Have you ever been fascinated by the idea of knitting and crocheting? Maybe Knitting comes naturally to you, or maybe, like me, you just can’t get the hang of it due to your clumsy hands or a lack of concentration. Well, Provo Craft has come out with their Knifty Knitter line to make Knitting simple for everyone from young children to older adults.
They might as well call it Knitting for dummies for people like me.
I wasn’t even looking for this when I went into JoAnn’s Fabric last year, I was looking for knitting needles to try and give knitting another shot. My mother has been trying desperately since I was a child to teach me how to knit, but it is something that has never come naturally to me in the last 20 years. But when I saw the 19′ loom next to the needles I picked it up and knew it was exactly what I needed. I was on a mission to make a baby blanket for my friend and thought this would be great. When I sat down with my new Knifty Knitter and yarn, I instantly fell in love with it.
Knifty Knitter kits come in a variety of shapes and sizes allowing the user to make everything from wool hats and shawls to scarfs and mittens. Each kit includes simple to follow instructions, a small purple hook to help you pull the loops off the pegs, a needle to help you stitch endings, or anything else, together and the loom itself. Wrapping the yarn around each peg was calming and easy to do. All you have to do is wrap the yarn in a figure eight pattern from one end to the other and use the hook to pull the bottom yarn over the top one and continue on like this until you reach the desired length for you project. I was able to finish my blanket in 1 week.
My first loom I purchased was 19′ long, this length is usually reserved for scarfs as I soon figured out 19′ is not enough to make a 2″ wide blanket. But after I completed the first 3″ long portion of the blanket I just made another 3″ long portion the same way and sewed both pieces together to make the blanket complete. There is a science to this apparently, as I soon found out, and I was able to make the blanket look complete without the stitching down the middle noticeable.
The looms themselves are of a durable quality. You can drop them or bang them around and there is no worry about damaging them. Of course, the plastic gets scratched the more you use the tool, but this only makes the loom look slightly worn. The hook tool is of medium quality, with a comfortable grip. However, if you have wound the yarn tightly, or are using multiple strands at once, the metal tip can pull out of the handle over time. All you have to do is push the metal piece back into place to fix it.
The instructions that come with each loom are extremely basic. There are two pamphlets for sale at $1 each that I recommend purchasing as well. You can find these usually around the loom display and they will give you more ideas of what you can create with your looms and give you further instruction on stitches, as well as casting on and off.
The looms require bulky yarn to make your projects with due to the pegs being spaced out so far apart. Anything less then 198g will give the project a thin, see-through look.
In the end, you can’t go wrong with these looms. They are cheap, with a price usually between $3.99 and $9.99, and durable, and they give you a good idea of what loom knitting entails. Either they will put you on a desperate search for more looms, websites and books, or you will become tired of it and it will become one more thing in the back of your closet. I really hope you find yourself in the first category and will find years of happiness with your Knifty Knitter loom.
