Knitting speed?

[sundaesundae]

Help, I am the world's slowest knitter, are there any hints or tips to help me speed up? I knitted as a child and have started knitting again as an adult, just simple stuff at the moment. I am currently knitting a blanket for my baby due in March, simple stocking stitch, but it takes me 20mins to do a row of 80 stitches on 5's. It needs to be 80cm long and it is taking so long.

Any ideas welcome!

[backwardpossom]

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread, I could have written that post

[HousewifeFromHeaven]

I am knitting a scarf at the moment, tortoise stylee

[bluecarrot]

Do you "throw"? Or do continental style? The latter appears to be faster but I cannot do it. Look it up on youtube - LOADs of videos. And also look up speed knitting. Its crazy!

[TaggieCampbellBlack]

You can't be the slowest knitter in the world because I am.

Will look up speed knitting. And cry a bit.

[tribpot]

Continental knitting is generally faster (and possibly more important, it doesn't tend to wear out your hands/arms as quickly as English-style knitting).

Normally I would say the downside of learning continental is that it slows you down, but it may be that you haven't yet found your rhythm and so this could be a great moment to learn.

Liat does a video course on continental knitting, which is excellent, but it does cost money. Here's one of her videos for an idea of how to do it.

You will speed up with practice, whichever style you opt for.

[Hopefully]

I found I COULD NOT speed up my knitting speed with throwing - the habits were too ingrained to improve. But I learned continental and am waaaay faster. It took me the time it took to knit a garter stitch baby blanket to get fast with knitting, and my purling speed improved over time. I reckon I knit approx 4-5 times faster with continental than I did throwing.

[sundaesundae]

I shall try continental, it looks quite tricky, but I guess that is because it is so different to what I am used to :)

[tribpot]

Yes, it's like learning to touch type. The faster you are at two-finger typing, the more frustrating it is to go back to the start and learn again. It feels very strange at first but is massively worth it when you get the hang of it! (Not least if you have to type on a keyboard with Russian keys as happened to me in one temp job - I could change the software settings to make it a UK keyboard but I couldn't look at the keys themselves!)