Fair Isle is Fast

I cast on the Mamluke socks last night and gleefully knit my little heart out.
mamluke1
When I knit fair isle I carry one colour in my left and one in my right. This is way slower than the way I knit flat stuff, which is as much as possible. Yeah, yeah, tell me again how great circulars are. I know they work for you. I however am the last great holdout for straight needles. Long straight needles. Love them.
As much as I love long straight needles (is it just me or is that starting to sound dirty?) I see the wisdom of knitting fair isles circularly, but for me, knitting circularly with one colour in each hand is slower. I know this to be an absolute fact.
Can somebody tell me then, how it is possible that it takes me longer to make each individual stitch, but have the rows go faster? I mean, if that was a plain grey sock, I could have knit around and around at lightning speed and have 2 inches at bedtime. Give me fair isle and I knit each stitch more slowly but each intriguing little row piles up on top of each other at an astonishing rate. That’s 5 inches of sock! Who can knit 5 inches of sock during one moderately interesting Denzel Washington movie? Not me man, it’s just the miracle of fair isle. It’s how Wendy does it. Knitting Voodoo.
This
pddaybarbie
Is what the girls did with their day yesterday. Note the mohawk. Be afraid.
This
earlyshetland
Is what I did with part of my day yesterday while I tried not to think about the barbie. It’s the shetland from tuesday. This is the lightest batch, and I’m spinning sock weight 2ply for the cuffs of some socks. Looks pretty good eh? I realized today that to finish all of the projects that I have to finish before March ends I am going to need to warp the time-space continuum. That’s such a pain in the arse.