Speed Knitting

On one of my knitting lists, there was some chat about a recent fiber festival in France. They held a speed knitting competition with two divisions. The winner of the French division, Ariella Lecuyer, clocked in at 213 stitches per minute. Think that's something? She's a turtle compared to the winner of the international division, Maria Nicolo, who knit at an astounding rate of 240 stitches per minute.


Let's savor that.


Two Hundred. Forty. Stitches. Per minute.


That's -- wait for it -- four stitches per second.


Now, just to really complete the picture, go get yourself a stopwatch. Try to say the words "one-two-three-four" out loud in one second. Can you do it?


I can't.


And then try to factor in that each knitting stitch has a series of moves. No matter if you knit righty, lefty, English, Eastern Uncrossed Continental, or with a half-twist-double-pike-reverse-tuck-flip-flop thrown in, you're going to have to accomplish a certain sequence of moves. Insert the needle. Wrap the yarn. Make the new stitch. Release the old stitch.


Counting one-two-three-four hardly captures the grace and complexity of that sequence four times in a second. You'd have to at least bump it up to "a one and a two and a three and a four." Which I still can't say in a second, let alone knit in a second. Heck, I'd do a happy jig to reach half that speed.


And then I'd go yarn shopping. Because even my stash isn't big enough to survive those kinds of knitting speeds.


Sweet Jane

I think I am starting to get the hang of this here blogamajig, and made a few small style changes. Those of you who have been yarn shopping with me will not be at all surprised to see that this includes liberal use of the color purple. (And those of you who've read my first drafts will be equally unsurprised. But that's a whole different kind of purple.)

The quote in the "about me" section is one of my favorite moments in a Jane Austen book. This one is from "Emma." Everyone should read this book. Seriously. Go get a copy and read it right now. I'll wait for you....

.... Great book, isn't it? The careful readers among you will note that my sidebar quote fails to preserve the paragraphing of the original text. That's because I couldn't figure out how to do it, and lost many, many minutes of knitting time in the effort to figure it out. Seriously.

At Maria Nicolo's speed, we're talking like nine sweaters.