Thursday, October 23, 2014

Speed Knitting? Or not...

I'd like to think that I am a pretty quick knitter.  But I really don't know.  I don't TRY to knit as fast as humanly possible, I take my time and relax.  I'm usually watching TV or reading a book on my phone (if it's an easy pattern) while I'm knitting.  Kids constantly interrupt me, and they further impair my progress by clicking my row counter, stealing my tape measures, or chasing my dogs - who in turn jump onto my lap and send my yarn balls flying.

In addition, my style of knitting is not typical.  I am a "thrower".  Here I am knitting:

In the last knitting class I attended, some 4 years ago, I was quickly told that I knitted "wrong".  They put that working yarn in my left hand, and told me to force myself to learn that way.  "You'll be so much faster of a knitter that way, and your tension will be much more even".  I gave it the ol' college effort, but went right back to my old way when the teacher turned her back.  (I'm convinced there's NO WRONG WAY to knit.)

Regardless of barriers, I knit every day.  Knitting calms me, distracts me, and focuses random energy into something productive.  It occupies the creative section of my brain and challenges me.  It really doesn't feel like work.  More like therapy.

So today, curiosity led me to time myself.  I'm working on a shawl, which right now is in garter stitch.  Easy peasy.  On the needles are 329 stitches of fingerling weight yarn.  I started my stopwatch, and away I knit the whole row.

Here's what I got.


...which translates to approximately 578 seconds.  That's 1.75 seconds per stitch, or just over 0.5 stitches per second.  Now that I have this information....I'm not sure what to do with it!  HA!  Maybe I'll come back to this post in 3 years and time myself again.  I hope I'm faster!

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