Are you a "thinking" knitter?

A very interesting, and thought-provoking, post on knit, knit,frog today about being a "thinking (or fussy!) knitter" and what has caused the author to become the way she is. I, personally, am not quite there yet.

I learned to knit when I was a child, taught by my mother. There were no knitting books available to me apart from instructions, although I'm not certain I had access to these at this stage. I was taught one way of casting on (long-tail using my thumb - although it didn't have a name, to my knowledge), one way of holding the yarn (right-handed) and one way of casting off. I did hold the needles differently to my mother and I also threw the yarn differently ( I still can't throw the yarn without taking my hand off the right needle no matter how hard I try! Am I slightly physically different?) but otherwise I knitted the same.

Until the internet! To repeat what millions of others must have already stated but it is amazing how a single piece of technology (I use the word "single" rather loosely here) has revolutionised the whole world! I now have access to a huge range of outside influences when it comes to knitting. Who knew there were so many other styles of knitting in practise throughout the world? I didn't. Who knew there was more than one way to increase, decrease, cast on, cast off etc? I didn't. But now, I do! I am learning, slowly, that maybe the way I have been used to knitting for the past ? years is perhaps not the best/most appropriate method for this particular article.

What I did know was that I had not always been totally happy with the work I had been producing but I had not known how to do it better. Now the answers are only as far away as my fingertips. My knitting library has grown in leaps and bounds since I discovered Knitter's Review and Amazon. Instead of simply a good range of patterns and pattern books I now own an interesting collection of how-to books and what-if books. I have now been introduced to knitters such as Elizabeth Zimmermann, Cat Bordhi, Nicky Epstein and Montse Stanley. I am beginning to not accept my knitting which is "ok", knowing there is a way to make it excellent.

For me, my knitting journey has barely begun!