I will always love two things in my life: knitting and crocheting! Loving to knit and crochet leads to having a yarn addiction. My sister says I have a problem with how much yarn I have, but I have plan to use all my yarn, eventually. I’ve been knitting since elementary school, and I started teaching others how to knit by 5 th and 6 th grade. I learned how to crochet in high school. So, I’ve been knitting for about 15 years now and I’ve been crocheting for about 5.
On Christmas Eve my Aunt Jane taught me how to knit. This is one of the reasons as to why Christmas Eve is my favorite holiday. She got me these cute adorable needles, one red and the other was blue. To top that off, at the ends of the needles were smiley faces. I’ve knitted a lot over those 15 years and I can say I’m proud of the hats, scarves, and other products I’ve made. Knitting was my first love and I will always love it, but lately all my projects are crocheting because it’s quicker. Knitting gives a lacey delicate style, but crocheting is quicker and thicker. I also can build more of a 3D style to it. I’ve made sweaters, blankets, a huge teddy bear, two school busses, a bag, too many hats to count, and currently I’m working on a onesie! Now, just because I’ve made more with crocheting than I did with knitting doesn’t mean that I love one over the other because I could never choose. They both relax me and they both have a variety of pros and cons. However, I really don’t see a lot of con with either, so it’s more like they each have different strengths. For example, knitting I could do with my eyes closed, where as I am getting better at not looking at my crocheting, but most of the time I do have to look.
Learning either technique can be hard. I find that knitting is the easiest to learn. If you are teaching knitting, I wouldn’t teach how to cast on first (how to start). I would teach how to knit. I would cast on let them learner make a scarf, but you would just start it for them. I prefer to do the first three rows when teaching. I cast on and knit the first and second row and then teach on the third row. Anyone who is learning how to knit should understand that this scarf will look dreadful at first, but by the end, half of it should look great or at least better than the first half. I think knitting should be taught first and then crocheting, but I’m a little biased because that’s how I learned. Sometimes people just want to learn one technique and that is perfectly fine. I just like doing both. Sometimes my crocheting projects are too big to bring to class, so I like knitting because most of the time I’m not making anything too big that I can’t carry around.
Knitting and crocheting are also great to know how to do because they’re bot non-messy, portable crafts. For the most part, I can knit and crochet anywhere in the world and not be worried about a mess or being in anyone’s way. It’s great. I encourage anyone to learn, but I also understand if you’d rather just buy a product than make it. I’m told it takes a lot of patience to knit and crochet. I can see how that’s true, but for me, it calms me down. You don’t need to have patience to crochet or knit, but you’ll gain it from knitting and crocheting.