Even on something relatively simple, I’m finding that when I do something multiple times, I eventually get closer and closer to the most efficient way of doing it.

Small Changes – Big Gains

The current production knitting project I’m working on (coffee cup cozies) is a relatively simple knitting project.

It’s basically a gradually increasing diameter tube in reverse stockinette with four rows of garter stitch at the top and bottom.

Not a huge challenge for most knitters…cast on 44 stitches, join in the round, alternate Purl/Knit rows for four rounds, purl next 28 rounds while gradually increasing stitches to 52 stitches, alternate Knit/Purl rows for last four rounds and bind off.

Just a couple of minor tweaks and I was able to get quite a bit faster at making this project:

1. Start at the top and knit down…it’s easier to join in-the-round with more stitches so I start with 52 and decrease to 44
2. Knit the first four rows flat and join on the fourth row – having four rows makes it a lot harder to twist the work when joining in-the-round
3. Knit the tube inside-out so I can knit instead of purl to get reverse stockinette stitch

I’ve also considered knitting a few rounds of waste yarn at the end of a cozy and increasing to 52 stitches with the waste yarn  so I don’t have to cast on, but I’m not sure that would save any time for me given that I’d have to pick up those stitches and bind them off eventually.

Current Knitting

Despite my 3 tricks for simplifying and speeding up the knitting of coffee cup cozies, I’ve only completed two more since Monday.

But I have also been working on my latest scarf.

Simple 1×1 rib in color blocks, I got obsessed with the simple rhythm of this project and ended up completing it in record time.  It’s all fibonacci numbers as well (13 color blocks of 34 rows in each).  My guess is that this scarf will sell pretty quickly at the craft shows.