Five Reasons to Start a Knitting Circle

Knitting is fun, productive and creative. But it can get a little lonely knitting that sweater all by yourself in front of the television. Starting a knitting circle might be the best thing that ever happened to your ongoing knitting projects and your social life. Here's why:

1. You'll finally finish that big project you've got stashed in your closet.

It happens to everyone. You find a pattern for an awesome blanket and buy a ton of yarn. You dive in with gusto, only to get bored and abandon it a week later. The best reason to start a knitting circle is to give yourself the motivation to finish all that stuff you want to get around to "someday." That blanket collecting dust won't feel so tedious when you've got a group to hang with while you make it.

2. It's a way to sit around and gossip and still feel productive.

I don't know about you, but I would spend all day sitting around with my favorite ladies and crafty gentleman friends chewing the fat. But between work and work and cleaning up after myself and doing errands and more work, I can't find as much time as I like to hang out and do nothing.

When you start a knitting circle, you are prioritizing time with people you care about, and you're making time to take pleasure in idle chit-chat. You never have to feel guilty about time you spend in a knitting circle, because you'll be working on something productive, too.

3. You can organize around a charity cause.

Maybe you've got more sweaters and scarves than you can shake a stick at. Maybe you live in the desert and have no good reason to knit for yourself, but you love to do it anyway. Well, when you start a knitting circle, you and your pals can knit for any number of charities that distribute blankets and winter clothes to the homeless, blankets for shelter animals, or booties and bonnets for preemies. You'll be surprised at how quickly you can make a blanket when you start a knitting circle and everyone makes squares for it.

4. You can start your own small business.

If you and your pals could use some extra money (and who couldn't?), start a knitting circle to start your own collective business. One person knitting alone may not be able to produce enough to keep the business going, but with lots of people, you can amass quite a variety of stock in no time. If everyone pitches in to make the website, advertise, and ship, you'll have your own business with only a fraction of the hassle of going it alone.

5. You can share knowledge and resources.

No matter how long you've been knitting, you're going to run into snags. Instead of searching for a good instructional video online or trying to make sense of oddly-worded book instructions, someone in the knitting circle will know what to do.

When you start a knitting circle, you'll have the advantage of real-life tutorials and suggestions from people who actually care what your daughter's winter hat will look like when you've finished. You can also use your knitting circle as a place to give away that yarn you know you'll never use or pick up someone else's leftovers.