Yarn, Needles, Scissors & Other Knitting Tools

Video Transcript

"Hi, I’m Kelsey. I’ve been knitting for about 10 years, and am a member of several knitting organizations. I’m going to talk right now about tools that are useful in your knitting. Of course the most important tools when you are knitting are your yarn and your needles, and that’s all you do really need for a project. But, there are a lot of tools that are going to be really helpful in getting your project done. Some of the more basic ones are going to be a pair of really nice, sharp scissors, preferably ones that are devoted just to yarn. Scissors can get dull when you use them for fabric and other things. You have your scissors; because you always want to make sure you cut the yarn cleanly and try not to tear it especially, because that’s going to be a pain when you are weaving those ends back in. These are big scissors, a lot of times you can find really nice smaller pairs, even folding portable pairs at yarn stores, which is nice. Another really useful tool to have is a crochet hook for knitting, even though it is a crochet tool. This is especially important when you drop a stitch, you basically need a crochet hook to bring it back up, and so that’s real useful. Also, there are a lot of finishing techniques that use crochet so that’s a good thing to have. Another useful thing to have is a stitch marker. This is just one kind, they come in all different kinds. What a stitch marker does is a lot of times there will be a specific position in a pattern where you want to make a decrease or change color, so you want to mark that. If you’ve got your stitches on there you can snap this and slide it onto the needle, and then when you get to it, you’ll know that you need to decrease or change color. Another often used thing is a ruler. This is important when you are making anything that needs to fit properly. This is a specialized gauge, like a needle gauge. It is sort of two tools in one. You can use it to determine what size your needle is by taking your needle and figuring out which of these holes it fits in. This one looks like it would be a size 8, because it fits into the size 8 hole. You also can put this over your knitting and count how many stitches per inch you are getting, which is a really useful thing to do. It’s not completely necessary to have a specialized ruler like this. You can se a flat ruler to measure gauge, and then a tape measure to take body measurements. Another useful tool is a stitch holder. A lot of patterns call for you to hold a certain number of stitches, such as the thumb of a glove, the heel of a sock or the underarm of a sweater, and to hold them off on knitting until you come back to them and add a sleeve or do a finishing technique. A stitch holder allows you to do that without too much mess. They can be small like this, or they can be something like this where you slide them on and then close that shut. That’s really useful so you can get your stitches on there, close that and then use your needles for something else. There are also other specialized tools that are dependent on the particular project. If you are doing something that uses the technique of intarsia, which uses many different small ends of yarn that is into manageable balls, so you use bobbins like these which wind full of yarn and hang off the back of your knitting. If you’re doing cable knitting, you create cables by pulling a certain number of stitches off, holding them in front of or behind your work, and then putting them back on the needle. A specialized cable needle like this is really helpful for something like this. There are also a lot of finishing type things that you’re going to need. Often if you are sewing pieces together, you are going to want a tapestry needle, a very large embroidery needle with a dull tip and a large eye to thread yarn through. You’re going to need things like buttons, edgings and zippers, all of which can be found at your local yarn store, as can all of these tools. "