Speed kills

Thanks for helping me do my homework from yesterday guys. It’s a big help. For those of you who asked if I were going to sort out the average speed or something like that – I’m not. I’m not trying to figure out what average is.

I gave it a lot of thought and here’s my thinking. Lets say I do the math and establish a number. (First of all, I try to avoid math whenever possible, so we’re already in conflict, but lets assume I did it anyway.) Now this number, let’s call it “X” is average. Now that we have established X, all of you are going to be one of three things. Either you knit faster than X and you’ll receive accolades for no reason other than quick fingers, or you will knit about the same as X and that will make you “average” (I personally don’t find “average” much of an inspiring compliment) or a lot of us are going to come out below that number. Those of us will be “below average”and I don’t want to set anyone up (especially me) to be “below average”. (I’m already short with bad hair. There’s only so much one woman can take.)

That said, the numbers are there for anyone who wants to work ’em for their own gratification.

What I am trying to work out is the scope of normal. You are all getting socks at the end of your knitting so I know you are normal. (If you weren’t normal sock knitters when you tried get socks you would be getting hats or mittens or small knitted cows.) How far across the range of knitting speed does normal go? Here are some interesting things.

1. If we were making a curve, then one end would be at 12 stitches per minute and the other end would fall at 144 stitches a minute. (Before you go lie in the road, I think that might be an error. The worlds fastest knitter pulls in about 85 stitches to the minute..so either we need a recount on that one or we need to get his knitter to the contest immediately where the full scope and glory of that speed can be known to all humankind.) If we exclude that one, the far end of normal was more like 75 stitches per minute. For the curious, I just timed myself and came in around 55 spm “cruising speed”.

Jinxsa made me laugh when she said her speed was “Negative 40 as I did the wrong row and yanked back too far.” This, sadly…is also in the range of normal.

2. Many, many knitters felt that there was/ would be a difference between their “cold” speed and the speed they got up to with warm hands. This is true, but cracks me up anyway.

3. Many knitters gave qualifiers, “on wooden dpns”, “with Opal yarn”, “with big cables”, “on 2.5mm needles”, “throwing” or “over lace”. I thought this was fascinating, because it told me all the stuff you guys think affect your speed. (Props to Lynn S for remembering another influence on speed “37 spm, fingering weight, metal DPNs, two glasses of wine” )

Intriguing, all of it. Thanks for helping me. I’ve been knitting away on the jacket, but didn’t get much done, since last night was Knit Night at Lettuce Knit and there were things were more interesting than the jacket.

LK is having a baby boom.

3Preggers1109

That’s Jen, Joyce and Mel, all due (rather incoveniently, from a knitting perspective) all in a row. (Photo shamelessly ripped of from Laura, the only organized soul who didn’t suffer camnesia that night) The LK clan got together a few weeks ago and knit them each a blanket…

Gotsomeblankies1109

in exchange for producing us pretty babies to play with. It was a big honking baby shower. These three babies are going to be the warmest in Toronto. Sweaters, socks….hats…Joyce is the first to hold up her end of the deal, providing us with the beautiful Zoë, just 10 days old and already at Knit Night.

Babyzoe1309

She was gripping to all of us. We huddled around, watching her blink, curl her fingers, touched her thick hair. I think it’s safe to say Joyce outdid herself. Sigh. Hard to believe that someday she’s going to break curfew, date and arse and refuse to do her chores, eh?

Off to pack my knitting. Flight to Seattle in a couple of hours.

120 thoughts on “Speed kills

  1. my knitting speed is greatly affected by the bowl of candy in front of me. Can we count candy eating speed instead?

  2. I say it again: if we could bottle the power of knitters and the power of motherhood (and lactating breasts) we could rule the world!
    Travel safely. See you in Wichita on Sunday!

  3. Camnesia! What a great term! Congratulations Joyce, such a cutie. And best wishes to Jen and Mel for safe, speedy deliveries.
    I love knitting for babies. I love how quickly you can finish when the project is so small. =)
    Have a safe, wonderful trip Steph! See you Monday! =)

  4. Do you have something called “lager speed”? ;o) (Wine gives me headaches.)
    Zoe is beautiful! If all babies could just stay little long enough so we could finish baby projects!!!
    Love your blog and your books. Hope to some day see you in person.

  5. Time of day really affects my knitting speed, since I cannot seem to see anything after 10PM. Do we need to take an average over three times of day? Like morning, noon, and night? And all those moms and babies are wonderful!!

  6. Not a good thing to see in one spot – yarn and new babies. Makes me want more of both, neither of which I need right now.
    Do babies function like sock yarn – not really part of the stash? I bet my husband would say no to both.

  7. I’m a day late on the “how fast” issue but I think I fall at the very bottom of the spectrum. It took me 2 years to knit a pair of fabulously wonderful tiny cable socks. I only worked on them in line to pick my daughter up from school. They never left the car. I have gotten better but since I’m an ADD knitter I never actually work on anything straight until it done … I’ll never know how long it actually takes 🙁

  8. Baby shower looks like a blast and that baby is beautiful!!!!! Have fun in Seattle (my in-laws live there – one of my favorite cities).

  9. Oooh, I love babies in slings. They look so cozy. I had a person admit to me that she couldn’t tell if I was carrying a sleeping baby or a puppy in mine.
    I know it’s still summer by I stopped by to look at your (old) thrum along for a pattern and can’t find it. Help. I know I can turn to the web but you’re always more amusing and helpful.

  10. Hi! Delurking to reveal my statistics nerdiness, but you need a standard deviation! It will tell you the distribution of your data around the mean (average). This would show you how many folks are in a ‘normal’ range, rather than above or below average. But then you might just not care! To be honest, I am more interested in the babies! That is one gorgeous baby there.

  11. Adorable baby.
    It’s not only amazing that she will engage in all those adolescent behaviours, but how soon they will emerge. I swear mine was that size only yesterday.

  12. I hope the flight goes well. Watch out for all the grumpy people at Sea-Tac waiting to see if their Horizon Air flights get cancelled while the airline checks all of its landing gears. They have a lot of flights out of here.
    Nothing like that can happen to you, okay?

  13. If Roxie reads your post she will want the cow pattern. Do not ask how I know this.
    What lovely babies, inside and out. Closer to home, one is now out. I get to go see her tomorrow.
    I am currently averaging I would guess about 4 sts per minute, not counting rip-outs, while following a fiendishly tricky pattern of my own design. ****In st st.**** I keep muttering to myself, “I will not be beaten by st st.” Wish me luck.

  14. Babies are adorable!!
    I averaged 16-19 stitches per min in stockinette on the foot part of my 2nd pair of socks. (timed myself twice) Thanks for the challenge!!

  15. How about average-speed-after-long-day-homeschooling-and-driving-teenagers-to-activities-and-grocery-shopping-and-cooking-dinner-and-ripping-back-three-rows-of-the-lace-shawl-and-it’s-already-11:00-at-night-and —? Oh, never mind….I’m brain dead by then, anyway.
    Shampoo?
    CONDITIONER?!?
    Undies?
    Toothbrush?
    Have fun!!

  16. Long time lurker, finally brought out into the open by the mention of statistics… Stats are scary only because most people won’t (or can’t) translate them into plain English. Essentially, they just give you a more complete story about your data. If you’re curious, I love stats and would be glad to run some numbers on the knitting speed data AND translate it into English for non-math-nerds. Could provide some interesting insight into what’s “normal”.

  17. Beautiful moms, gorgeous baby. Good thing I’m past childbearing, or I’d be getting in line for one of my own.
    See ya in a couple days. Dress for warm weather in Los Angeles– it’ll be about 33* C, 90* F.

  18. Oh, guess I should have figured all of the frogging into my speed.
    I actually wound up with a negative typing speed in my typing class in high school. I got to the right hand margin, reached up to smack the platten back over (yes, I realize I just dated myself, this was on a real typewriter) and my hand landed on the row above home position. Twice. I wound up at something like 35 words per minute with 38 mistakes, which makes for a total typing speed of -3 words per minute.

  19. Gah!!! Seattle! It’s wonderful and artsy and beautiful!! There are fish sculptures on a freeway overpass if you head to the eastside from Seattle. Fish…on the freeway! If you get outside Seattle at all you will be in awe of the green and the trees. I miss both of those things living where I do. Boise might be called the City of Trees, but you sure wouldn’t know it by looking! If the blackberries are still on (which they should be) you might want to find a quiet spot to hoard some to take home for jam. Assuming you are a jam-making kind of gal.

  20. So is this Stitches Per Minute looking or not looking at your knitting? With cat(s) on lap or not? So many variables!
    Have a safe trip! Wish you were coming somewhere closer to my locale, sigh. Thanks for entertaining all of us with your wit & knitting 🙂

  21. ooooh babies….have to confess I’m glad I don’t have them THAT young anymore…a 2 and 4year old is enough!
    To be quite precise, the fastest knitter in the world is Miriam Tegels from Holland, and she’s in the book for knitting 118 stitches in 1 minute!

  22. Well yanno if you get bored in Seattle ( not likely !) theres a great Nordic museum that has some interestng knitting exhibits. They’re holding a knitting conference in October too – Elsbeth Lavold among others will be there.
    Or hop the ferry and come back to Victoria!

  23. What a beautiful baby.
    Only a few hours to decide what knitting to take on an 8 day tour??!! Safe travels.

  24. I was ready to go lie in the road. Thanks for stopping me. 144? Wow. Maybe with a machine…but holy heck.
    I’m moving to Toronto…to play with the cute baby!!!

  25. I am not knitting a sock at the moment so I have not a clue as to my spm. I do however share the neg. 40 as I just ripped out an entire baby sweater because…..wellllll I just thought I could do it better. Hang in there Amelia baby, Grandma will get it done before you are old enough to buy your own clothes.

  26. Zoe is truly a beauteous baby – with a lovely, lovely name. I don’t know about anyone else but I am intrigued with the idea of starting out to knit a sock & ending up with a small knitted cow.

  27. Woo! My slow knitting is the slowest on the scale. I’m oddly proud of that.
    Awww, Zoe is beautiful! The baby boom is here at my workplace too, there’s something crazy in the water. I’m not drinking it, that’s for sure!!

  28. Was that “date an arse”? I only ask because I suppose I am the mother of one of the arses. Nah, shouldn’t be cruel, my 16 yo son is only a part-time arse.
    Because he’s never consistant about much, really.
    But I love him. And he is funny. With that he earns his keep.

  29. Beautiful Mums and Zoe…that Zoe, mercy she’s a beauty.
    Yes, you are rather on the short side but bad hair? Nuh-uh…absolutely not…nope.

  30. Stephanie,
    I went back and looked at all the speeds and could not find the 144/ I found 2 44s and 1 14. Of course my aging eyes don;t see like they didin my youth.
    Cheers. Naomi

  31. Whoa. I think I blacked out for a moment from the cuteness. You really should have had a warning label on this post. I was led to believe from the pregnant pictures that the babies were not born yet. My little baby is just over a year old, and I’m in that dangerous window where he’s too young for me to sanely want another one, but little bitty babies are providing a powerful distraction. I’m NOT going to scroll back up and look again.
    I’m not.
    I did. So sue me.

  32. SO glad to read your final sentence – all those bellies and blankets and that wonderful baby were making my head spin… the broken curfews and chore refusal is good to remember, sometimes. :0)

  33. Well frankly, I’ve never finished a sock yet, so I dunno if I’ll end up with a small knitted cow or not. Hopefully not, as so far these objects are fitting on feet when I try them on. Oh god. That brought to mind some genius managing to figure out how to handpaint yarn so you’d get big spots, rather than stripes or flashes or whatever. Without, you know, having to do intarsia. Now I have a sudden yearning for cow socks. Holstein, to be precise. A mesmerizing thought, for some reason. (As in my mind refuses to let go of the concept. It’s thinking about sock blanks even now…)
    Great baby (who’s giving her her first needles to hold?), great blankets. Safe and happy trip, and may everything be relatively boring except the appearances! You know; no mashers, flight delays, airport 2-minute miles, that sort of thing. Hope Jayme gets those socks. 😉
    (And Jess of Pittsburgh from yesterday’s comments, at 11:58 am today… The whole comment was hilarious, but your last sentence, “This is like trying to knit with an irate spider.” Best. DPN line. EVER! I so wish I’d come up with it so I could use it for a sigline!!!)

  34. They are fascinating, aren’t they? When my best friend had her first baby and came to visit me, all plans for catching up and chatting, etc. were completely forgotten. I don’t think we even remembered to eat.
    When I tried to explain to someone what we did that afternoon, the only way I could describe it was “worshiping.” We spent all day worshiping the baby. And it was lovely.

  35. 2 in our knitting group were pregnant at the same time…one still is. First baby was born 6 days ago and I’m hoping to meet her tonight. Shower for the other mom/baby is on Saturday. Lots of knitted items for both babies from all their unofficial knitting aunts. Isn’t it fun!

  36. Have pleasant travels – you inspire and boost the hearts of so many knitters, have a ball. Hugs to the moms and Zoe. I’m knitting my first sweater, a baby sweater; ‘Daisy’ by YH posted on Knitty. Thank you YH for taking time (you are SUCH a triple-A personality and kind helpful person) to clarify the directions for nimrod-knitter me.

  37. Since I can do math, using the 3 figures you gave in your post, the average is 16 spm (75+12-40/3= 16). If you don’t factor in the negative speed (ripping out), it’s about 44 spm (75+12/2= 43.5).
    We are anxiously awaiting you in Houston!!

  38. Oh, darn darn darn! I just moved to downtown Toronto and was SO planning to be at Lettuce Knit last night… I really, really need to find some knitter friends… but I got stuck at school copying journal articles and getting books. I missed a Knit Night with a baby?!?!?! Maybe next week…

  39. I love the comment about knitting negative 40.
    It reminds me of the Negative Shawl I am working on. And a shawl knitted against itself, cannot stand.

  40. I need to figure out how to get a small knitted cow out of sock knitting. It would really up the interesting factor if I was knitting a sock and always ended up with something decidedly un-socklike. It would be like cooking dinner and ending up with cake! Mmmm, cake….

  41. Baby!
    I don’t normally time my stitches per inch, but I do time my rows. When I was working on the body of a sweater (fronts and back together), my knitting rows were about 10 minutes and my purling rows were sometimes significantly faster and sometimes a little slower (depending on if I had to check something usally). I time my wait for the train the same way. If I finish x number of rows, then I’ve been waiting at least y amount of time. Unfortunately I don’t think the MBTA would be willing to accept knitters math for determining late trains.
    (Note, with the number of stitches in the sweater, I was hovering around 25-30 stitches per minute.)

  42. What a beautiful baby! And what lovely Moms! Just wonderful!
    I’m sorry, but at first mention of ‘math,’ my synapses shut down. Thank goodness there was a baby picture to take the edge off.

  43. I’ve discovered that I knit faster when I am angry. Unfortunately I use the same amount of yarn as I do when I knit happy, resulting in ‘tension issues’ (of both kinds!). This is one seriously weirdly shaped sock.
    Seeing the baby is good though. Even better than pictures of yarn. My Babygirl just started school this week. Where did those five years go? I’m afraid I’m going to blink and find the next ten have whizzed past too and she has got tattoos, a black motorbike and a boyfriend called Spike.
    (My mother will have introduced her to all three. She’s been plotting her revenge on me for years.)

  44. Date and arse? How does one arse? I don’t think I managed that one as a teenager…
    Or did you say “date AN arse”?
    That, I did. 🙂

  45. AmyinStL, would it help if I told you my first heel turn looks more like a cow than a sock heel?
    Thank you Stephanie, I’m quite happy to hear you confirm that I am normal, and that we are all normal, that we are just our own version of normal. You are a wonderful philosopher.
    A beautiful baby, congratualtions to momma and poppa, and the other prosepctive mommas and poppas. I don’t see near enough of babies.

  46. Aw, Joyce gots a cute bay-beh!!! (smacks self) Stop it, Kat!!! Noone needs to see ya going through yarn buying withdrawl!!!

  47. I am a fool….. a damned fool… I waited too long to get areservation in Los Angeles.. and now it is full! I should have known because you are a sparkling special person… As full as it will be.. I want you to imagine how big it would have been had they let everyone come!

  48. Oh. Yeah. I actually knit down as far as the heel, ripped the whole thing out because it was too tight, and started over, so it was way less than 20 st/min, but let’s not discuss that. It’s the knitting that counts because knitting is soothing. I need to knit to calm my nerves.
    I’ve never ended up with a knitted cow. Ended up with a knitted bunny once, but that was deliberate.

  49. OK, a confession…when they handed out the mother genes, my mother got extra and I got…none. I simply can’t imagine being so fascinated by a baby that you’d forget to knit, or pet yarn, or talk to your friends about things other than babies. Just to remind all you drooling mom types that there are others sorts out here in blogland…that being said, the moms all looked ecstatic and baby Zoe is indeed beautiful. I wish her a bright future. Bravo to all of the knitting moms at LK, who are lucky enough to have lots of knitting aunties for their wee ones ( and who pick up the slack for us non-moms.) . And safe travels, Stephanie.

  50. Apropos of nothing, who is the hat person for your Los Angeles appearance? I have a hat, but no reservation, so need to arrange deliverance (for much more than the hat, but that’s another story). Would someone, perhaps the one, please let me know?
    Thank you so much in advance.

  51. The new Knitty came out today and in it Amy Singer, with the help of her father, has a photo essay on the Toronto Stitch and Pitch. Check out the left picture in the fifth “row” of pictures. Isn’t that you seven or eight knitters into the row, leaning forward, not watching the game?
    Probably trying to catch the eye of the beer vendor.
    That’s assuming Toronto has decent ballpark beer.

  52. Hello Harlot-
    I have been reading your blog for months but am just now posting because I have decided to knit my first pair of socks, and I thought, “who better to suggest a good beginner pattern than the Yarn Harlot?” So, that’s what I want to know–what’s a good pattern to begin with? I’ve been knitting for a while but just haven’t been interested in socks (sacrilege, I know) until now! Can you help?
    Catherine

  53. Here’s one you might not have yet — I knit at about half my normal speed on the ferry because salt spray makes aluminum needles sticky and slow.
    I had a rude awakening today when I realized that I cannot knit and use crutches at the same time. Knit and walk, yes, but until I can walk again, I can’t knit and move forward simultaneously. It has been many years since I went somewhere without knitting. Odd!
    Hope this leg of the tour goes smoothly for you.

  54. I’m glad the others worked it out. I wondered how “arse” turned out to be a verb. Little Zoe is adorable.

  55. Wow! What a beautiful baby!! Love the sling, the knit blankets, the — oh, the everything. I don’t know what my knit speed is; lately it’s pretty low, though — too much reading about knitting (and taking care of those pesky kids!).

  56. Wow. Three normal-sized pregnant women, all in the same place. How did you do it, Steph? Where I live, all of the pregnant women I see are lithe and toned and wearing things that I couldn’t wear on a really Good Day.
    Little Zoe (forgive the omitted double dot) is beautiful. Huge props to her mama!

  57. wow. Now not only am I having yarn withdrawals, but baby withdrawals. Sigh. Oh to hold and nurse another wee one! Lovely knitters and offspring. I love knitting for babies… of course if I knit faster, I could have the projects done before they were outgrown.
    Safe travels.

  58. Maybe that’s the root of Second Sock Syndrome… we’re afraid the mate will actually be a cow and not a sock?
    And I’ll bet someone knits you a cow and gives it to you on this leg of the tour.

  59. My luck – I leave tomorrow for VA – – live in GA, about 2 hrs. from Atlanta – – going to Montreal & return to VA on the 22 (about 1.5 hrs. from Bailey’s X-rds.) – – go figure!! I’ll miss you both coming & going by 2 days!! Now that’s ridiculous………..
    love the books – Knit on & on……………..
    Marietta Thompson

  60. i imagine the 144 thing happened because you didn’t ask anyone to get a stopwatch to time themselves- which means your knitters didn’t really knit for a minute exactly, but for as long as it took them to notice the time on their computer to change. this could have been upwards of a minute and a half. still, interesting. i notice that i get faster as i have more time to knit (i was much faster over the summer than i am once school starts and i only pick up the sock every few days, if that often)

  61. Awwww, sweeeeet baby!! Me wants!! Oh wait! There’s a good reason God doesn’t let women my age have babies…. we’d set them down somewhee and forget where we left them. Have to wait for them to wake up and cry before we could find them again. Guess I’ll enjoy the grands instead, I can give THEM back!

  62. Welcome to Seattle! I’ll be one of the many coming to see you tomorrow.
    As per averages… statistically speaking (and who doesn’t love statistics?) there are three main measures of “average.” One, is mean, and that is the most common measure people use. So if you take the mean (also called average) of the speeds of knitters, plus one aspirin for the headache this post gives you, you add the numbers and divide by the number of scores.
    Then there is mode. Mode has nothing to do with fashion (*exception noted below) and is a measurement of what score is the most common (e.g., number of knitters who want to clobber the 144 sts knitter).
    Median is another measure of “center” which is what you are trying to get at with average. Median is the center measurement if you line up all the scores from low to high.
    Why do we have three measures, you ask? Because if you want a true picture (e.g. you are the obsessive type, not the “pass the cake” knitter you describe in your latest book) this gives you the whole picture of what “center” is all about. So the mean speed of all knitters may be making you feel deficient, but if you also look at the most common speed, that might be something that makes you feel better, and then you can also look at median, and all of these measures might give you less of a reason to finish off the Ben & Jerry’s in your freezer. Because you know you really need to send it to me…

  63. whoops… forgot the exception
    * a la mode… since knitting is/isn’t in fashion now, and since math makes most people’s heads hurt, what is the average time the average knitter throws up a little in her mouth when hearing that people like Faris Milton (made up name) decided to learn to knit because it’s in fashion?
    (answer: three seconds before hearing it, because such nastiness forces knitters into a groundhog-day type of time travel, whereupon the bile multiplies at three times the speed of the average factor analysis on what affects knitting speed)

  64. Normal would be like the middle 50% of the numbers given. And say that the minimum is 20 and the highest is 140, making the median 70, the middle 50% would be something like 45 to 105. Something like that. XD Yay for stats!

  65. Have a safe flight – hopefully I can make it to Third Place Books to hear you speak tomorrow/today(before they run out of chairs too, with a little luck!).

  66. Timing oneself for TEN minutes, then dividing the total successful progress by ten…that would be a lot more accurate! Less likely to be all knotted up trying to time and knit and then realize that you just managed to make a hoof and a tail on your sock….and then have to rip it back, realize that the time changed somewhere in there and now you have to either redo it or guess….
    Personally, I just knitted along and then tried to count stitches, something I am NOT accomplished at, then gave up and figured that I’d probably be in the low third of the ‘hey dummy, that’s CROCHET you’re trying to do there’….
    And went and ate some chocolate and felt MUCH better now. 🙂

  67. Congratulations to Joyce and welcome to little Zoë…
    Please say hi to my mountain for me…and tell Seattle I miss it and I’ll be home soon. (I hope…)

  68. That is a cute baby all rightie. Makes me sorta want another one.
    And I clocked in at 26 stitches per minute. Of course that wasn’t socks, that was a cabled scarf, but apparently you’ve inspired me to do the thing with numbers and I didn’t have a sock with me.
    Dammet.
    Wish I could get to Seattle tonight but apparently I decided that rather than coming to see you, working a double shift would be exactly what would float my boat.
    Do attempt to have fun without me, impossible though it may seem to be.

  69. Hellllloooooo Harlot (and fellow bloggers)! Don’t laugh, but I’ve never actually been on a blog before, so your’s is the first. I love this! A DAILY dose of hilarity! Knowing that someone else out there also has 5-year-old projects mouldering in the back of their closet, kids who protest “crap yarn”, and raging animals who steal her yarn/fleece stash is so great to know. Maybe I’m not that weird? (People who know me can now fall off their chairs laughing.)
    Where and when will you be in LA????!!! I’m in LA! I’d love to be the first stalker of a knitting personality! Just kidding, really.

  70. I wanna get small knitted cows!That might even outdo my pink knitted tank. Tank as in military hardware with a gun, not an anti-airconditioning device.

  71. When doing the spm count you need to factor in the ‘admiring’ your work time involved. Plain socks will knit faster than patterned mostly because we stop to admire our work when the pattern is tricky or the yarn is doing some amazing colour thing.
    I seem to be at the 30 sts per minute.
    Safe journey.

  72. I would like to comment, because you’ve also described yourself as a fast knitter in posts in the past. And it’s been really bothering me. As I work on a sock for a pair for myself (interweave knits favorite socks; yummy wonderful Koigu in a dark blue-green mix), I feel a little plagued with how slow it’s going. And I constantly ask myself, am I being the most productive with my knitting? Is there anything else I could do, any other way to hold the yarn, that would make me work faster?
    And then I read Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears, and breathed a sigh of peace when she described herself as a slow knitter. It was like the pressure was off. Knitting was less about performance, and now I could just sit back and enjoy the ride.
    Just a thought.

  73. whoops, I’m a couple of days behind and just skimming the entries. I think that rather than call knitters fast, average or slow, we should think of the knitting rates as speedy, medium, and leisurely. Then we’d all feel pretty good about ourselves – not that we shouldn’t or don’t already.
    Have you ever thought of doing a “best of the harlot blog” book? You have some truly wonderful entries (not that I don’t love them all) but some (like the one about the new stove, or the squirrel) are wickedly funny and others are so thoughtful and inspiring (one you wrote around the time of your wedding, I think, about the creativity of knitters everywhere)
    Just a thought – not that you need more writing stress!

  74. You don’t have bad hair, I swear it. Just stop brushing it after a shampoo, put some hair product in and let it do its voodoo on its own. My hair went from straight to curly (ah, puberty!) and I still kept trying to brush it like normal and moaned over the frizz factor.
    I like the knitting speed variables, cats, babies, husbands, 2 glasses of wine, 2 shots of tequila. It seems endless.

  75. I would really like it if my socks would occasionally turn into knitted cows. I love cows. Also, you could refer to it as “typical” speed instead of average. It doens’t sound so blah then. I dunno, the thought jsut crossed my mind.

  76. Love baby knitting! I wish I had done more of it before I had kids, they really get in the way of knitting time.
    You might just want to let Joyce know though that the shoulder of her pouch should be covering her shoulder cap and not riding up towards her neck. It might restrict movement a little, but once baby gets a bit bigger, it makes a HUGE difference to the momma’s comfort. I would have gone insane without my pouch! That is, versus just slightly crazy with three young kids, LOL.

  77. Wow. I can knit 23 spm if it’s on a single needle (I knit socks on double-pointed needles) but this slows to 20 spm if I have to change needles during the minute. Then there’s my cable speed. Five spm. : (

  78. Camnesia! That is a great word.
    Such a beautiful little girl. It is amazing how a baby can captivate an entire group of adults isn’t it?
    Yes. If only there was a way to skip right past teenagehood.

  79. Luv your blog. I enjoy knitting for babies! Mostly knit afghans. all the best to the new mommies and mommies to be. Let us know when you are coming to Vancouver BC. would luv to see you in person.

  80. 1. Woo hoo! (That’s for the new TSF/KWB total.) If not a half million yet, will be by the end of the year. Just remind us. 😉
    2. Beautiful baby, and Zoe is a great name. Hope someone remembered to put the needles in her wee little hand–anyone who’s blogged at knit night at 10 days old better grow up to be an expert!
    3. Sorry I missed yesterday’s speed test. How many stitches I can knit per minute on a sock is in direct proportion to how close the subway train is to my stop.

  81. My evil employer decided to have a fiscal year end again this year and wouldn’t let me go to Seattle, so my friend will be there with a picture of my first socks, and HER first sock. I made her start knitting. It was like telling Harry he was a wizard. She now makes me look like a knitting muggle.

  82. Aww, such a cute baby! I agree, Zoe’s a great name.
    My sock speed? 15 spm if it’s a plain yarn, 30 if it’s variegated.

  83. Oh!
    I wouldn’t be too disappointed to find out I knit below average speed… but now I’m hoping this next sock is actually a small knitted cow when it’s done.

  84. Babies…the perfect reason to knit or crochet!
    Now I’m going to have to time myself knitting. I tried this a while back – I was pleased to know that I was not half as slow as an incredibly fast knitter at my LYS Yarntopia, Brynne. This means I am probably not the SLOWEST knitter in the world, maybe Texas, but not the world. LOL
    http://www.bethelscrafttalk.blogspot.com

  85. dang it – I feel like a slow-bee. I usually knit only about 22 to 35 stitches per minute. That bites.
    I can’t believe I am not even close to average….

  86. I’m a Process Knitter (and thanks for those definitions!) so I’m sure I’m slow. I just knit merrily along and then, eventually – it’s SOMETHING! Like magic, I like it. And as babies go, Zoe is one precious little Almond Cookie (my own first two babies were sweet Chocolate Chips). I have a friend’s TRIPLETS to plan something knitterly for – I’ll get ideas, but I don’t start anything for a new baby until it’s born (old Yiddish superstition, don’t ask). Triplets – I’m thinking something along the blankies-and-caps line. Travel Safe, YH!

  87. I’m with marni on the baby thing. Still, threads like this are useful/interesting in an anthropological way… to see how many women, in a population determined by something completely unrelated to babies, are truly enthralled by / attracted to them. I hang out with so many childfree people that I often forget.

  88. And in an even shorter time than that, she’s going to be keeping mum & dad up by laughing maniacally in bed at 3 a.m. (oh, wait…is that just me?) But I’m so glad you have babies!!!

  89. Lovely little baby!
    I rarely comment, but statistics are fun! I do data analysis all day and enjoy making sense of raw numbers. I would be happy to make some sense of the responses you receved for you.

  90. Congrats Joyce. Zoe is lovely. I am the crazy lady from North Carolina that dropped in on the baby shower at Lettuce Knit. All of you are so awesome. Enjoy that baby, they grow up so fast.
    Roxanne in North Carolina

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