Recently, I fired off a quick Instagram post with some things that I wished non-knitters understood about knitting. That post got a surprising amount of traction, but as with social media in general, there wasn’t much room to really expand on my thoughts. I thought I’d bring the conversation over here to my blog, where I have a little more room to go in depth on each of those points.
This is by no means an exhaustive list! But after almost two decades of knitting, these are things that tend to crop up with regularity. If you have more things, please feel free to add them in the comments below.
Good yarn is often expensive
I often hear people talking about how they wish they could knit because clothes in the store are so expensive nowadays. Unfortunately, so is nice yarn. It is rarely cheaper to knit something rather than buy it, and it’s almost never cheaper to do so once you factor in the cost of your time knitting the item.
For example, here is a nice, cable knit sweater from L.L. Bean. It’s 100% cotton, and it costs $120 USD ($100 on sale). It’s hard to tell based on a photo how thick the yarn is, but let’s assume for purposes of this example that it’s a DK-weight cotton yarn.
Now, yarn ranges in price, depending on where you buy it and who has manufactured it, so let’s look at a range of yarn. A quick bit of Googling tells me that Lion Brand 24/7 Cotton DK is about $8.50 USD and 273 yards per skein. Premier Yarns Cotton Sprout DK is about $5.50 USD and 230 yards per ball. Wool and the Gang Shiny Happy Cotton comes in at a pricier $14.50 USD and 155 yards per ball.
I dug up a similar pattern on Ravelry, and depending on the yarn I chose, the yarn alone for that sweater would run $67.25, $51.65, or $202. If you need to buy needles for the sleeves, the body, and/or the collar, that could easily run you another $30-$60, depending on the needles you chose and how many you’d need. None of these numbers takes into account the dozens of hours that it would take to knit such a complex garment by hand.
Now, you’ll notice I’m not saying here that it isn’t worth it to knit sweaters by hand! I absolutely think it’s worth it. I do think, though, that if your goal is to have a nice wardrobe for less money, it may be harder to do with hand knitting than you might have anticipated.
We can knit and listen at the same time
When I started knitting, it took most of my concentration to just pay attention to wrapping the yarn in the right way and pulling the stitches through without dropping anything. Pretty quickly, though, I discovered that I could watch TV on my laptop while knitting, and my world was forever changed. I even knit while watching my study videos for the California bar exam (and yes, I did pass on the first try).
For some reason, though, people think that knitters can’t listen and knit at the same time. In fact, for many of us, the opposite is true. I listen better when my hands are busy. If you really want me to pay attention to what’s going on, put some yarn in my hands.
The one exception to this is if I am at a point in the project where I have to count stitches. In that case, do not expect me to listen or have any idea what’s going on around me. Give me a few minutes to get past the counting, and then my attention will be all yours again.
Here’s a fun corollary: we can talk while knitting, too. In fact, I am working on a project while I dictate the first draft of this blog post. If you also struggle with writer’s block, sometimes, this can be a great way to navigate around it.
Patience isn’t necessary
Over the years, quite a few people have seen me stitching away and have said some version of how they wished they had the patience to knit, too. Every time, I cheerfully inform them that I have exactly zero patience.
In reality, all I am is obstinate and a little bit obsessive. That’s enough to get me to the end of even the most complex knitting project. You don’t actually need patience if you just have a hefty dose of stick-to-it-iveness.
Interestingly, though, in situations where I do need to have a little bit of patience, knitting actually helps with that. If I have to wait for a doctor’s appointment or stand in line somewhere, I can get pretty antsy. Knitting helps me channel that energy into something more productive than doom scrolling on my phone or destroying my cuticles.
Handknit socks aren’t quick or easy
Somehow, somewhere along the way, hand knit socks became the go-to thing that people casually envision when they think of a knit gift. There’s just one problem.
Knit socks take quite a long time.
At this point in my knitting career, I have knit more pairs of socks then I have been able to keep track of. I’m a pretty fast knitter. Even still, a pair of stockinette socks for my US 8 ½ feet takes about 12 to 14 hours.
I’ve had small businesses reach out and ask what it would cost to get a few hundred pairs of hand knit socks for projects they are working on. The calculations were astronomical. I don’t think people have any ill intent with these questions. I think they just have no idea how long it actually takes.
The basics are easy. The rest takes a lifetime.
Learning to knit can go really quickly at first. That’s one of the things I love about it. I can get most adults up and running with their first knitting project within an hour or two.
That’s because the basics are pretty straightforward and fairly easy to grasp. I love that, because it makes knitting accessible and fun to new stitchers. The thing is, the basics are really just the beginning.
Even after 20 years of fairly focused and intentional exploration, there are still so many techniques I have come nowhere close to trying. The basics are quick and easy to grasp, but the fine details remain the work of a lifetime. There is always something new to learn.
Knitters aren’t a monolith
I’ve mentioned this elsewhere on the blog, but it really does bear repeating. Knitters come in all ages, shapes, sizes, races, genders, religious backgrounds, personality types, and more. There are millions and millions of us in the world. That’s why, whatever stereotype people have in their heads of what a knitter looks like, they are probably getting only one small piece of the picture.
That’s also why I always chuckle when people are surprised by the latest dust-up in the knitting world. Yes, we have conflict within our community, too! Any group of people this large and this diverse is bound to have disagreements.
It’s never too late to get started
While it’s true that many knitters learned as children from family members, it’s certainly not true that all knitters learned as children. In fact, I didn’t grow up around any knitters at all. My familiarity with knitting only went so far as whatever little bit I read in books as a kid. I didn’t learn to knit until I was a young adult and needed a good outlet for school-related stress.
The truth is that it’s never too late to learn how to knit. I’ve met knitters who learned once they had children of their own and knitters who finally felt like they had the time to learn once they retired.
Different fibers behave differently
I knew a little bit about different fibers in fabric based on learning to do my own laundry, but I didn’t really start to understand the differences between wool, linen, silk, cotton, and nylon until I started knitting.
It turns out each of those fibers can behave very differently, so they may require specialized washing and storage. If somebody gives you a handknit gift and doesn’t include specific instructions for cleaning and storing that handknit item, ask them about it. It’s easy to forget that not everybody is as deep in the fiber arts weeds as we are.
Knitting sometimes gives you superpowers
After all this time with yarn running through my hands, I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying the feel of a nice yarn.
This means that nowadays, I can go to the thrift store, run my hands along a rack of sweaters, and more or less instantly find the cashmere and wool items. While this doesn’t guarantee that the item I find will be in my size or preferred color palette, I love being able to share the wealth by handing the sweater to someone nearby that it might fit and who might like it.
Knitting isn’t just for winter items
Finally, TV shows like to depict knitting as a cozy wintertime activity when you are snuggled up at home. While it is definitely that, that’s not the only time of year I like to knit. In fact, I knit all year round.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m knitting the same stuff all year round. In the warmer months, I like to knit lightweight T-shirts for myself using silk and linen yarns. I also enjoy making bags, cushion covers, tea cozies, lace trim, and so much more.
You can knit whenever you want, so long as you’ve made some minor adjustments for the season.
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