Years ago, I made the switch from English-style knitting to Continental. I had been watching other knitters fly through their rows, yarn tensioned in the left hand, picking instead of throwing, and I wanted that speed. I practiced until it felt natural, and eventually it did. My gauge evened out, my hands found a rhythm, and I was noticeably faster. Knitting projects that used to take weeks started finishing sooner. I felt efficient. Productive. Like I had unlocked something.
And for a long time, I thought that was the whole point.
But somewhere along the way, I started to wonder whether knitting faster had actually made my experience of knitting better. The projects were finishing, yes. But was I enjoying the process of making them the way I used to? Was I present for it? Or had I turned something that was supposed to be restful into another thing I was trying to optimize?
The Speed Trap: Knitting Faster Or Slower
There is nothing wrong with Continental knitting. I still use it. It is a beautiful, efficient technique, and for many knitters it is genuinely more comfortable. But I think the reason I switched was telling. I did not switch because my hands were hurting or because English style was not working for me. I switched because I wanted to knit faster. And once speed became the goal, it quietly started shaping how I related to every project I picked up.
I started measuring my knitting progress in inches per evening. I would sit down to knit after the kids were in bed and feel a low hum of pressure to get through a certain number of rows before I was too tired to continue. The knitting itself became a means to an end, the end being a finished object. And while finished knitted objects are wonderful, they are also just things. The hours I spent making them were hours of my life, and I was rushing through them.
I do not think I am the only knitter who has felt this. There is a quiet culture of productivity in the crafting world. We celebrate fast finishes, yarn chicken victories, how many projects we can cast on in a season. None of that is harmful on its own, but it can start to crowd out the thing that drew most of us to knitting in the first place, which was the simple, calming act of making something with our hands.
What Happened When I Slowed Down Knitting
I did not make a dramatic decision to slow down. It happened gradually. I noticed one evening that my shoulders were tight, my jaw was clenched, and I was knitting like I was trying to finish a race. I set the needles down and thought, this is supposed to be the relaxing part of my day.
So I tried something. I picked the knitting needles back up and deliberately slowed my pace. Not painfully slow, just noticeably slower than my usual speed. I paid attention to the yarn moving through my fingers. I watched each stitch form on the needle. I let the rhythm settle into something steady and unhurried.
The difference was immediate. My shoulders dropped. My breathing slowed. The knitting stopped feeling like a task and started feeling like rest. I was not producing fewer stitches per hour because I was distracted or tired. I was producing fewer stitches per hour because I was choosing to, and that choice changed everything about the experience.
Knitting as Moving Meditation
I have a regular daily meditation practice I’ve been doing consistently for many years, and I decided that maybe I could also begin incorporating knitting as a sort of ‘moving meditation’ experience in those daily moments when I can knit too.
In most meditation practices, the anchor is the breath. You focus on the inhale and exhale, and when your mind wanders, you gently return your attention to the breath. It is simple in concept but can be surprisingly difficult in practice if you’re new to it.
With knitting, the anchor is the stitch. Not the breath, not a mantra, but the physical, tangible act of pulling one loop of yarn through another. I find it works best with something repetitive and rhythmic, like stockinette. Insert the needle, wrap the yarn, pull through, slide off. Each stitch is its own small moment of focus. When my mind drifts, I notice it the same way I would in traditional meditation, without judgment, and I bring my attention back to the next stitch.
It is a moving meditation, and for me, I use it throughout my day (in between my moments of actual seated meditation). My hands are occupied, which quiets the restless part of my brain that wants to fidget. The repetition creates a rhythm that my nervous system can settle into. And because I am slowing down on purpose, I am not generating the kind of physical tension that fast knitting can build up in the hands, wrists, shoulders, and neck.
The Stitch as the Anchor: Knitting As Meditation
I want to be specific about this because it has genuinely changed my relationship with knitting. When I say I use the stitch as an anchor, I mean it in the same way a meditation teacher would talk about using the breath. The stitch is not the goal. The stitch is the place I return to when I notice my mind has wandered.
I am knitting stockinette in the round. My hands are moving slowly, deliberately. I feel the yarn slide between my fingers. I watch the needle tip enter the stitch. I notice the slight tension as the new loop pulls through. And then the next one. And the next. My thoughts will wander. They always do. I will start thinking about what I need to do tomorrow, or something one of the kids said, or a pattern I want to design. And at some point, I notice that I have drifted, and I come back. Back to the yarn. Back to the stitch. Back to the quiet rhythm of making. I’ve found that knitting with 100% wool yarn helps even more because I also can ground myself in the scent of the wool (which is one of my favorite smells!!)
This only works when I am knitting slowly. When I knit fast, I am on autopilot. The stitches blur together, my hands are moving from muscle memory, and my mind is somewhere else entirely. That is fine for getting through a project, but it is not meditation. Meditation requires enough deliberate attention that you can notice when you have lost it. Slow knitting gives me that threshold.
What My Body Told Me: Slow Knitting
One of the things I did not expect was how much my body responded to slowing down while knitting. When I knit quickly, especially in Continental where the movements are small and efficient, I hold tension in my shoulders without realizing it. My upper back tightens. My breathing becomes shallow. I am physically bracing for speed.
When I slow down my knitting, all of that releases. My shoulders soften. I can actually feel them drop, sometimes by an inch or more. My hands relax around the knitting needles instead of gripping them. My breathing deepens without me having to think about it. The knitting becomes something my body does gently, rather than something my body pushes through.
I think a lot of knitters carry tension they are not aware of. It accumulates quietly over a long project and shows up as sore wrists, stiff shoulders, or that general feeling of being drained after an evening of crafting. Slowing down knitting has not eliminated all of that for me, but it has dramatically reduced it. I end a knitting session feeling rested now, which is how it should have felt all along.
Speed Is Not the Measure: Knitting For Relaxation
I want to be clear that this is not a criticism of fast knitting or Continental style or anyone who finds joy in watching their projects grow quickly. There is real satisfaction in that, and I still feel it sometimes. Some knit projects call for momentum, and that is perfectly fine.
But I think it is worth questioning the assumption that knitting faster is always better. In knitting, as in a lot of things, speed can become a default without us ever choosing it consciously. We optimize because the culture around us rewards optimization. We measure progress in output. And in doing that, we can lose sight of the fact that the process itself has value, maybe more value than the finished object.
A sweater knit slowly over three months is not less valuable than a sweater knit quickly over three weeks. The stitches are the same. The yarn is the same. The only difference is what you experienced while making it. And if those three months were filled with quiet evenings, deep breathing, and a genuine sense of calm, then I would argue that sweater gave you more than the faster version ever could.
An Invitation, Not a Rule – Knit Slower & With More Intention
I am not suggesting that every knitter should slow down, or that fast knitting is somehow wrong. I am sharing what happened when I gave myself permission to stop treating my craft like a race. The knitting needles did not change. The yarn did not change. But the experience of sitting down to knit in the evening became something I genuinely looked forward to again, not because I was excited to finish the knit project, but because the act of knitting itself had become restful.
If you have been feeling like your knitting has become another item on the to-do list, or if you notice tension building in your body while you work, it might be worth trying what I tried. Pick up something simple. Stockinette in the round is perfect. Slow your hands down. Watch each stitch form. Let the rhythm of the needles become the only thing you are paying attention to. And when your mind wanders, because it will, come back to the stitch.
That is all it takes. Not a meditation app, not a special technique, not a new skill to learn. Just the knitting you are already doing, done a little more slowly, a little more intentionally.
It has been one of the best things I have done for myself in a long time.
If this post resonated with you, I would love to hear about your experience with slow knitting or knitting as meditation. Tag @darlingjadore on Instagram or leave a comment below. x, S
