Friday, January 13, 2006

How do you hold your yarn?

Yesterday morning I gave up my seat on the way to the station to a middle aged lady with a dodgy leg. My good deed was soon rewarded, because she quickly got out her knitting. I was watching her, trying not to be too obvious, she was seriously the fastest knitter I have ever seen. She was ribbing, but flying along. Now, when I rib, it takes ages, moving the yarn from the back to the front takes longer than the actual knitting the stitches. Watching more closely, all her movements were really subtle, and rather than moving her whole hand to wind the yarn, she just moved her finger, and the yarn was looped under and over her fingers. The more I watched her, the more it reminded me of how my mum knits.

I tried to replicate this at lunch today, whilst knitting at my desk, and could I do it? Nope... I just got into an awful mess! I hold the yarn between thumb and forefinger, so move my whole hand when knitting.... no wonder it takes me a month to make a cardigan when it takes my mum two evenings. Maybe I will have to go and get a lesson from her this weekend....

On the knitting front, I'm nearly upto the armhole shaping on the pullover, but stupidly didn't bring the next ball of cotton with me. Hopefully there will be enough to keep me occupied on the train to Wolves tonight... silly me.

I felted the camera bag last night and it is way too big, but looks cool. I think I'll wash it again to try and make it shrink a bit more and then line it. I thought I could put toy stuffing in between the lining and the bag so it protects the camera a bit and this should mean it doesn't matter if it is a bit too big.

3 comments:

Sharon J said...

Hi. I just sat and tried the way you hold you yarn and it'd probably take me a year to knit anything that way. Do get your mum to teach you her technique; it'll be so liberating! ~Sharon

Anonymous said...

Hello my friend
I hope you had a lovely weekend. You realy must get your Mum to teach you the fast way.
Your SP7

acechick said...

Try approaching it from a different perspective. Rather than thinking about how you hold your yarn, look at how you hold your needles.

To do this 'quick' method, you can't let go of a needle in order to wrap the yarn.

But if you want to see something truly odd (and fast) watch a continental-style knitter. Weird.