Anyone quit knitting after learning crochet?

[LondonLaura]

Having knitted since I was 8 years old, I very reluctantly gave up my needles about 30 years later due to problems with my hands & arms. I'd just started to learn crochet, but couldn't really do much with it, and I was so upset about losing my knitting.

 

After persevering with the crochet, I found myself loving it. Five years on I'm not even sure I would still want to pick up knitting needles!

 

I do miss the beautiful drape of knit, but now I'm doing more intricate crochet work and discovering ways to achieve softer crochet items.

 

I find crochet more interesting, enjoyable and MUCH more relaxing than I ever did knitting.

[Lynz]

I was taught to knit when I was young my a neighbour but only ever knit and purl. Tried my hand at crochet a few years ago when my brother was expecting his first child (I've always been crafty with cross-stitch, beading etc etc but wanted to make something for baby) as I found a pretty blanket pattern. I taught myself from all the resources on-line and took to it like a duck to water, it just makes sense!

 

I have recently picked up the needles again and taught myself things more ambitious than knit and purl as hubby asked if I could make him a cricket vest (cables and still in progress) - it wasn't as natural to me as crochet but I'm really getting into it now and it's getting much easier and I now have WIP's in knit (including lace projects) and crochet

[CraftyZone]

I learned to crochet first and then my mom taught me to knit. I love being able to do either of them I find that having the knowledge of both does not limit me from making anything that either is crochet or knitted. My mom was an avid needleworker until she was 85 and she was really good at understanding patterns and showed me many times how to figure them out. God Bless Moms.

[sunnywolfgar]

I know how to knit, just basic stuff. But I love to crochet and enjoy that. so its crochet for me. Its faster and easyier and oh so many patterns to do and not enough time.

[CLLinda]

No - In fact many times my WIPS are both crochet and knit - so that way when bored of one I can switch to the other - kinda like being "bilingual" LOLOL

 

 

That's me, too! I always seem to have both kinds of projects going. I'm working on hats right now, so I have a stranded knitting one going, along with a bucket type for a little girl for Christmas.

 

I just like to change things up and I do whatever appeals to me at the time. I think my next project will be a knitted baby sweater, but I can always change my mind on that too.

 

[Addie]

I always thought I would never crochet because I thought it was just too hard and that knitting was much easier. Well, I only ever knew very basic stuff with knitting....just knitting...maybe purl too. But I couldn't really follow a pattern or anything. Since now finally learning how to crochet, I think it's easy and Ive been enjoying it more than knitting. Although I dont think I will give up knitting, crocheting certainly has been more fun at the moment

[JanineW]

I just love:manyheart crochet. Yes, I know how to knit, and will do small knitting projects (slippers, especially -- the crochet ones hurt the bottom of my feet), but other than that, even when I get a knitting magazine with patterns that I love, I prefer to crochet. For me, it's a time thing. I can crochet a sweater in a week. I can knit one in a few months. Also, I think crochet is more creative. I can just pick up a hook and some yarn, and without any instructions, make what I want. Maybe it's just me and some sort of strange learning curve, but I can't do that with knitting -- I need instructions!

 

But back to those knitting magazines -- is it just me, or do the rest of you look at a knitted item and say to yourself "I could crochet that!"

[crocheting turtle]

Yes. I found crochet easier. I can also rip out my mistakes without worrying about missing stitches. I loved knitting, but I was always dropping stitches, making unintended holes in my work.

[erinnpayne]

i quit knitting too. lolz it just seemed more complicated than crochet did, i still would love to keep knitting but it is no interest anymore to me.

[DogCatMom]

OK, I'll participate in the resurrection of this ancient thread!

 

First, the long prelude:

 

I've known how to crochet since a girlfriend taught me in college back in the Dark Ages. I made giant afghans (queen-sized, king-sized) and "shawls" that could keep a January ice storm in Atlanta off my back.

 

I made wedding gifts, baby gifts, the usual things we make to give away so that our homes aren't just blocked up with the stuff. Happiness!

 

Then... I had to give it up in the early to mid-'90s b/c of carpal tunnel syndrome; it was that or give up my word-processing job. Well, paying the bills is NOT optional. So crochet, playing harp and hand drums, everything other than work, went by the boards. For many years.

 

I eventually took up quilt piecing by machine and, much later, machine quilting with a walking foot on the sewing machine. The hand position required for nice little quilting stitches is *exactly* the one that inflames my right hand. *sigh* So definitely no hand quilting.

 

In January 2008, I just couldn't stand it another day. I had given away all my yarn when I gave up crochet, but had kept my hooks. They didn't take up much space, after all, and maybe my niece would someday like to learn...? My hands had been quiet for five years, at least, and I felt that I could risk it.

 

I went to a Superbowl Day "knit-in" with my hooks and asked to borrow some yarn. "What?! You don't have any yarn?!" I told them what had happened with my yarn, and that today was my trial of crochet again. It was amazing. So many of them just reached into their bags and said, "Would you like this...? one...?" I said that I was planning to make a Chemo Hat; it would be small enough not to trigger anything major, but large enough to give me an idea whether my hands would cooperate.

 

So me, my G hook, and someone else's worsted wool got going. I made nothing but hats during '08 and '09, not wanting to commit to any large projects, in case that little devil CTS showed up again. Or his cousin, DeQuervain's Syndrome (from 1996 on, for several years).

 

Last year, I was ready to branch out, but other events interfered. (I only made 2 or 3 hats all year.)

 

So, when 2011 came around, I looked into Tunisian crochet--took a class from the Stitch Diva early in April and suddenly "needed" new hooks. Just a couple of weeks previous, I had met a new group of women who do charity/community-service knitting/crochet and now had a reason to work on larger projects--neck scarves 6" x 48" and baby blankets 30" x 30".

 

So April looked good. May, too, until...one night...

 

...it occurred to me that, if I really wanted to look for work in the crafts book-publishing industry, two skills out of three with a small side of beading just wouldn't cut it.

 

I would have to face, and for real this time: learning to knit. Da da da dummmmm...(sound of doom here)

 

So. The usual Internet videos--and there are some excellent ones!--books, et al., trying to overcome multiple previous episodes of TRYING to Learn to Knit, in person, from friends. I could make the knit and the purl stitches in the English style, but 1) it felt dorky, and 2) I couldn't cast on or cast off to save my life.

 

I checked out books upon books from the library (ya figured out I'm a book person; right?) and finally--YES!--I found The Answer. At least, The Answer for me.

 

It seems so obvious now. But when lightning struck, everyone in the library knew *something* had happened. I volunteer at the library, so the staff know me personally. They had seen all these books flying out the door. I had another stack at the circulation desk, my card out of my wallet, when I said, "Oh, God! Just a minute! I am sooo...!" I was going to say "stupid," but the world seemed to be looking at me, and I was There by then.

 

Books written for KIDS! YES, Ladies (and Gentlemen)! Look in the Juvenile holdings of your local library for how-to-knit books and how-to-crochet books, in case you have friends you just haven't been able to explain it to. Dewey Decimal system number 746.434 = crochet; 746.432 = knitting. Followed by figuring out Continental-style knitting. Ahhh...that's better!

 

Now I am a beginning knitter. I am learning to knit b/c I believe it will help me get, yes, heaven help me, work. I *may* even enjoy it; I'm sort of geeky that way.

 

But for relaxing and just plain old repetitive Zen stitching, let's all think this one together:

 

Cro-chet! All. The. Way!

 

DCM