cracking myself up
So… a couple of nights ago as I was knitting away on a present I noticed how far I had yet to go. I proceeded to lament, “oh my gawd I am not making any progress on this at all. It will never be done in time to ship it”.
Swift action was called for here so I decided to move the distractions out of the picture. I switched from watching Will and Grace with my girls and moved to another room and put on some holiday type music. I love Will and Grace and when they aren’t bickering or torturing each other, my girls are hysterical and very distracting.
I also vowed to just knit (while humming along to the carols of course) and not stop so often (every 3 minutes or so) to love on what I was knitting. No admiring how the colours were playing so nicely with each other and no petting or stroking the lovely soft fibers, which honestly takes a bit of the fun out of it for me. Hey, I was on a mission with a deadline and well, I am pretty serious about my deadlines. Ok, stop laughing.
I moved myself, got all cozy settled in for a long winters knit and “got down” to it. Some serious knitting time ensued and you know it did go a wee bit faster. Heavy emphasis on the wee.
All of this knit time obsessing I was doing (I am sure we all see the procrastinating fact, that all of that moving and changing are valuable knit minutes) got me thinking and… .
At some point the acronym RPM popped into my head. Rows per Minute. Rpms get it? Ha ha… this tickled my funny bone pretty hard. My daughter Rabia says that these moments are only funny to me. Probably true but I don’t let that kind of deatail stop me.
I had this whole knit-time measuring system going in seconds right? When it hit me rows per minute? Are you flippin’ insane? The row you are on has 160 stitches in it. Seriously how do think this is working out for you?
I was a little (a lot) disappointed. So much so, that I even for a brief moment I entertained the possibility of starting a another very small project. A scarf for the dog maybe? Mittens… or hey socks even.
I did not, and I get credit for this, instead I kept eating away my stitches on my big project and as every stitch slipped by it said, “stitch per minute dumb ass?! Seriously what were you thinking? It’s stitches (steeeches) not rows you start with in this unit of time-knit-measuring madness thing you’ve got going. How can you start with rows when it is us you need to make those rows? We are the building blocks and frankly we are little insulted We expected more from you.” I will spare you the gory details of the rest of this tirade from the stitches or the tone they took with me. Just know they sounded suspiciously like my mother. Needless to say I had made a grand error and they were pissed.
Your knitting talks to you right?
In order to appease the stitch I decided that STPM stitch per minute was, of course, the only way to begin this system. I then timed myself and came up with something like 41 stitches per minute on garter using size 5.00mm needles with my BFL sport weight.
I assumed that was slow. I have been under the impression that I am a slow knitter. I have been told this by many and I do hang with some pretty fast knitters. So… stands to reason right? My hands are sore from dyeing and do not move as quickly as they used to and I am easily distracted. I know.. duh.
I then decided to work towards a personal best on this project and see if I could get to 60 STPM by the time I was done with it and believe you me I have ample opportunity to reach this goal.
As of this morning I am up to 49.5. It does vary depending on what is going on around me.
So my question to you is this: Is that fast or slow?
I really need to know because I am putting names to the speeds. I was going to be Slo-mo Newton but that won’t work if I am not in fact slow.
So what is your STPM?
Sounds like a really bad pick up line doesn’t it?
Also all of you speedy knitting friends of mine, and you know who you are… don’t make me send these st(b)itches after you.
I know time management. Whatever.
