Several knitting questions

Cafe Society
1

For the record, the closest thing I’ve ever done to knitting is sewing a couple buttons back on pants that I got too fat or too skinny for. Take that into consideration and talk to me like the knitter embryo that I am.

I’m really intrigued by knitting and a lot of projects I’ve seen online, and I want to know what I might be getting myself into if I decide to persue this hobby (I’m taking a one-afternoon class with a friend this weekend, so I’ll go at least that far :).)

What would you guess the time investment, money investment, and skill level is for the following items:

-a solid color beanie
-a patterned beanie
-a pair of thick winter socks
-a solid afghan (size huge; I’m 6’4 and like my blankets a lot bigger than me)
-a patterned afghan (ditto)
-a patterned sweater
-amigurumi
-baby beanies/socks/bibs

I’m pretty patient so the time investment is of interest but not of too much concern. I’m more concerned about the money investment (it never would’ve occurred to me but I’ve seen blogs and such that suggest large items like sweaters and afghans can get quite expensive, but they don’t say how much; are we talking 50 dollars or 500 dollars?), and the learning curve.

2

Cisco, you should join Ravelry which is an online community for knitters. You will spend hours and hours looking through patterns and projects that other knitters have made. You will be able to see the skill level, amount and type of yarn used, the time it took, etc. And you can get a lot of good free patterns there.

3

Here are a couple things I knit for my baby nephew which were quick, easy and cheap: Baby booties and hat

Also here is a free knitted scarf pattern I created: Brooke’s Column of Leaves Knitted Scarf Pattern - it has a matching hat too. Good luck!

4

Great stuff and I encourage anyone else who reads this thread to post things they’ve done!

5

It depends. Which is not the answer you were looking for.

To answer your questions out of order, starting with money - yarn can be expensive. Very expensive. Generally speaking, the nicer the yarn (certain types of fibers, certain ways of spinning and dying, yarns that are “popular”), the more you’re going to pay for it. There are also some very cheap yarns. I personally think they all have their purposes (for example, for the afghans and the amigurumi, I’d probably use cheaper yarns. And the sweater I’ve gotten the most compliments on was made from 100% acrylic.) You can also find yarn on sale and yarn being practically given away, if you are looking for it. You’ll spend as much or as little as you want.

As far as skill - the afghans are probably the easiest, followed by the baby bibs. They’re flat and squarish/rectanglish and don’t really have to be a specific size. The sweaters, beanies, and toys are probably next, but if a beginner said that that’s what they wanted to make, and were willing to put in the time, I’d have no problem starting them on one of those. Socks are more advanced beginner/intermediate. But if someone’s already done a beanie, that will be no big deal either.

For time, bigger things tend to take longer. Unless they don’t. And one nice thing about knitting is that you do see progress - there’s more there today than there was yesterday, and that can be very encouraging.

6

Huh, I don’t entirely agree with amarinth about afghans. :slight_smile: (But I do agree about the yarn. The lovely, lovely, expensive yarn. And needles can be pricey, too!) I think that afghans, being so big (and frequently having so many different stitches/cables/whatnot in them), are more advanced. Plus, I think there is value in a new knitter having a finished project sooner rather than later - the Dave Ramsey approach, if you will. It helps keep the excitement up!

I usually recommend that a knitter start with a scarf. It might not be the most exciting thing, but it’s simple and you can see your work and your progress and you can finish it relatively quickly. Hats (unpatterned, either adult or baby) are a good second (or first) project, and they go even faster than scarves unless you’re using tiny yarn and needles.

One of the great things about knitting is that you can make stuff knowing just the knit stitch. You can make even more knowing just he knit and purl stitches. And you can learn one or two other things with every project you do, and just learn as you go - you don’t have to know it all at once to be able to make things!

And once you start knitting, you will spend hours and hours on ravelry, and you will find much more than the things in your list above with which to occupy your time and hands. :smiley:

7

I’ve knit a ton of baby bibs–I’d rank them way easier than afghans, purely because they are small and therefore finishable. (I have no interest in afghans.)

Fifty dollars is cheap for an afghan, I’d say. Five hundred is not impossible, but seems likely to create a masterpiece which then sits on display where no one can touch it. I’d aim for a hundred dollars as reasonable for the cost of an afghan.

Sock yarn usually costs me about twenty dollars for a pair of socks, but I don’t knit thick wool socks, and thick wool can be a lot cheaper than fancily dyed skinny wool blends.

Patterned vs. Solid may or may not affect the price. It depends on what the pattern is. One can buy yarn which is already multicolor for prices not all that different from solid color yarn. Or, if one needs 20 skeins of yarn for an afghan (number pulled from my hat), one can buy 10 blue, five red, three white and one yellow for more or less the same price as 20 blue.

But the patterned beanie might well require several times the number of skeins of yarn of a solid beanie. Because you may only need a little bit of some of the colors. So you might be able to make several beanies from the yarn.

And don’t forget the cost of the needles! My new big box 40% coupon needles were like 2 bucks, but they aren’t nearly as nice to knit with as my fancy new needles from a local yarn store (which cost eighteen dollars) (Addi Lace Turbos, for those for whom that means something).

Sweater? I’d probably budget one to two hundred dollars, but must admit I’ve not actually knit any sweaters larger than child size–and for the children, I used cheap acrylic. or cheap cotton. That’s a goal for next winter. After I knit up my sock yarn purchased for lace shawls.

Time commitment? Varies. Bibs I turn out in a few hours of very casual knitting.

Afghan? too much time commitment for my blood.

Sweater? likewise.

Adult size beanie? only adult sized hat I’ve knit I did so in a day or so. The more complicated the pattern, it might take longer. Also if you use skinnier yarn.

Thick wool socks should actually not take forever, compared to skinny socks, because you use bulkier yarn. I tend to knit intricate socks which take me a month or so a piece. But when I’ve used heavier yarn, I knit a sock up in a few days.

Of course, most of my time commitments are “elapsed time” rather than “knitting time”–it’s just easier for my to keep track of when I started and stopped rather than how long I spent knitting. It should be noted that I am not a monogamous knitter. So I’ve got four hedgehog mittens on my desk, a shawl at my feet, and somewhere not far away, a sock toe begging to be frogged (ripped out) and restarted.

Well, and plotting for lace shawls has shown me I don’t really want to think about how many stitches are involved in socks . . . 3915 down, only 15324 to go. Oh, and nupps. I’m ignoring the nupps. (Swallowtail, in case someone knowledgeable is wondering).

8

Afghans don’t have to involve a lot of fancy stitches – I made a nice lap throw in basket stitch, which is super simple but provides a little visual interest. If he’s ambitious, he can do a stitch sampler afghan.
For a beginner, I’d recommend a scarf, but after that I’d say go to an afghan, and do it in a not-to-pricey acrylic so you can throw it in the washer.

Cisco – acrylic yarn is generally way cheaper than wool. The plus is that it’s washable: the minus is that it tends to pill. Pilling refers to those little “pills” of yarn that form where there’s rubbing or wear – and it’s less of a problem with an afghan than it is with a sweater.

9

Ravelry is crack. Lovely, lovely crack. I am oonagh there, btw.
Knitty is the gateway drug into the knitting world. They helped popularize knitting zines, indie designers and indie spinners.
Knitting Help is a great place to get your confidence in the knit and purl stitches. (There are only two stitches in knitting. Knit and purl.)

Another good linky

Come to Silver Sock tutorial is wonderful and needs to be mentioned.

Tech Knitter who is excellent.

Knitting can be as expensive as you want or as affordable as you want. Just because a pattern that has an adorable blanket and the yarn is $15 a skein and 10 skeins are needed for the blanket, doesn’t mean you have to use it.

Yarn companies pay/work with designers to use their yarns to promote their yarns.

The best part of Ravelry is when you see a sweater that you think you can make, but the yarn is out of your price range, you can see other peoples projects in the cheapest of the cheap yarn to midrange stuff. I’ve gone from complete HATING the Acrylics to being a YARN SNOB to hey! this acrylic yarn is alot nicer than I thought. ( I still feel more guilty about buying Red Heart Yarn than looking at, say pron.)

Start small. Pot holders and scarves are where 99.5% knitters start ( the other .5 who knit a sweater on their first try and do so magnificiently are freaks of nature.)

Knitter’s Manifesto Required Reading by all knitters.

10

Ravelry is awesome (unfortunately, I’m almost never there b/c it’s blocked at work, but it’s still awesome). I love looking at completed versions of things I like - sometimes you can even find a person with a similar build to see what an item might look like on you, or any alterations they’ve made to the pattern. Plus, you get to see how different yarns behave in a given pattern.

I love Knitting Help, too. The instructional videos were awesome when I first started knitting - I’m self-taught, and the pictures in instructional books aren’t always the easiest things to decipher, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing yet.

11

In general, there’s a lot of variability in expense and skill level depending on the materials and pattern you choose to work with.

At the core, knitting is pretty simple. A baby sweater, while smaller, isn’t less complicated than an adult sweater with a similar stitch pattern, for example. So a heavily cabled hat is going to be more complicated and difficult (and use more yarn) than a simple hat. But it’s also going to be more complicated and difficult than a simple sweater, even if it takes less time in the end.

With the materials I typically choose to work with – natural fibres like wool and cotton, often blended with silk or alpaca or other slightly more exotic fibres – knitting is a hella expensive hobby. I’d guesstimate that those projects would cost me in this neighbourhood for yarn

-a solid color beanie – $10-25
-a patterned beanie – if you mean color patterned, then $20-50, but out of the same yarn, you could get multiple finished items
-a pair of thick winter socks – $10-25
-a solid afghan (size huge; I’m 6’4 and like my blankets a lot bigger than me) – $250-$500 – but I would be exceedingly unlikely to actually knit a large afghan out of my usual choice of yarns, I’d choose something that was a poly-blend for durability, washability and price, in which case it would be more $100-$250 range. At the cheapest end of things, you could knit a whole afghan in the $50 range, but you might not want to use it.
-a patterned afghan (ditto) – Same as above, since you’d use most of every ball of yarn, thus not needing the overrun of doing patterns on smaller garments.
-a patterned sweater – $100-250
-amigurumi – depending on the mix of colors, about $2-5 worth of yarn will knit most patterns, but you may need to buy a lot more yarn than you need for one, when I do my vegetable baby rattles, the yarn I buy is $12 a skein, and I need several colours, but I could knit dozens of rattles out of those skeins.
-baby beanies/socks/bibs – for the whole set? $10-25. But I knit baby socks out of scrap yarn, basically, since they take almost nothing at all.

In terms of time, it still depends a lot on your choice of material and pattern. An afghan knit in a chunky yarn on large needles in a simple pattern will take much less yarn than an afghan knit in a complicated pattern with laceweight yarn on small needles. To the tune of one might be 10% the time of the other – the variability is simply huge.

In the end, knitting is incredibly flexible. You can choose awesome, awesome projects that are simple to do and relatively inexpensive, or get really involved in high end yarns and complicated stitch patterns, it’s up to you.

The knitted item I get the most compliments on is a scarf that I made out of a handpainted eyelash yarn. The yarn, which was beautiful and expensive (about $40 for the skein) is also so fluffy that no stitch pattern would be noticeable in it, and shows enough colour variation that you wouldn’t use it in a colour work pattern anyway. So, it’s a dead simple garter stitch rectangle – it’s literally cast on, knit 6 feet, cast off, there’s not even a purl stitch in the thing – but people think it’s wonderful because of the yarn. So by buying awesomely interesting yarn, I was able to get a great result from low skill knitting. I did most of it in the dark at rock concerts.

12

Do people knit amigurumi? My sister does crochet and does amigurumi (link is to blog post showing some of her projects), but I knit and have never seen a pattern.

I love loom knitting. I’m in the middle of making several afghans using various types of yarn, especially chenilles.

The other answers were spot on about the costs of knitting. It can use all of your money or just a little of it.

13

Knitpicks.com is a good site too.

I have picked up some knitting pattern books at the book store. I find knitting a swatch about the size of a potholder is a good way to try out a new technique and see if you like the pattern.

Anything that doesn’t rely heavily on gauge (blankets, pillows, scarves, washcloths, etc) are easier than clothing items. I have made one item of clothing, a shell that turned out very nicely, and I have a pattern ready for my next project. Right now I’m making pillows for our boutique at the October Tea Party fundraiser for our local cancer foundation.

One thing that saved me a lot of grief was accepting mistakes. If it’s a structual problem, yes, you will have to frog it. But if it’s a cable that’s gone the wrong way for one row and is not too noticeable, then let it go. Chances are, if you don’t point it out to anyone, they won’t know that it’s not the way it’s supposed to be. I realized when I was mostly done with one side of my current project (a pillow) that I’d used one size 7 needle and one size 10 needle. I’m not going to rip it out, so I shall knit up the other side also using odd-matched needles, sew everything together, stuff it with batting, and carry on.

14

Yes, people knit amigurami. I think I read (someplace on ravelry) that crocheting it is easier, but I’m not the only person for whom knitting is almost instinctive but crochet makes no sense. (OK, I’ve not tried real hard on the learning crochet thing).

I’ve also not really knit amigurami, for that matter.

Mittens and gloves galore, several pairs of socks, and countless baby bibs, and assorted other stuff yes, amigurami, not yet.

15

Aweome post, jacquilynne! (and everyone else, too), and oops:

Yes, I meant colored! I forgot there could be other types of patterns (textured, I’m guessing, right?)

16

Don’t knit. Cool people crochet.

By the way, there is an SDMB Yarnies group on Ravelry, started by stargazer.

17

I don’t really understand the difference, though I got the impression that crocheting was way easier and not as cool . . .

:smiley:

18

I didn’t truly understand why people complained about the expense of yarn until I went to a proper yarn store for the first time. There I discovered the $50-60 a skein artisan yarns. :eek:

Let’s see, at ten skeins for that sweater, it would only cost me…

19

This is all great information. I want to add, though, that as a beginner you might be tempted to go to WalMart and buy the cheapest Pound of Acrylic yarn and the least expensive needles you see, because you don’t want to make a big investment in a hobby you might not pick up.

DON’T DO THIS!

That’s not to say you need to spend a fortune on great yarn and the nicest needles, but using real natural fibers (especially a good, soft 100% wool) and sturdy, well made needles will make learning to knit so much easier. Acrylic yarns (and other manmade fibers) have their uses, but wool is forgiving, and after washing many of your mistakes will even out. If you are taking a class at a yarn store try something like Cascade 220 or another basic type wool. If you have time to order online, Knit Picks (someone else listed their site) has a lot of wonderful yarn for very low prices, and nice needles too.

20

Or if you can, find someone who has been knitting for a while and has oddball skeins of wool and extra needles lying around. (you’ll probably have to give the needles back.)