Posture while knitting - Or a Perch for knitting.

Over the years, I have used several favorite knitting chairs. Each seemed to work best with a particular kind of knitting sheath. (Airline seats like leather knitting pouches!)

A review of old depictions of knitters suggested that while Victorian and modern knitters were often depicted in various armchairs (often padded or stuffed) older depictions tended to put the knitters on low benches or stools.

After some trials, I have settled on a little Ottoman stool as my new favorite knitting “chair”.   It is low enough that I can easily reach down and touch the floor, and this is my first knitting chair where the top of my thighs are approximately level, and I can set my feet flat on the floor.   It is not a place to lounge at one’s leisure. However, I am not perched there to lounge at my leisure – I set there to knit.

The first thing that I notice is that most of my various styles of knitting sheaths work very well; and all allow very fast knitting. The perch involves a bit of athleticism that encourages fast knitting.

All of a sudden, a small goose-wing I made 10-years ago with needle hole lined with brass and epoxy is a favored knitting sheath for use with 18” long gansey needles. I never knew it could work so well with long needles. It can be tucked over my right hip and used with short needles for knitting socks, or with curved needles to allow swaving fine gloves or hose; or, tucked into my belt over my right gluteus to firmly anchor long needles for fast knitting of ganseys.

While I love sitting in the benches along the San Francisco waterfront and knitting, I expect that the low stone benches along the quays in the UK, provided seating more conducive to fast knitting than the more comfortable park benches along the SF water front. In a bench with a back that slants back, I knit much slower.