Making jewellery is one of my hobbies that I’ve had for the longest period of time and over the years, I have spent a lot of money on beads and other materials. What I do like about the hobby is getting a good deal on my supplies so I don’t pour all of my money into the materials that I need. Here are some of my bead buying tips:

Craft stores and craft departments for general shopping needs
When I was 12 and going to stores to buy beads, it was difficult for me to go find non-plastic beads in places other than stores dedicated to selling craft supplies. But since then, the interest in making jewellery has grown and many other people make jewellery too. Craft departments in department stores have some pretty good selections for seed beads. General crafts stores (like Michaels) do carry decent bead selections. I also like to check out the clearance sections – I’ve bought strands of glass beads marked down from $10 to $1.50. Good deals can be found, if you’re willing to search for them as well as using coupons (they can come in weekly fliers or online).

• Always check out the clearance section/aisle for more good deals
• Join the mailing list on the store’s website for coupons, if they have them available

Some of my favourite beads have been found at craft stores, especially after my local chain craft store was given a makeover. Now I purchase freshwater pearls and turquoise beads when they come up on sale. I never pay full price on the beads that I buy at the craft store, never. I even bought my pliers with 40% off coupons at the same store. It’s a great resource and there’s no excuse to be paying full price at chain craft stores.

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I love shopping for yarn. My yarn weight of choice is generally sport weight or worsted weight. I’ve been known to buy sock-weight and bulky though, on a whim. I have been guilty of buying yarn mostly because it happened to be on sale. Bad, I know. I’ve gotten better now! I only buy yarn now if I see a project in mind for it, or if I have a project in mind already prior to purchasing the yarn. So here are some things that I suggest that you do (or don’t!) while shopping for yarn:

• DO pick up the balls/skeins of yarn to feel how the yarn feels against your skin. A great place to test is the back of your hand or wrist.
• DON’T pick up the balls/skeins of yarn and rub it against your cheek. Especially if you’re wearing cosmetics and get your makeup all over the yarn.
• DO look at those pads of free patterns hanging by the yarn – take one!
• DON’T look at those pads of free patterns and then rip several off for yourself, or rip them in half and leave the other half on the pad or on the floor.
• DO put the yarn back in the correct bin/box/shelf when you’ve decided that you don’t want to purchase it.
• DON’T leave the yarn on the ground or on a random shelf.
• DO choose enough yarn for your project – you never know if it’s going to be available the next time you go. Make sure you pick all from the same dye lot!
• DON’T buy yarn just because it is on sale/heavily discounted. Buy yarn that is in colours that you like, buy types of yarn that you will actually use and can see yourself using. If you hate working with anything thinner than worsted weight, why would you buy it just because it’s 50% off?
• DO substitute yarns for the ones that are called for in patterns. Could that brand of yarn be discontinued? Or maybe the pattern calls for something with 50% cashmere and the cost is too high? Look for appropriate substitutions. You’ll want something with the same weight and similar content (substituting cashmere-merino with acrylic fun fur will not get the same results as in the photos).
• DON’T juggle yarn balls in the middle of the store. I’ve seen this happen before and it ended badly as the yarn ended up on the store floor.
• DO go shopping with a budget in mind. Don’t spend more than you want to spend. Only want to spend $50 on yarn? Only spend $50 on yarn!
• DON’T go shopping with an open-budget or a credit card with plenty of space for a huge yarn purchase. I’ve witnessed my sister do this. Half an hour later, she dropped $80+ on yarn (beautiful yarn, but yarn that has stayed untouched for over a year).

Happy smart yarn shopping!

100% alpaca yarn, like the yarn shown above, has washing instructions on the yarn label. For this yarn, it is handwashing only in cold water. Gentle handwashing versus the washing machine can mean the difference between a sweater that fits and one that is suddenly several sizes too small.

What happens when you toss a knitted or crocheted item into the washing machine?
It can be fulled (not felted) or it doesn’t – what makes this difference? The type of fibre makes a huge difference in what happens to the final product.

What is fulling?
If you take animal fibres (i.e. wool, which comes from sheep) and make it up into a fabric (i.e. crochet, knit or weave with it) and subject it to water, agitation and (sometimes) heat, you get a dense fabric.

For example, say you knit a pair of mittens for someone out of wool and then they toss those mittens into the washing machine. And then they come out roughly the size of an infant’s finger. The mittens will have shrank, the stitches are no longer visible and the fabric is dense.

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What is amigurumi? Where did the word come from? How the %#*! do I pronounce it?

All very good questions!

Amigurumi is a Japanese word and encompasses knitted and crocheted toys – usually animals or human-like dolls. They generally have cute features (like big eyes), are made of yarn, stuffed with love (or polyester stuffing). Due to the nature of the stuffie (or amigurumi, I just find ’stuffie’ to be a lot easier, and quicker, to type out), it is generally recommended that you use a smaller size crochet hook or knitting needles when making them in order to ensure that you are making a tight fabric. This makes sure that when you stuff (with love!) that the stuffing does not show through.

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After recently teaching a classmate how to knit (it’s the first of December and she aims to knit a 6-foot long scarf, with tassels, for her boyfriend – and she wants it to be 30cm wide and expects that she’ll have it done by Christmas day, with only working on it for about half an hour a day), I had to explain the differences (and pros and cons) to crochet and knit to her as she wanted to know what the differences were.

Some differences between knitting and crocheting:

• For knitting, you generally use 2 (or more) needles that have at least one pointed end. For crocheting, you use a crochet hook (generally only one pointed end). Both use yarn (or other material that resembles string) and both can be used to make just about anything. Anyone who tells you that crochet is too bulky to make decent clothes is a liar.
• If you’re using the same type of yarn, knitting generally works up a thinner fabric compared to the crocheted equivalent, which is why people generally consider crochet to use up a lot more yarn than knitting does.
• While standing in a general bookstore, there are generally more knitting books available than crocheting. This concept also applies to public libraries as well as the magazine rack. There is just more knitting publications available. One of my local bookstores has a whole section labeled “Knitting” while the crocheting books are stuffed onto one of the shelves with other general “Needle Crafts & Hobbies” books.
• For knitting, you generally keep more than one stitch ‘live’ at a time (i.e. in use). For crochet, you (generally) keep only one stitch on the hook at any given time.
• Knitting has been around a lot longer, therefore it a more diverse history and also more patterns that are published online and in books.

Some pros to crocheting:

• You “only” ever need to get one hook! (If you only ever use the same weight of yarn…)
• You (generally) won’t need to try to pick up a million stitches back up
• If you’re mad into doilies, there are a lot of patterns out there for you (same with making toilet paper roll covers)

Some pros to knitting:

• Knitting is an old, old, old craft – there’s possibly millions patterns available
• There are technically only two stitches to learn: knit and purl
• People say that knitting uses less yarn that crochet does

Some cons to crocheting:

• People say that it uses (about) 3 times as much yarn as knitting does (however, I haven’t tested out this theory yet)
• It’s the black sheep of needle crafts – I’ve walked into more than one yarn store and got funny looks when I mentioned wanting to crochet something
• If you’re not mad into doilies, it is fairly difficult to find decent published pattern books. However, there are a lot of free resources online as well as crochet magazines and online communities that are constantly coming up with new material.

Some cons to knitting:

• It’s a pain when you drop a stitch. Or all your stitches (I’ve so had that happen to me on more than one occasion).
• I’m pretty sure that there is about a dozen ways to increase the number of stitches you have, as well as a dozen ways to decrease the number of stitches that you have. And they all look different. All of them.
• Double pointed needles. Circulars. It’s like a whole new world opens up after you’ve mastered the straight (regular-looking) knitting needles. DPNs make me want to break out into hives just looking at them (not really a con, but my sister finds my fear of knitting things in a circle to be quite… ‘humourous’).

But which one should I pick up?

Why not both (eventually)? I started off with knitting first and then branched out into crochet and I found that I liked crochet better because I “got” it better. For knitting I can cast-on no problem, and I can count my stitches and knit and purl and even manage some decreases and increases if I happen to have my laptop or a stitch dictionary handy (I can never remember how to increase or decrease) but I can never, ever, ever remember how to cast-off/bind-off. It’s just one of those things. I think it’s because I haven’t completed enough knitting projects just yet. For crochet, it clicked with me. I understood how to chain, single crochet and slip stitch quite quickly. And the half-doubles, doubles and triples just built on what I knew from the single crochet stitch, so it was easier for me to wrap my head around it. But for some things, I will knit – especially if I find a pattern that I happen to like or want to get something to look the way I want it to look. There’s no fool-proof way to make knitting look like it’s crochet or to make crochet look likes it was actually knit, at least for someone who knows the difference.

Some things to keep in mind before embarking on your crocheting and/or knitting adventures…

Both crafts do take money, not a whole lot when you’re first starting out, but it does involve some spending. When I started knitting, I got really lucky. My mom used to knit a lot so when my sister and I decided to start knitting, we ‘inherited’ her set of knitting needles (straights, DPNs and circulars) in all sorts of sizes, as well as a lot of yarn (gorgeous stuff, like wool, llama, and even camel wool from a now-defunct company). However, I know that not everyone can get that lucky with a mom or a relative who has a stash hidden away in a closet.

For starting supplies, you can hit up a local thrift store, they generally have some yarn and some needles and hooks available. Or you can go to a local yarn store and get some supplies there (yarn tends to be more expensive at local, independently owned yarn stores – just a head’s up) or a chain craft store, which will have all the basics that you will need as well as some decently priced yarn (hopefully in the clearance section so you don’t break the bank on the first shopping trip).

If you’re not sure that you’re going to really want to continue knitting/crocheting after your first attempt of a project… Don’t buy a book! Public libraries are awesome resources that your tax dollars already go towards, so go the library and find a beginners guide to crocheting and knitting. When I was first learning, I tended to go for the books geared towards teaching children how to crochet/knit because they had very clear instructions and illustrations (which helped a lot). Most knitting and crochet books do have the basics in the front portion of the books (how to start, how to increase/decrease and how to end the project) before the patterns, so it should be pretty easy to find a book that has decent instructions. And if (for some odd reason…) your public library doesn’t have a beginners knitting or crocheting book, make a request for the library to buy one.

Happy crocheting and knitting!