Knitting isn’t a hobby known for its speed. While some are able to work their needles faster than the speed of light, it definitely isn’t something that comes easily to everyone!
There are ways to improve your speed, however, if you want to set yourself the challenge of speeding up. It’s surprising just how simple some of them are. You’ll wonder how you haven’t thought of them before! Read on to find out how.
1) Take regular quality breaks
There’s little more soul-destroying than reaching the end of a project and finding an error made hours ago! It’s far quicker to make any repairs early. We all make mistakes, so set yourself a row limit or timer and make sure to stop regularly to check your work and catch them early.
2) Learn to perform knitting surgery
Allowing your work to unravel feels counterintuitive because the last thing you want to see is all of that hard work coming undone! Sometimes however, allowing a column of stitches to unravel to reach a mistake, then using a crochet hook to put it back together again, can be far, far quicker than undoing everything and starting over. This is particularly simple if you’ve followed tip number one. They really do go hand in hand!
3) Mix your styles up
Different types of knitting come together at different speeds. There’s continental knitting, lever knitting, and the English knitting style. Or how about flicking? Martha Stewart has a brilliant guide to starting lever knitting, a method used by the majority of professional knitters.
You could even look at completely different, speedy methods of using your wool with a macrame kit, such as those seen at https://www.woolcouturecompany.com/collections/macrame-kits.
4) Keep notes
This is really important but a step that’s so easy to skip if you’re trying to rush! Spending time on your notes makes things so much quicker in the long run. You might tell yourself that you’ll definitely remember the finer details of your project, but the reality is often different. Keep it written down, and you’ll thank yourself later.
