Wire knit, Viking knit and netting

"Why do you call it knitting if you are using a crochet hook?" "I like your crochet." "Is that woven wire?" "You can't knit with a crochet hook." "It's called knooking." "Is that spool knitting?" "Oh, but that's Viking knit!"

I admit it can get confusing. I blogged about the differences between wire knit and wire crochet before, in this and more elaborately with sample pictures in this blog post. I didn't want to repeat myself here, so please look up these two posts if you want to know more.
The wire knitting I do is also not the same as Viking knitting although I get why people may think that at first. Knitting is knitting after all, right?
Actually it's not.

A few things before I show you my samples:
I am by no means a Viking knit expert, so far I have only dipped my toe in. For the sample I skipped the making of a base part. This is NOT a tutorial, this is just supposed to show you how differently wire knit, Viking knit and netting look.
I do knit with a crochet hook. I could use knitting needles and end up with the same look, but with a crochet hook I feel I have more control over the wire. I call it knitting because the result are not crochet stitches, they are knit stitches.


This is a knitted wire rope sample and this is a very short explanation of how it's made with an ordinary crochet hook.
First you make a row of chain stitches (which is different from the first row if you knit with needles) and close it (if you make a flat piece, you just work your way up back and forth, but the technique is the same). Then you pull the wire through the first loop with your crochet hook, towards yourself and bend it upwards over your loop to avoid the wire slipping back out. You will see that it looks like a knit stitch already, and that's how you go on. Go through the next loop with your hook, catch the wire, pull through and bend upwards.
The wire in the last row is in no way anchored to the other stitches and unravels easily if you are not careful.
You don't have to cut a length of wire off your spool for this technique. If you use it with beads, however, you have to put the beads on the wire before you start knitting.
You can use a draw plate to even out your rope or make it longer and slimmer.

This is a simple single Viking knit sample.
The loops are woven around the loops of the last row. No unraveling there. You can use a mandrel, a dowel, a special Viking knit tool that helps you with the start, a pencil ... I used a large knitting needle for this sample.
There are different Viking knit variations like double or triple knit.
You have to have a length of wire cut off the spool to be able to weave the loops, but you can add wire while you go along. To even out the chain and make it longer and give it a different look, you can use a draw plate.

Last but not least I made a small netting sample. In this case loops are not woven around loops, but around the wire between two loops which makes this a very open net.

I hope I made the differences at least a little clearer, but should you have questions, I'll do my best to answer them!

I do have to say, however, as I keep getting asked that I don't make tutorials and don't plan on starting making them. Thanks for understanding.