Suiting Up - The Supplies You Need For Knitting

One of the reasons knitting has again become so popular is because it can be one of the cheapest hobbies to adopt. If you exclude high-quality yarns like angora and mohair, you can easily work up a gorgeous knit piece for less than $10 (and that includes the price of your knitting needles!). That same popularity, however, can increase the cost of your hobby through sheer volume. Walk into the craft department at your nearest Super Wal-Mart and you’ll understand immediately – the popularity of both knitting and crocheting has encouraged manufacturers to come up with thousands of new textures, colors, and types of yarn that have never before been available to the general public. Now, if the relatively small crafts department at a superstore has such a wide selection, imagine the vast array at a craft or, heaven forbid, yarn store!

The choices can be daunting and confusing for even the experienced knitter. If you’ve been knitting for longer than a month, chances are that your closet/dresser/any open storage area is crammed with scraps, leftovers, and even unopened packages of yarn for the hundreds of projects you planned and never had a chance to finish. Ever consider the cost of all of those pieces? Doesn’t sound like such a cheap hobby anymore, huh?

For beginning knitters, yarn displays can be an even bigger pit of quicksand. You may not know exactly what you can make, but you know which yarns feel nice against your skin and which ones have the prettiest colors. Just look at all of them! Surely there has to be something on your skill level that can be made with such fun fabrics! Wait a second, wait a second, put down the chenille. No, really, put it down. Do we need to call security? Before you max out your Visa card just because something feels soft and smooth, there are a few basic facts you should know about yarn. I'll write more about that in my next blog post.