MAKE YOUR OWN NETS!

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This webbing tube is made in one piece, without seams, so it's knitted in a spiral. Your next step, therefore, is to join the 56 half-meshes to form a circle.

With the gauge block in your left hand (as in BELOW), place the leading (narrow) edge against your last knot, with the twine passing in front of it and then over to the shuttle. Let the knot straddle the leading edge of the block. Now, pass the needle around under the block, up through your first halfmesh, and again over the top of the block. With that done, pull the mesh strand down against the block's edge, halfway between the loop knots, and hold it in place with your left thumb and forefinger.

The next pass of the shuttle takes the string around both sides of the upper loop (see ABOVE), with the twine staying above your thumb, and then back down through the hole held open by your right wrist (you did remember to lay the twine across the back of your hand on that second pass, didn't you?). Do not wrap this second pass around the block.

The ends of your first row are now tied together, and you can continue to knit around and around. The knot you're now making, incidentally, is a becket bend or sheet bend (see the diagram) if you keep the second pass above your thumb. (If it falls between the upper loop and your block, you'll produce a slipknot instead.)

Each new mesh that you make will wrap around the block with all the knots in a straight line and the "legs" straddling the leading edge (note the position of the components in Photo 3). Build the meshes near your fingertips, and slide each new one toward your palm, keeping the block about two-thirds full: This will help you maintain uniformity. As you come to the end of a row, you may find that a few meshes will tend to pull crooked. If this happens, empty the block and work on one knot at a time for two or three meshes.

SWING ALONG

Knitting nets can be a very graceful activity once you get the rhythm of the work. However, here are some pointers to ease your learning process: [1] Practice feeding just enough twine from the needle to allow your right hand to swing naturally—up, then down to your side—and to draw the loop and/or knot tight, each time, without excessive backswing. [2] On the knots' second pass, the flip-a-loop method will work on the becket bend as well as it does when you make slipknots. Furthermore, it can come in handy when you're using up the last short stretch of twine before tying on a freshly filled needle ... but remember, too, that the flip-a-loop method is not as fast as the tilted-wrist method, and is therefore generally not as practical.

Basically, in this or any other type of needlework, the shortest route to speed is unbroken rhythm. A good netting average is 15 or more knots per minute, and to reach that rate, you'll have to try for the utmost economy of movement.

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