Five habits of fast knitters
that do not involve continental knitting, CraftDoodling Design News, Other updates etc.
When the words "fast" and "knitting" are spoken in the same sentence, most knitters associate it with the world's fastest knitter Hazel Tindall, who has a record of 262 stitches in 3 minutes. 💨🧶 And then there is also a general idea that continental style knitting is faster.
However, I am not talking about actually increasing the speed of your stitching or switching your knitting method.
This is not directly about knitting faster or finishing more projects, but being intentional in our beloved craft so we enjoy the knitting as well as our knitted FOs. 🧣
Schedule your knitting time ⏰
The fastest knitters I know are ones who have carved out a fairly regular schedule for their knitting and actually do the work in that time. They also manage to find little bits of time here and there in their day to get a few rows done. It all adds up, and things get done. ✔️
We often admire a knitter who churns out a steady stream of projects and wonder about their speed and efficiency. I am willing to bet that it is with their time they are being efficient, rather than a particular knitting style.
Keep notes 📝
Almost all kinds of arts and crafts that we desire to pursue would benefit from one single habit: note taking. Our memory is very volatile and written notes can be very handy and save you loads of time when you want to look up that yarn, colorway, needle size used in a particular project, foot length that worked perfectly in the previous pair of socks. 🧦 You name it!
Keeping notes about things that went wrong in a project is also super helpful to avoid mistakes and improve. Ravelry is one great online space to keep knitting notes and share them with others as well.
But I also love a good old notebook.📒♥️
Read your pattern before you begin 🗒️
I know! This is an unpopular piece of advice. Once they have the required yarn and needles, a surprising number of knitters just look for how many stitches to cast on and begin knitting.
One quick glance at the sections like construction, pattern notes, finishing etc can give us loads of helpful information about what's expected in the project and could potentially save us time and frustration - just like taking a look at the map before a trip to a new place! 🗾
Swatching even for non-garments 🧣
Wait, let me explain!
Gauge swatching for garments is somewhat more serious. I am hoping to convince you here about a more light-hearted kind of swatching, even when you are doing a non-garment project. These swatches can be just 1 or 2 inches in size.
The purpose might be to try out a new yarn and see how it knits up, to check how the chosen color works with the stitch pattern, to practice a stitch pattern, to check if color combinations work well together, to practice a new buttonhole technique, etc. Even a little practice and planning would make a huge difference when you do the actual project.
Accountability 🧑🤝🧑👭
Some of us may feel energized in a group setting, and the accountability factor may be a big motivator to stay consistent with our knitting. Join a KAL, find a local knitting group, take a class at your LYS, check out an online forum, sign-up for a test knit and you might see a big difference in your approach to knitting.
As always, thank you for reading my newsletter! I love writing about knitting to you every week and look forward to your insightful comments and thoughts. I'm eager to know how long you have been knitting and what habits have helped you in your knitting career? 💗
To let me know you liked what you read, you can also press the little heart icon at the bottom of the newsletter. ♥️ However, if you are clicking it from your inbox, you might have to wait until Substack opens in a browser and make sure the heart icon is indeed red. Thanks! 🥰
CRAFTDOODLING DESIGNS UPDATES
Nasha pattern testing is in progress. You may recall that I am re-writing this pattern, which I had released earlier in 2020. I am planning to release a new 2-skein version as well as re-release the original 1-skien version with improvements.
One of the main improvements is the fabric is knit at a tighter gauge. Here is a picture for you to see the difference.
Purple sample (original) using 5mm & Red sample using 4mm needles. 2. Thank you for your lovely responses to my last week’s newsletter : While I was walking and knitting. Many of you had said that you either walk and knit already or would like to start the habit.
I will be starting a conversation thread here in Substack where we can share our walk & knit wips, tips, ideas, tools, experiences etc. I hope this would be fun and enjoyable for all of us. 💝
FEATURED PATTERN
Sard Shawl is a modified version of classic triangle so the shawl has a slightly longer wingspan. It is available in two sizes and the small size uses just one skein of fingering weight yarn. I find that its most enjoyed feature of this shawl is its sideways knitted border.
Sard Shawl is available on Ravelry and Payhip for download. 💝
OTHER THINGS YOU MIGHT ENJOY
I enjoyed watching this video of Hazel Tindall knitting.
Just finished Reading 📖
The hate U give - Angie Thomas
Currently Reading 📖
The very secret society of irregular witches - Sangu Mandanna
Show your work - Austin Kleon
Until next time,
Kavitha. ♡
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I love this post and can relate to most of it. I am the slowest knitter on earth. And I blame myself for it cos I am slow, as I am too distracted by the phone and the unfinished book on the table that suddenly catches my eye while knitting. In the end I don't do justice to both.
I swatch when I am knitting for someone else. :)
Nowadays I read the pattern. Earlier I didn't because I felt if there was some unknown or difficult part I might be demotivated to knit.
Note taking? what is that? :) But I sincerely wish I was better organised like that :(
I learned the hard way when I didn't read a pattern all the way through. The consequence was having to frog quite a large section of the knitting! Speed isn't everything as you've highlighted here. Hear, hear to swatching, note taking :)