Tips for Knitting Faster and More

Most of us knitters would like to be more productive with our knitting, whether that means knitting faster when we have time to or making more time for our knitting in the first place.

A few years ago I took a faster knitting workshop with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, who is mentioned in this oldie but a goodie Craftsy article about how to knit faster. She uses a style called pivot knitting, which is a great way to knit super fast but also takes a lot of practice.

Practicing your own style of knitting and working on ways to be more efficient within that style is a more practical way to learn to knit faster. I learned to knit by dropping the right-hand needle when I formed the stitch, but I trained myself to stop doing that and it made my knitting a lot faster and more efficient.

Things like knitting on circular needles so you don’t have to stop when you get to the end of a round (or focusing on what Stephanie calls “kick turns” when you change rows) is another way to make your knitting faster.

And of course you’ll be able to knit more if you combine knitting faster with knitting more often. I have an article on ways to make more time for knitting, most of which you are probably already doing, but can get you thinking about ways to get more knitting in.

Do you have a tip for knitting faster or more? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Craftsy.]

Next Pattern:

I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

Next Pattern:

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