January 13, 2009

Riddle Me This

Have you ever noticed that some sock patterns are fast? Not just that they seem fast, like when a patterns so entertaining that you get invested and time seems to fly... but when it's actually fast? Empirically fast?

I've noticed it with the Leyburn socks. I sit down to knit for a regular block of sock knitting time, and when the time's up, I've got way, way more sock than is normal for me. I feel like I could bang these out a mile a minute, and I practically am.

Leyburnandsom13109

That's a sock and some in about 2/3 of the time that I would reasonably expect to spend getting a sock and some. (The picture also shows the rather dramatic and fierce swelling of my left ankle, kindly disregard. My ankles are usually as fetching as the one on the right.) Admittedly, having to sit around with my foot up (it is wearing so thin already) is granting me a little bit more knitting time than usual, but I swear that's not all it is. There's voodoo in this pattern. Fast voodoo. I had the same experience with the Monkey pattern, and Loskins is darned quick too. You would think that a patterned sock would be slower than a plain sock, since all that stitch manipulation has just got to be slower than churning out the knit stitch, but it just doesn't seem to be true. The intelligent part of me says that it's that I'm being charmed, and the charm eggs me on, but I have been charmed before.. this is knitting after all, and it can't just be that.

What makes these patterns so fast? Do you find any fast? Which ones? Why do you think it is?

Thoughts?

Posted by Stephanie at January 13, 2009 4:06 PM