I wanted to share some advice and tips of my own to anyone who wanted to take up knitting as a hobby, and what a wonderful hobby it is, to be able to create fabrics out of a ball of wool, and also hand made gifts for birthdays, Christmas or baby showers, once you have got the hang of it. You'll have friends and family wanting you to create unique items to treasure.
My first piece of advice is to start off on some chunky knitting needles, if you try to knit with smaller needles, it will be more difficult to learn, with big needles you will have the advantage of seeing all the stitches clearer, this also applies to crochet too!
My second piece of advice is to practice first with chunky wool in a plain light colour. Again, you will be able to see all the stitches nice and clear, and where mistakes are being made. Starting off with thin, or funky wools can be difficult textures for a beginner so save them until you gain more experience.
Thirdly, if you are more of a visual learner like me, (I'm left handed and learnt watching my mother knitting in a mirror) do watch YouTube tutorials on how to get started, the first thing to learn is how to cast on, then, how to garter stitch, don't give up and take your time, you'll get it! At first it seems like some kind of magic trick, but once you get how to do all these twists and turns, you'll be knitting and purling in no time! You may even benefit from learning to crochet firstly, after all, it's one less needle, or in this case, hook! With both, practice a little everyday, and it will click like, aaaah now ok I get it! Have a good look around at YouTube tutorials, there's good and bad ones, the ones which go slow and steady are good for seeing how loops develop and where the needle goes in, speed comes with lots of time and practice, so don't beat yourself up if you don't get it straight away, I mean how many people get behind the wheel of a car and know how to use the clutch pedal and gear stick straight away? Only some kind of super human, practice makes perfick!
Forth tip, if you are one of those lucky people who can look up in a book how to learn things better than visually, I highly recommend starting one of those binder series, you'll build up a nice set of wools, needles, and patterns, and learn skills right from the beginning, and build up a collection. If money is tight, my best advice is to go in a few charity shops, some have balls of wool and knitting needles very cheap, and often people donate the free kits on the front of magazines for the charity shops to sell, which are often at a beginner level, if not, collect a few to do in the future!
5th tip is the free gifts that are given away with knitting magazines are great for making to raise money for charity. If you are selling your work for your own profit at say craft fairs or online though, it has to be your own design, because if it's someone else's trade mark and design, you can potentially get into trouble, so do have fun designing your own creations!
Tip number 6, as a selling platform, I find Amazon handmade and etsy to be the best, it's personal preference there, but Amazon handmade is great as there's no fee to list the items, but with etsy there is a small fee each time you list something and then your bills each month. I've found Facebook sadly is not so good promoting wise, it takes a lot of dedicated friends to help and share, if you have people like this you are very lucky! Help each other out and promote handmade items, what's better than the tat in the shops than a cute, unique one of a kind item! I find Twitter and instagram are great to get your work out there to people, if you can find your unique selling point, you'll find the right audience by using # hashtags a plenty, the right people will then find you!
Lastly, tip number 7, enjoy it, creating art, whatever form it is in, is to relax and de-stress! If you have any questions knitting, crochet, or anything creative wise I'd love to have a go at answering them, or just lovely to chat, feedback good and constructive is brilliant 😊😃 Have fun!
My first piece of advice is to start off on some chunky knitting needles, if you try to knit with smaller needles, it will be more difficult to learn, with big needles you will have the advantage of seeing all the stitches clearer, this also applies to crochet too!
My second piece of advice is to practice first with chunky wool in a plain light colour. Again, you will be able to see all the stitches nice and clear, and where mistakes are being made. Starting off with thin, or funky wools can be difficult textures for a beginner so save them until you gain more experience.
Thirdly, if you are more of a visual learner like me, (I'm left handed and learnt watching my mother knitting in a mirror) do watch YouTube tutorials on how to get started, the first thing to learn is how to cast on, then, how to garter stitch, don't give up and take your time, you'll get it! At first it seems like some kind of magic trick, but once you get how to do all these twists and turns, you'll be knitting and purling in no time! You may even benefit from learning to crochet firstly, after all, it's one less needle, or in this case, hook! With both, practice a little everyday, and it will click like, aaaah now ok I get it! Have a good look around at YouTube tutorials, there's good and bad ones, the ones which go slow and steady are good for seeing how loops develop and where the needle goes in, speed comes with lots of time and practice, so don't beat yourself up if you don't get it straight away, I mean how many people get behind the wheel of a car and know how to use the clutch pedal and gear stick straight away? Only some kind of super human, practice makes perfick!
Forth tip, if you are one of those lucky people who can look up in a book how to learn things better than visually, I highly recommend starting one of those binder series, you'll build up a nice set of wools, needles, and patterns, and learn skills right from the beginning, and build up a collection. If money is tight, my best advice is to go in a few charity shops, some have balls of wool and knitting needles very cheap, and often people donate the free kits on the front of magazines for the charity shops to sell, which are often at a beginner level, if not, collect a few to do in the future!
5th tip is the free gifts that are given away with knitting magazines are great for making to raise money for charity. If you are selling your work for your own profit at say craft fairs or online though, it has to be your own design, because if it's someone else's trade mark and design, you can potentially get into trouble, so do have fun designing your own creations!
Tip number 6, as a selling platform, I find Amazon handmade and etsy to be the best, it's personal preference there, but Amazon handmade is great as there's no fee to list the items, but with etsy there is a small fee each time you list something and then your bills each month. I've found Facebook sadly is not so good promoting wise, it takes a lot of dedicated friends to help and share, if you have people like this you are very lucky! Help each other out and promote handmade items, what's better than the tat in the shops than a cute, unique one of a kind item! I find Twitter and instagram are great to get your work out there to people, if you can find your unique selling point, you'll find the right audience by using # hashtags a plenty, the right people will then find you!
Lastly, tip number 7, enjoy it, creating art, whatever form it is in, is to relax and de-stress! If you have any questions knitting, crochet, or anything creative wise I'd love to have a go at answering them, or just lovely to chat, feedback good and constructive is brilliant 😊😃 Have fun!
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