THE gentle art of knitting may be the last pastime to feature as an Olympic sport. But a Shetland woman is heading home to the Northern Isles after retaining her title as the world's fastest knitter after a needle match in United States.
Hazel Tindall, a 55-year-old school administrator from Aith, has been knitting since the tender age of four. She explained that she had grown up in a family where women needed to knit "to clothe the children and put food on the table".
And all tho
se years of practice left fellow contenders trailing in her wake at the weekend when Mrs Tindall and her flying fingers completed an astonishing 262 stitches in three minutes at the world knitting championships in Minneapolis. Her nearest rival could only manage 243 stitches in the same time.
Mrs Tindall first won the title in 2004 at the Knitting and Stitching Show at the Alexandra Palace in London when she knitted 255 stitches in three minutes to take the crown.
At the weekend the top knitters from Europe, the US and Canada gathered in a huge shopping mall in Minneapolis to compete for the title of fastest knitter for the first time since the London contest in 2004.
Mrs Tindall, armed with a pair of custom-built steel knitting needles made for her by a blacksmith in North Carolina, emerged triumphant.
And yesterday, shortly before she and her husband Trevor caught a plane back to Britain, she revealed the secret of her success.
She explained: "I think you need to have good technique and move your hands as little as possible."
Mrs Tindall, a member of the Shetland Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers, stressed there were other knitters back home on Shetland who could give her run for her money.
"There's plenty of Shetlanders that can knit fast," she said. "I'm sure that I could be challenged, but sadly probably not by anyone under 50 because hand knitting is a skill which is rapidly vanishing.
"The future doesn't bode well for hand-knitting. There are some still doing it, but I think the average age is about 70. Anyone under 50 hasn't grown up with the ethos that you shouldn't sit hand-idle."
Mrs Tindall also revealed that while her fellow competitors were practising furiously to limber up for the challenge, she and her husband had decided to go on a four-hour sightseeing trip.
She said: "Most of the others were knitting like fury in the morning, but I thought it was a shame to come here and do nothing and see nothing except the inside of a wonderful mall."
Her nearest rival at the contest was Mirian Tegels, from the Netherlands, who is listed in a Guinness Book of Records entry as the world's fastest knitter.
When Mrs Tindall first won the world title four years ago, she managed 255 loops in an alternate knit-then-purl-style using 4mm needles. Saturday's was a straight knit with no purl loops.
Mrs Tindall's first world title in 2004 was hailed by a report in the Wall Street Journal which described the Shetland Islands as "a remote part of Scotland that produces power-knitters the way Texas produces high-school football players".
RECORD-SETTING YARNSMIRIAM Tegels, from the Netherlands, set the world record as the fastest knitter in December 2006, when she achieved 118 stitches in one minute.
The world record for the fastest crocheting was set in June 2005 by Lisa Gentry, from Chatham in Louisiana. She smashed the existing record by crocheting 170 stitches in one minute.
The previous record of 147 crocheted stitches per minute had been held by Barbara Jean Sonntag of Craig, Colombia, since 1981.
And in October 2006, Julia Hopson, from Penzance in Cornwall, set a world record for knitting with the largest pair of knitting needles, when she completed a square of ten stitches and ten rows in stocking stitch using knitting needles that were 6.5 centimetres in diameter and 3.5 metres long.
The competitors taking part in the contest in Minneapolis at the weekend each took part in three three-minute trials, selecting their best score from their three trials.
All the competitors used the same type of 100 per cent merino wool yarn and had to use the equivalent of size eight needles.
The world finals – Knit Our 2008 – were hosted by the Craft Yarn Council of America.
The full article contains 753 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
