British knitting speedster stitches up world record

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041009/323/f49ap.html

LONDON (AFP) - A 52-year-old mother from Scotland's remote Shetland Islands knitted her way to international fame, in a flurry of needlework that outstitched the competition at the World Speed Knitting Championships.

Hazel Tindall set a new world record with her title-winning 255 stitches in three minutes -- far ahead of runner-up Olga Pobedeskaya, of London, who managed 214 stitches in the same time.

Defending champion and former world-record holder Wendy Moorby, from West Yorkshire, completed the all-British top three with 207 stitches at the London event.

Tindall, a school administrator, said she first took up the family tradition of knitting when only four.

"Winning the competition feels a bit unreal. The opposition was very stiff," she said.

A spokesman for the competition said about 100 people participated in the knitting race at a Knitting and Stitching Show in the British capital.

On Thursday, American author and designer Lily Chin defended her speed crochet title, setting a new world record with 86 triple crochets in three minutes.

Tindall said she planned to defend her title next year -- as long as the school holiday schedule permitted.