Three Minute Socks – The Beginning

This is what happens when I can’t get to sleep.

Last Tuesday night I was up later than usual, cozied up in bed reading Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much. This is one of my go-to books when I can’t sleep. I’ve read it before, so re-reading it is a comfort and usually helps me wind down and relax.

My brain was working overtime, though. Which means when I read the essay on page 224, the line (I’ll paraphrase) “If you only knit for three minutes each day, it would take about a year to knit a sock,” stuck with me. Would it really take a about year? Or more? How fast do I knit? How many rows could I get done in a day?

My brain kept buzzing. What if I tried this? What yarn would I use? It would have to be some sort of self-striping yarn so I wouldn’t get bored. DPNs or Magic Loop? Could you even see the progress from day to day? I’d love to document it. I could photograph the progress each day. It would be a cool photography project as well.

I finally dozed off about an hour and a half later, after working through most of the details. And lo, this project was born. I’m calling it “Three Minute Socks,” which I will update every Thursday on Three Minute Thursday. (I like alliteration.)

Last Wednesday, I cast on for a toe-up sock using Judy’s Magic Cast-On. I allowed myself the cast-on and the first round of stitches outside of the 3-minute timer, knowing that if I had to stop in the middle of the cast on, it might take me a week just to get all of the stitches on the needles.

From there, I took the starting photograph. Then I set the timer on my iPod Touch, and knit for three minutes. And took another photograph. Each day between last Wednesday and last night, I knit for 3 minutes, and photographed the progress. Here’s where we are:

Top Row: Cast On, Wednesday 2/16, Thursday 2/17

Middle Row: Friday 2/18, Saturday 2/19, Sunday 2/20

Bottom Row: Monday 2/21, Tuesday 2/22 (new color!), Wednesday 2/23

It’s growing!

Here are the project details:

Pattern: Basic Toe-up Socks – I’ll be making these for my US size 9.5 feet.

Yarn: Knitpicks Felici in the Time Traveller colorway (the fact that I had a self-striping yarn in my stash with the name “Time Traveller” seemed too perfect to pass up)

Needles: As you can see, I switched from DPNs to Magic Loop. These are US size #1.

I’m also keeping track of how many stitches I knit in each daily session. My stitches-per-minute rates is increasing, but I’ll talk more about that next week.

What do you think? Am I crazy? Has anyone out there tried an experiment like this before? Any guesses on how long you think it will take me? I’m not even sure myself, so I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Filed in: Knitting • Three Minute Socks