The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday on the new sport (?) of competitive speed knitting. Not really that new, apparently, since there are already world record holders and a challenger. Here’s a link to a story about the 2004 winner: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_11-10-2004_pg9_5.
The world record is 255 stitches in 3 minutes. Hazel Tindall of the Shetland Islands is the current record-holder, succeeding a woman from Yorkshire. The challenger is a Dutch woman who seems from the Journal‘s reporting to have a mad desire to break the record. The Brits were gently skeptical of the possibility of a non-Brit being able to get the title, though Tindall did call her with some kindly tips on talcum powder.
My casual check of my knitting speed (knitting normally while watching my computer clock) revealed that I can’t get across one 79-stitch row of the bathmat in 3 minutes. I should have done it on Hopkins, which is just stockinette, and slides across the needles better, being wool. Then, oh then, I could have been a contender!
Not really. I am not a fast knitter, and have no desire to be. But the experiment showed me that 255 stitches in three minutes is really fast. Tindall claims that this kind of speed is normal in the Shetlands, where of course they do use a knitting belt. For a professional knitter, speed would clearly be an economic advantage. For us amateurs, it would probably threaten the meditative nature of the process. And how many books does Tindall get read while she knits?
It’s really cold in the Shetlands for most of the year. Speed knitting probably keeps the blood in their fingers from freezing.
They must all be Pickers on the Shetland Islands…I just read an article on knitting techniques and now I feel old-fashioned and low-tech for being a Thrower.
I try to take my needles everywhere I go…I’ve also considered leaving a set of needles, a ball of yarn, and a quick-and-easy pattern over at my boyfriend’s house for those “emergency” situations when I’ve forgotten my knitting š
The yarn you’re using is the exact color of my shower curtain, which I just realized is done in a sort of basketweave pattern. I think I’ll get some cheapish yarn and make a basketweave bathmat…and not let my sister use it š
you should definitely get into speed knitting as a sport…that sounds fun…
I’m a “picker”…I think that’s what the slang is (I hold the yarn in my left hand, in the Continental style). I was always told that Continental is a faster way to knit than English, but I’m not the fastest knitter and I know a woman who knits pretty darn fast in the English style. I don’t think it would be very relaxing to speed along at knitting. The closest I’ve ever come to timing myself was knitting a baby hat in the round….I could do one round of 80 stitches in just under 5 minutes.