5 top tips for travel knitting

The dedicated knitter will invariably want to maximise their knitting time by knitting 'on the go'. Whether you have a 10 hr flight or a 10 min doctors wait - it pays to be prepared.

1. Always take a photo or a screenshot of your pattern. Just in case you lose your paper copy or you don't have wifi to access your digital one.

2. Don't risk scissors getting lost, confiscated or damaging your bag. Use tiny Hiya Hiya snips or - my favourite - the cutter on a little pack of dental floss.

3. Always have a small notebook and pen/pencil in case of ad hoc pattern adjustments. Relying on memory alone is a bold move.

4. Keep a small notions case/tin in your handbag or project bag. You never know when you'll need an emergency stitch marker - a bulb pin can catch a dropped stitch until you can rectify it later.

5. Finally - consider stowing an emergency ball (ready wound) of sock yarn and DPNs in your car's glove compartment. I do this ever since I was stuck sans-knitting on the M11 for 5 hours.

Any top travel tips? Do let me know in the comments.

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Top tips for faster knitting

I originally wrote about this in 2017, but I thought it was time to revisit the topic of faster knitting. A lot of people comment that I must knit very quickly in order to be able to churn out the projects that I do. Having seen other, very accomplished knitters in action I have to say that I’m pretty slow in comparison.

What I do however, is short bursts of very focused knitting where I can power through quite a lot in a short space of time. The other thing that I do is to take my knitting everywhere - and I mean everywhere - so that if I find myself with an unexpected wait somewhere I can whip the needles out and get a few rounds in. It’s amazing how much those little moments accumulate throughout the day.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do love a good meditative knit sometimes and not every project knits to be rushed off the needles. But as deadlines loom or a loved ones birthday approaches there are always those times where a bit of power knitting is called for. If you’ve ever wondered how to knit faster I hope that these few simple tips will help.

Top tips for faster knitting:

1. Use super slick and shiny needles: As slick as you can get away with without your stitches flying off the needles. I like Addi Turbos in particular for lots of stocking stitch. The points aren't the sharpest but they really are super speedy.

2. Front load your stitches: Scoot as many stitches as you can to the tip of your left hand needle. That way you don't have to pull the next stitch to the top of the needle - it will already be there.

3. Knit at the tips: Knit each stitch right at the tip of the left hand needle - but be sure to wrap the yarn fully around the wider part of the right hand needle as this is what determines the tightness of each stitch.

4. Set your timer for 10 minutes. Eyes down and why not see how much you can knit when you really put your mind to it.

How to keep track of repeats in your knitting using bulb pins

It’s no secret that I love these little bulb pins. They are endlessly useful - so much so that I wrote a blog post about them a while ago - read here.

But did you know that you can make use of them as a motivational aid?

Here's a quick tip for keeping track of pattern repeats.

1. Create a chain a bulb pins corresponding to the number of repeats

2. Every time you finish a repeat, remove a pin

3. For added bonus points, clip it to your knitting to mark the repeat

4. When you run out of pins, you've completed all the repeats

Simples! There’s something very satisfying about working your way through the little links - a kind of countdown marker to completion.

This also works for keeping track of increases/decreases or any time you want to make a note of how many times you do a particular thing. I sometimes use it if I need to do a lot of rows or rounds and I don't want to stop to keep counting. I just mark them off every 5 rounds - or whatever is easy to count at a glance.

If you have a favourite use for these little beauties please do let me know.

Oh - and as an aside. I found out today that an alternative name for them is Calabash pins - named after the distinctive gourd. Every day is a school day!