North America's fastest knitter takes "The Challenge"

by Wannietta Prescod (from July 2006)

My name is Wannietta and I am a knitter. I do not spin. I am hard-core and passionate about my knitting. I knit professionally and competitively. I get the magazines. I'm on the lists and in the blogs. I am a knitter.

Well, to be honest, there was a small dalliance with a fleece. Unfortunately, mistakes were made, we both said things that we didn't mean and an innocent spindle was caught in the middle... Since then it's been just the knitting, and I thought that I knew pretty much what was going on in the World of Knitting.

That is until I attended this year' Knitter's Frolic where someone "casually" mentioned the International Back to Back Wool Challenge, and told me the Toronto Spiders team was looking for a fast knitter. "Wool." "Challenge." My interest was piqued and, for future reference, there is no such thing as "casual" between me and knitting. As soon as I got home, I shot off an email to Lorraine Smith, a member of the Spiders whose name I had picked up at the Frolic, begging asking nicely to be on the team. Coincidentally, her message inviting me to join the Toronto Spiders arrived in my in-box just after my message went out. I think she was just as excited (it's hard to tell, there not being an actual excitement-metre).

Thus the World of Spinning collided with and expanded the horizon of my World of Knitting.

I met most of the Toronto Spiders team at a strategy meeting—I know, a strategy meeting!—a few weeks before our competition date. Being the rookie and with absolutely no insights on spinning, let alone spinning strategies, I dazzled them with a cleverly decorated cake of my own design, featuring a spider, a spinning wheel, and a sweater on knitting needles. They ate the cake, and talked around me; I nodded and gave the illusion of intelligent comprehension.

The spinners practiced spinning and the knitters practiced knitting "fleece in the grease." I wondered, is that normal? It took some getting used to, but I've knit with jute & artificial sinew and this was nice in comparison.

It became very clear (and when I say "very clear" I mean a lot of other things were said that just went over my head and this was what was left in my brain's sifting pan) that there is a need for fast spinning and plying, fast knitting and a delicate balance between the two. Communication between the knitters and the spinners/pliers is crucial.

The team came up with the idea of finding out who among the knitters could cast on and knit the first couple of rows the fastest and how long it took. Alright, this is what I came for: speed knitting! It turns out I was the quickest, so I was designated "caster-on" of the front, to be handed to Lorraine, the second fastest on the team, and then I would cast on the back. Discussions ensued about different cast on methods, their relative speeds and how easily the first row would be to knit over different cast-ons. The long-tail cast on turned out to be the fastest, and it was determined that I would start the first body piece as soon as we had enough yarn.

But how much yarn is enough? Oh darn, more knitting trials to test that out.

After the strategy session, we had to go our separate ways, step-by-step plans in our hands until competition day. I felt like a kid at Christmas. "Is it June 3rd yet? Huh, is it?" Fortunately my husband and children think that this is endearing and didn't send me into a yarnless exile.

At 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 3, we arrived at Riverdale Farm and started setting up wheels, snacks, fleece, and needles. I had my MP3 player set to go with energy pumping beats. It was turned down low enough that I could hear our conversations but loud enough to drown out the crowd noise and keep my fingers flying. (Next year I will have a CD burned so that everyone can get in the groove. "You Spin me Right 'Round" by Dead or Alive and "Let's Get it Started" by the Black Eyed Peas are at the top of the play-list.)

Adrenaline made the first few hours slip by almost without notice. After the first half hour, with the front and back well underway, we all slipped into a fast yet comfortable groove. Denise Powell and Judy Pergau-Comfort chatted like it was a guild meeting; Judy made us all laugh when she drank her coffee with one hand and kept right on spinning with the other. Lorraine and I took a couple of quick breaks with Denise and Julia Lee taking over our knitting. Karen Richens and Barb Aikman just kept on spinning and plying. Bob Comfort, the shearer, got to relax and enjoy the show, having done the shearing off-site prior to the event due to the logistical hurdles of bringing a sheep onto the farm (and our team was assessed a three-minute penalty for this.)

At about the four hour mark I started feeling tired. Not sleepy, just crashing down from the early morning coffee buzz and running low on adrenaline. Time to start digging deep: re-hydrate, eat chocolate and pineapple for quick energy and remember why I was here. I turned up the music a little and re-focused. Meanwhile the sleeve-knitters had stopped spinning to cast on their sleeves, and were well into the process of counting their increases. The body and sleeve knitters joked about racing each other to the finish.

The last hour was tough. I could hardly feel my wrists; the left one from holding most of the weight of the knitting and the right one from rapid, repetitive throwing. I turned the music up so that I couldn't hear anything else. It was just me in my little bubble of knitting. I didn't dare stop because I wouldn't get started again. Finally the front, back and one sleeve were done, but the last sleeve needed to play catch up, and as the quickest knitter on the team, I had the honour. There were only two rows left. "I can do two of anything," I said to myself, and then, "Just one and one more, that's all."

The rest of the team had been assembling the completed pieces of the sweater while I finished off the second sleeve. Denise started sewing the sleeve seam as I was casting it off. Can you believe that the last stitch didn't want to finish off? There was a nanosecond of panic when I thought that it was going to snap when I tried to pull the thread through the last cast off stitch.

We finished in a Canadian record time of 6:51:15 which was good enough for the world bronze medal. Well, there really aren't medals, but there should be. Volunteers anyone? Exhausted but exhilarated, we went out for a team dinner and ideas were already being bounced around for next year. The possibility of a second team caused some ripples of excitement, so if this sounds like your kind of a good time, get in touch with the Wool Challenge organizers in Australia.

A lot of teams competing for the first or second time don't post a finished time. Hey, I'd call it a day after 12-14 hours, too. I really would like to encourage teams to stick it out and keep working on strategies and looking for the right combination of people and team coordination. I am very honoured to have been able to hit the ground running and compete with an experienced team. I'm all for winning (why else keep score?) and the Toronto Spiders are a tour de force who don't sacrifice fun for reaching the ultimate goal. I can't wait till next year to see where we go!

Wannietta Prescod lives and knits (the same thing really) in Angus, Ontario. You can get a glimpse of this knitting life at www.whatswanniettaknittingtoday.blogspot.com; stop by and see what she's up to today. (She also happens to be North America's fastest knitter, according to the latest timed competition at the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival.)