Want to Start Knitting?

According to the Craft Yarn Council of America, there are 50 million knitters in North America. The fastest growing population of knitters are between the ages 25 and 34. Knitting has become the trendy thing to do, with knitting groups, online communities, blogs mushrooming in their thousands and new yarn stores cropping up everywhere to feed these knitters' insatiable appetite for yarn.

Want to join the masses? How do you get started? Here are my friendly tips for easing yourself into this hobby.

Yarn store

Visit your local yarn store. If the sales ladies, or gents, in that store are anywhere near as nice as those in mine, they will welcome you with a warm smile. They can show you the best pattern books, yarns and needles to get started with. Often they also run classes on how to learn to knit.

The library

If you are a bit shy about walking into the yarn store with no knowledge at all, a visit to the local library could help. As knitting has become so popular, there are now more books about learning to knit, and with patterns, than there have ever been before. Taking a few of these home and familiarizing yourself with the terms used and the necessary tools will help.

On the Internet

The Internet is a knitter's paradise. I have my own blog (www.knittingnutter.com) on which I share my knitting accomplishments and failures, as well as ask other knitters for help. There is an endless supply of knitting help sites, blogs, forums, free patterns and stores online. Here are my favourites:

Learn to knit instructions: www.knittinghelp.com. This woman has gone to the trouble of filming every kind of knitting technique there is for anyone to download for free.
Free patterns: www.knitty.com. She publishes reader-submitted patterns every quarter.
Forums: www.knitty.com again. There seems to always be people online that you can connect with at this site's forum pages.
Store: www.knitpicks.com. There are a lot of stores, serving all kinds of yarn needs. I particularly like this store as they sell a great variety of yarn at low prices.
Knitting groups: www.meetup.com is a great source for finding a local group of knitters. One of the best ways to keep up your knitting is to make it into a sociable activity. Find and meet up with local knitters once a week.
Blogs: blogs are a great way to make new friends - to share and learn from each other. There are thousands of knitters that blog. I've organized my favourite blogs on bloglines - that way I can keep up with all the goings on. Here's my blogroll: http://www.bloglines.com/blog/Asaknitter.

Happy knitting.