How to Hold a Tunesian Hook with a Cord? Help please!

[CascadeConsumer]

My Christmas present to myself arrived, namely the Denise brand set of crochet hooks in standard sizes with attachable cords. I've never worked with them before and boy to I need help!

 

What is the best way to grip the hook for the return passes? With a standard tunisian hook I just use the part with no stitches on it, but with these corded hooks that's not an option.

 

Does anybody have any tips or tricks on how best to hold the work and corded hook? It's the return passes that are frustrating me -- casting the stitches on isn't difficult.

 

Thank you!

[redrosesdz]

How do you hold your regular hooks?  Like a knife? or like a pencil? 

 

I hold both my regular hooks and Tunisian hooks like a knife.  My grip on both is the same at the same place on the hooks, even though there is no thumb indentation on Tunisian hooks.  Since my hand is over the hook, I just ignore the stitches under my hand on the return pass.  Every so often I stop to move stitches off of the cord and onto the hook, so they don't catch.

 

I'm not sure how one would hold any Tunisian hook, either the long ones or ones with cords, like a pencil.  Even with the long ones, holding the hook farther back wouldn't give you any leverage for control.

[Granny Square]

Merry early Christmas on your hook delivery!

 

I re-took up knitting about 6 years ago; I learned both knit and crochet over 4 decades ago, but stuck with crochet.  I hold the hook pencil style.  It was an embarrassingly long time after my recent knitting re-start that it dawned on me that I knit knife/overhand style, even while using a hook to knit (which I do when binding off and a few other things).  

 

I don't have Tunisian corded hooks, but I have have long straight Tunisian hooks.  I just picked up one and started a swatch to see how I held the hook, and I held it overhand (interesting, but not too surprising since it does resemble knitting a bit).  I think it's more intuitive to use overhand, because you do have to hold onto the stitches at some point if you have more than a couple of stitches on the hook.  I just couldn't get it to work pencil style, and that's my normal way to hold a hook for (non Tunisian) crochet stitches.

[ReniC]

Denise Hooks has a fair amount of videos on Tunisian Crochet.

I too use a "knife" hold on all my hooks.

Corded hooks are used for long rows of stitches (such as an afghan) so they don't get bunched up, like on a standard Tunisian hook. You still do not turn your work. Stitch your forward pass, moving the stitches down the cord, then follow with the return pass all the way back to the beginning of the row.