Norwegian Purls

Honestly, is there anything as awesome as Norwegian Purls?

For every continental knitter like myself there could be no greater invention. Purls are notorious for being difficult, and chaotic, and bothersome. Changing the position of the working yarn ever so often is nigh on impossible. My left index finger is not nearly as flexible as it ought to be. I used to hate ribbing. 1/1 ribs especially. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth... gaaaagh!

And then I read 'Knitting without Tears' by the incomparable Elizabeth Zimmermann and I finally found out, why the purls were so difficult to work with in the next row: I've been twisting them all along! That was a huge discovery.

But nothing is so sweet as Norwegian Purls. The whole idea seems like an exercise in logic. Remember maths? Remember something like this? 3 + 4 = 4 + 3. It doesn't matter whether the 3 comes first or the 4, the result is the same. Just as 'yarn in front of the needle' is the same as 'needle behind the yarn'. Right? And the rest of the magic is just rotating the needle in a clockwise motion, thereby entering the stitch to purl, continue rotating on and on and on, until the yarn is caught, then change gears, down and out of the stitch (like a clever dog escaping his collar) and yanking the old stitch of the left needle. And that's about it.

Wanna see it in action? Norwegian Purls