardly seeing anyone knitting. So much so that when I learned to knit I had this very vague impression that something was off but I was never able to make sense of that. Until I started learning the seed stitch in my learn-to-knit scarf. I was having problems switching between purls and knits, basically because I'd developed a terrible purl technique. I went to YouTube trying to find videos that could help me improve my technique. I found a technique called 'Norwegian purling' that is very good for doing seed and rib stitches, basically to switch between purls and knits, but it requires too much dexterity and I couldn't get it right no matter how much I tried. One day I noticed a link on the right side of the screen. Oh my God! That was it! Suddenly I remembered! The old ladies I'd seen knitting in my childhood, they carried the yarn in front! You see, I grew up in Portugal, but it was so long ago that I'd forgotten it. Out of curiosity I decided to learn it and I never went back. I think it is much easier than German or English. It is faster too. Here is a list of the pros and cons of this technique as compared to its carrying-the-yarn-in-the-back counterparts:

PROS:

1. It is easier to learn. It requires less hand movement (some people say it is better if you have arthritis or another condition that makes knitting painful because of this). It is faster.
2. Portuguese style purling is the easiest and fastest stitch ever. You can't beat it.
3. It is very easy to switch between purling and knitting, making rib and seed stitches, and the like, a breeze.
4. It is much easier to carry two (or more) yarn ends making fair-isle knitting much easier.
5. I think knowing more is always good and for me having the flexibility to use both styles is great. I've found that being 'forced' to adapt every technique has made me a better knitter because I have to understand what I'm doing instead of following instructions blindly. This actually means I do much less mistakes in the end.

CONS:

1. Almost none. The main one is that everyone else is knitting carrying-the-yarn-in-the-back. Patterns are written for it and so are instructions. Most techniques are easily adapted to Portuguese style knitting, but not all. I still use German style knitting for doing certain things like, for example, the cable cast-on. There is an obvious way to do it Portuguese style too but I've never bothered.
2. Unsurprisingly carrying the yarn in the back makes the knit stitch easier, while carrying it in front makes the purl stitch easier. So in Portuguese-style knitting you purl as much as you can and avoid knitting. Garter stitch becomes purl every row and so does knitting stocking stitch in the round. This means you're facing the wrong side when you knit in the round, which is not a big deal, but it can be a small inconvenience sometimes.
3. This is kind of a repetition of the first item on this list. If everyone around you is knitting carrying-the-yarn-in-the-back you may have problems when comparing your knitting with your friends. Say, if you do a mistake and ask someone for advice, this person will probably give you advice that requires some form of adaptation. As I said above, this is usually straightforward but not always.

In my opinion there are two types of techniques: the ones you can adapt (without any effort or using a good amount of brain power) and then as I mentioned above, you're better off doing it, because in the end you'll have learned to understand what you're doing and you become a better knitter; the ones, like cable cast-on, that are simply more easily done carrying-the-yarn-in-the-back and then you use either German or English style knitting for those.

To finish I'm leaving a list of very good Youtube videos that will help you learn the basics:

1. Chuanavit has the best tutorials for the very basic techniques like cast-on, knit and purl, bind-off and more. And they're in English!
2. Nionoi has more advanced techniques, but she speaks Portuguese. Still the videos are very good and you can learn a lot from them even if you don't understand the spoken part. 
3. The problem of colour dominance in fair-isle knitting and other advanced techniques are presented in these videos. These are really worth seeing.
4. Andrea Wong videos are a nice introduction too, but Chuanavit's are much more complete.