Pam Moore wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 10:39:38 +0100, Alan R Williams
wrote:


I think knitting can be. My mother used to knit very complicated
patterns extremely fast. She could do an Arran (sp?) jersey in
less than a day,


Are you sure? I cannot believe that's possible, and I have knitted
many an Arran sweater in my days of better sight.

Well it certainly seemed that quickly. One evening the patterns would
be out and the end of the next day she'd be stitching it together.
Perhaps she had a secret production line of them hidden away :-) They
were like this one - http://tinyurl.com/baf8o I've no idea how she did
it, or why for that matter as I don't think anyone in the family likes
them :-) I think what sped her up was that she would somehow read the
pattern many lines at a time rather than a few stiches at a time. I
think she probably wasn't concious of what she was doing as she'd be
watching TV and/or talking at the same time. Of course when she misread
the pattern it led to many lines of unravelling and cursing :-)

The best thing she ever made was my sister-in-law's wedding dress. It
was crocheted/knitted and looked amazing, sort of 1920s style. I didn't
realise my mother had made it and was wondering when they'd had time to
shop for it as my sister-in-law hadn't been in the UK long. Turned out
it had been done by measurements over the phone. I've no idea how much
something like that would have cost.

Pam in Bristol

Alan