Scientific Experiment

So it’s like this. I should have spent last night getting ready for a waffle party with 11 ten year old girls here Saturday morning, and instead I conducted a scientific experiment with my knitting.
Hypothesis – That knitting fair isle is indeed magical speed knitting in which the time/space continuum is warped and socks get done darned fast. Is it the pattern that just makes it “seem” faster, or is it actually faster?
Experiment – I cast on two socks, one fair isle, one single colour. They did not have the same number of stitches because there is only so much I was willing to sacrifice in the name of science and I want to have actual useful socks at the end of this. One (solid colour) had 84 stitches, and the fair isle had 70. I knit on each sock for 45 minutes, and was interrupted by life crap about the same number of times.
Results (as shown by our lovely studio model…Millie)
milliewool
15 rounds of fair isle at 70 stitches per round is 1050 stitches.
10 rounds of solid at 84 stitches per round is 840 stitches.
Conclusions
1. Fair isle is faster. (I told you so)
2. I am out of my mind for actually thinking this much about this.
3. If there are about a thousand stitches in about an inch of sock knitting…am I the only one being shocked at how many stitches I’m knitting for a whole sock?
Tonights Experiment – do I knit faster with a Merlot or a Cabernet Sauvignon?
I hope everyone in the Maritimes is warm and cozy today. Canada’s Atlantic Provinces were blasted by the biggest Nor’easter in one hundred years yesterday. High winds and a full meter of snow. That’s 100 centimeters. For a frame of reference, I’m 152 centimeters tall. That’s a lot of snow. To my cousin Michael in Halifax: happy shovelling dude. To My Sister-in-law, buried in Sydney, Nova Scotia: I told you to get two movies at the rental place.
Finally, just for Kathy. When I asked my Father in law in St. Johns, Newfoundland yesterday if the storm was bad, he replied in a classic maritimes understatement. “Well, there’s some snow”.