You're no idiot, of course. You can sew a button, tie a knot and even thread a needle in under 30 seconds. But when it comes to knitting and crocheting, you feel as prickly as a pin cushion. Don't unravel just yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knitting and Crocheting shows you how to create beautiful crafts worthy of becoming heirlooms. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

Chapter One

Knitting and Crocheting

Come Out of Your

Grandma's Attic

    In This Chapter

* The modern popularity of knitting and crocheting

* Why learn these skills?

* The core concept of knitting and crocheting

Knitting? Crocheting? Didn't those skills go out of vogue with candle-dipping, soap-making, and butter-churning? Absolutely not. True, knitting and crocheting are no longer necessary to life as they were in your grandma's or great-grandma's time. Also true is the fact that the popularity of individual crafts seems to wax and wane with the public's attention span. And yet, knitting and crocheting continue to enjoy popularity. Why, you may ask? They're classics. Like a good Shakespeare play or a Frank Sinatra album, they never go out of style. (And, they sometimes keep you warm, too!)

In this chapter, you'll discover why knitting and crocheting continue to be popular despite no longer being necessary to daily life, why--if you haven't already decided to do so--you might want to become a stitcher, and what lies at the base of these crafts.

Man versus Machine: The Death of Knitting and Crocheting?

Browse through any antique store and you'll find piles of vintage knitted and crocheted whatnots. Knitting and crocheting have been around nearly as long as people have felt the need for clothes and blankets and, consequently, the need to make those items attractive. Chances are, your grandma or great-grandma can hardly remember learning the crafts; before the advent of television, and even radio, knitting and crocheting, for young girls, were skills as fundamental as breathing. These crafts were practiced not only for practical and ornamental reasons, but to entertain as well.

As mechanism increased, however, the need for knitting and crocheting in modern countries has all but disappeared. For instance, while soldiers in the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, and World War II all relied on the efforts of home knitters to keep them warm on the battlefield, modern-day soldiers get most of their warm accessories from factories. Even fancy crocheted lace items such as doilies, bedspreads, and tablecloths--once the sole property of the hand crocheter--are now easily produced by machine and sold in local department stores.

You would think the automation that made these crafts unnecessary, would have also deemed them extinct. Not so. Knitting and crocheting are ironically gaining in popularity, continuing to enlist thousands of new enthusiasts. In addition, technology has enhanced, rather than hurt, the crafts. One online knitlist, for example, enables Internet users to receive messages, advice, and knitting news from fellow artisans. The list currently has more than 2,000 subscribers, and new subscribers are warned to expect as many as 90 messages per day.

Clearly, knitting and crochet are staying put. And with the help of this book, you'll be able to get in on the fun, too.

Yarn Spinning

Knitting and crocheting seem to have skipped a generation. These crafts were tremendously popular with those born in the 1920s and 1930s, but experienced a sharp drop with the next generation. Today, one of the stronger age groups of participants are people in the 20- to 30-year-old range. Theories are that the first generation of women who didn't need to knit or crochet to clothe their families and homes chose not to. This generation's sons and daughters, however, have found knitting and crocheting to be a source of relaxation, creativity, and fulfillment.

Why Bother?

What's the point? If you can walk into a J. Crew at any mall across America and buy a bulky wool sweater, why spend valuable free time knitting and crocheting? By picking up this book you no doubt believe, on some level, that pursuing this endeavor is worthwhile. But if you need a bit more fuel for the proverbial fire, think about these reasons.

Get Creative!

Knitting and crocheting are an art--generally a wearable or usable art, but still an art. When you knit or crochet, you are creating a piece. You are choosing the dimensions; you're changing the look by using novelty yarn or funky colors. You're choosing how you want the finished product to look, and then executing the design. When you purchase a sweater or some other such item, you're not really sure how this item came into existence. Think about cozying up to a beautiful hat or scarf that you made yourself). When a friend asks you where you got these beautiful woolens, you have the rare opportunity to say, "I made it."

And not only do you get to feel the enormous sense of pride and accomplishment in completing such a task--there are other benefits, too. Some experts believe that working with your hands, following repetitive motions--such as those in knitting, crocheting, and needlepoint--actually fuel the creative process in other areas of your life. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way , believes that by allowing your hands to work repetitiously, your brain can simultaneously think through solutions creatively. If, for example, you are a writer suffering from seemingly incurable writer's block, the repetitive process of crocheting a few inches of an afghan might enable you to free your mind and work through a plot problem in your latest short story. Or maybe you don't fancy yourself the creative type, but need to find a solution to a problem at work. Stitching can free your mind to find creative life solutions, as well. Quite simply, it's a wonderful outlet for your overworked brain!

Yarn Spinning

Knitting dates very early in the history of man. Actual fragments can only be traced to 200 AD, but these fragments show great sophistication and understanding of the craft, causing historians to believe that the craft originated much earlier.

Make Pieces for Life

Have you noticed that crafts go through phases? One year everyone's making baskets out of crepe paper. The next they're making decoupage planters. Where do most of these items end up? In the basement under the gravity boots? In a yard sale? In a landfill? Sadly, many crafts are built more for speed and fad than for longevity.

On the other hand, if you knit a classic sweater or crochet a beautiful table cover, you've got a friend for life. Once you learn these crafts, you're creating heirlooms.

Snarls

If your stitching time is precious and you want to use the items you knit or crochet for life, try to stick with classic colors, shapes, and fibers. Beware of up-to-the-minute patterns that will be out of vogue in a year or two. A super-trendy piece, whether bought at the mall or labored over for two months, will still look outlandish and out of date in a short period.

Slow Down Your Hectic Pace

While you can fax patterns to friends or hop on the Internet for some help when you get stuck, knitting and crocheting still force you to sit down, slow down, and enjoy the craft. In a world filled with cell phones, beepers, Internet cafes, and video TVs, escaping for an hour to knit a sock heel can be incredibly rejuvenating.

Be forewarned: If you're a Type A personality trying to unwind through knitting or crocheting, you'll have to take special care not to become a Type A stitcher. It's easy to see knitting and crocheting as another thing on your to-do list: Clean gutters, E-mail quotes to Johnson regarding the housing deal, Knit left sleeve of sweater .... If you find yourself getting too uncomfortably regimented about your knitting and crocheting, put your projects away for a couple days so that taking them out again truly is a treat.

Pointers

In a fit of super-organization, I once made a spreadsheet of unfinished projects. I assigned each project a number of points from 25 (for a washcloth) to 500 (for a multicolor designer cardigan). My goal was to have no more than 1,000 points going at any one time, and to organize which projects would be finished in which week. The system worked for about 2 hours before I felt oppressed. Now if I don't want to face an unfinished project, I throw it in the closet until I feel like working on it again. Never let knitting and crocheting become a task.

Have Crocheting, Will Travel

Knitting and crocheting are both fabulous projects to take on the go. Unlike other hobbies--astronomy, say, or weaving--these crafts can easily be thrown in a bag and pulled out as time allows.

Heading on a family vacation where you'll spend 10 hours in the car on the way to Disneyland? Going to the airport to wait for a plane? Riding the train into the office? Take your knitting and crocheting. A simple project that you can turn to in a traffic jam works wonders on your psyche and makes you feel you've accomplished something in an impotent situation.

Pointers

Treat yourself to a nice bag that lets you carry your projects in style. Don't feel compelled to buy your bag at a crafts store-truthfully, some bags made expressly for knitting or crocheting can be the most hideous things you can carry. Instead, check out a sleek leather backpack at a hiking store, or a gatemouth gardening bag from a home-improvement shop. Keep this bag stocked with a measuring tape, a yarn needle, and some pins, add your current project, and you're ready to go!

You're in Good Company

Many famous people have picked up a crochet hook or knitting needle in their day. In fact, the list of famous knitters and crocheters past and present would require a book all its own. Here's a sampling: Dorothy Parker, Julia Roberts, Isak Dineson, Kaffe Fassett, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martha Washington, Meryl Streep, Lillian Hellman, Cameron Diaz, Vanna White, and the nameless protagonist in Daphne de Maurier's Rebecca.

So What, Exactly, Is Knitting and Crocheting?

Glad you asked.

In the next several chapters you're going to learn all about these crafts. You'll learn what tools are necessary, how to prepare to start stitching, how to work the basic stitches, and how to end your work. You'll also learn about adding color and texture, changing the shape of your work, and putting it all together by sewing seams.

Yet, with all these skills, knitting and crocheting involve one simple concept:

Knitting and crocheting are simply a means of creating fabric by interlocking loops.

That's it.

Yarn Spinning

Knitting has undergone a gender change. It started out as a craft mainly pursued by men. Sailors and traders from Arabia were instrumental in passing on this knowledge to the rest of world. It remained predominately a man's craft for centuries. Today, although many men are now accomplished knitters, a greater number of women than men knit.

When you knit, you keep a whole row of loops "active." You use one knitting needle to hold the active loops, or stitches, and another to work the new row of loops.

Pointers

As you get comfortable knitting and crocheting, you'll find that it's the perfect accompanying craft for watching movies. An informal poll of several knitters and crocheters revealed that the following films are exceptional rentals when you want to spend a quiet evening stitching. All these films are dialog-heavy so that you can look down often at your hands: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Rebecca, The Philadelphia Story, The Usual Suspects, Swing Kids, Twelve Angry Men, Dangerous Liaisons, Manhattan Murder Mystery, and A Place in the Sun.

When you crochet, you keep only one loop at a time active; each stitch seals off the last loop. This means that you need a shorter tool--one that allows you to catch that next loop and pull it through the closed loop on the preceding row. This tool is a crochet hook.

As you learn new concepts in this book, keep reminding yourself I am simply making loops . As you work through the steps in this book, notice what your hands are doing. You'll see that every step you make is a means of making and manipulating loops. Knitting and crocheting is not intimidating if you understand the basic concept behind your work.

Are you ready to begin? The next two chapters cover concepts universal to knitting and crocheting: choosing yarn and checking gauge. After that, you'll jump into actual knitting and crocheting, learn the basic concepts and skills, and make some fun projects along the way.

The Least You Need to Know

* Despite the machine age eliminating the need for hand-stitched items, the popularity of knitting and crocheting continues.

* These crafts can help you slow down a hectic life, flex your creative muscles, and create heirlooms in the bargain.

* At their core, knitting and crocheting involve making loops.