Speed knitting is not for everyone. Some people like knitting because of the calmness and the joy of the repetitive movements, the texture of the yarn, and maybe, the sense of accomplishment it gives when you are done. And there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, keep it up!
However, there are people who, apart from the joy knitting brings, want to improve their knitting skills. Some would want to become a better and faster knitter. This may also include you. While it is true that the art of knitting is not something you can master in just one day, some secrets will help you speed things up when you are knitting.
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Treat knitting as a daily habit.
To be a faster knitter, make knitting a part of your daily routine. Just like any skills, knitting requires practice regularly. The more you practice, the higher the chances that you will get better at knitting.
When you knit daily, your pace is going to increase, and your stitches will be evener. Allocating some time to knit helps you master some movements. In that way, the strokes will remain in your muscle memory, making it easier to perform them as the days go by. The next thing you know, you are speeding things up a little more!
Train your hands.
Your hands are what you need to practice your knitting skills, so you will have to prepare them as you start to knit. When your hands hold the needles properly without slipping, it helps you save a lot of time.
Make sure to create tension with the yarn in between or around your fingers to have a good grip on the needles without letting go of the yarn. This is effective in any stitching method, such as continental knitting and English knitting.
If you are not yet using such methods, it would be best for you to play with them and identify what method works best for you. Once you are already used to the technique, you will be able to make stitches more efficiently.
Practice knitting without looking at the needles.
If you want to become more efficient in knitting, it actually saves you a lot of time when you do not look at what you are knitting all the time.
When you learn to not look at the needles, you can work while reading a book or watching your favorite TV show! Not only does it make you knit faster, but it also helps you become more productive.
Stop to see if your fabric has some errors.
Although your goal is to knit faster, it may be ironic to think that you are encouraged to stop while you are on the knitting process.
However, when you take time to stop and check if your fabric has issues, it would be better if you repair them as early as possible. When you discover mistakes, it would be easier for you to correct what went wrong, and go over before it is too late.
Look for odd-looking stitches or anything that may not be suitable to the pattern of your work.
Fix mistakes without ripping out too much.
It would be stressful for you if you had to redo your work just because of some minor mistakes. While the most logical way for you to have a perfect knitted job is doing it all over again, you can fix your errors without the need for ripping several rows.
If your project has thousands of stitches or has long rows, you can let the stitch column where there is an error to slip down for you to fix what needs to be changed instead of ripping several rows out. You can correct the column of failure, and redo some stitches to repair it. A crochet hook is helpful when these knitting errors occur.
Write down all the details of your project.
Make sure to keep detailed notes of your projects. When you spend time reading what you have recorded, you will be more familiar with the details of your project. You can always study certain aspects of knitting when you write notes. Not everything sticks into your memory. It is still better to have something that will help you remember.
Writing down notes help you in keeping track of the modifications that you need to do, the materials that you need, and other details that you may think are not really important. When you forget a specific method, it actually extends your time in knitting, as you will need to refresh your memory to recall it. Having a reference when things get tough will help you get the answers that you need.
Conclusion
Knitting is a fun and exciting hobby that can help you spend your leisure time more wisely, and can be a source of livelihood as well. If you are not yet an expert on knitting, there is a knitting machine for beginners that are available in the market today!
