Fiddlesticks — My Crochet and Knitting Ramblings: A Love Letter to Yarn, Hooks, and the Beautiful Mess of It All

There’s a particular kind of quiet that comes with having a hook in one hand and a ball of yarn in the other. The world narrows down to a single chain, a single stitch, and the rhythmic pull of the thread through your fingers. If you’ve ever sat down at the end of a long day and reached for your crochet hook or knitting needles almost out of instinct, you already know exactly what I’m talking about. Welcome to Fiddlesticks — my little corner of the internet where I ramble, share, and celebrate everything to do with yarn crafts.

I’ve been crocheting and knitting for more years than I care to admit, and in that time I’ve accumulated not just a very respectable (my husband says unreasonable) stash of yarn, but also a whole collection of thoughts, opinions, half-finished projects, and hard-won lessons. This blog is where all of that spills out. So grab your WIP, settle in, and let’s talk yarn.

How It All Started (And Why I Never Stopped)

My introduction to crochet was unglamorous. A friend handed me a hook and a skein of scratchy acrylic at a kitchen table one rainy afternoon and said, “Here, it’ll keep your hands busy.” She was right. Within twenty minutes I had produced something that looked like a crumpled dishcloth, and I was absolutely delighted with myself.

Knitting came later, and I’ll be honest — it was harder for me to love at first. Two needles felt like too much coordination when one hook had been serving me so well. But there’s a texture you can get with knitting that crochet simply can’t replicate, that fluid, drapey fabric that looks like it belongs on the rack of a boutique. Once I finally got through a simple stockinette swatch and held it up to the light, I understood what all the fuss was about. I’ve been a two-craft household ever since.

What keeps me coming back, after all this time, is the combination of creativity and predictability. A pattern gives you a road map, but the choice of yarn, colour, tension, and tiny personalizations make every finished object uniquely yours. There’s also something profound about making something with your hands in an age when so much of what we consume is digital and disposable. A handmade sweater, a crocheted blanket draped over the back of a sofa — these things have weight and history.

Crochet vs. Knitting: Do We Really Have to Choose?

I get asked this constantly. “Which one is better?” And my answer is always the same: both, obviously. But since people seem to want a more considered response, let me give you one.

Crochet is, in many ways, more immediately forgiving. Because you’re only ever working with one live stitch at a time, you can put your project down mid-row without catastrophe. Dropped stitches are easier to recover from. Amigurumi, granny squares, three-dimensional shapes — crochet handles all of these beautifully. The hook is also portable in a way that a pair of long needles isn’t always, and there’s a whole subculture of crochet that travels everywhere in small project bags tucked into handbags and backpacks.

Knitting, on the other hand, produces a fabric that many people find more elegant for garments. The stitches are smaller and more interlocked, which gives you more drape and a finer feel, especially when you’re working with a luxurious fibre like merino or cashmere. Colourwork in knitting — fair isle, stranded, intarsia — can achieve a level of painterly detail that’s hard to match in crochet. And there’s a particular meditative rhythm to knitting, the needles clicking softly, the work growing steadily, that I find almost hypnotic.

The crafts complement each other more than they compete. I often use crochet to seam knitted garments, or to add a crocheted edging to a knitted shawl. Understanding both gives you a flexibility that neither alone provides, and it means you’re rarely bored, because when you tire of one, the other is always waiting.

The Yarn Stash: A Thing of Beauty and Mild Chaos

Let’s talk about yarn, because honestly we could talk about yarn forever and I would not get tired.

The stash is a deeply personal thing. Every crafter has one — that collection of skeins and balls and partial leftovers that accumulates over years of project planning, impulse purchases, and destashing pickups from friends. My stash lives in three large bins in the spare bedroom, a dedicated shelf in the living room, and, whisper it, a box under the bed that I pretend doesn’t exist.

There’s a particular kind of joy in the acquisition of yarn. The feel of it between your fingers in the shop, the way the colour shifts in different light, the story behind a hand-dyed skein from an independent dyer who mixed that colourway herself in a studio somewhere. Buying yarn is never just buying yarn. It’s buying possibility.

And yes, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about the SABLE principle — Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy. I’ve heard it said that the average dedicated yarn crafter buys yarn at a rate that, if they lived to two hundred, they might just about use it all. I think this is an entirely reasonable approach to life.

That said, I’ve been doing something I call a “stash date” every few months, where I spend an afternoon taking everything out, handling it, remembering what I loved about it when I bought it, and pairing it up with patterns that might finally give it purpose. It’s part inventory, part inspiration session, and part archaeology. I once found a skein of hand-dyed silk I’d completely forgotten I owned, wrapped in tissue paper like a gift from my past self. It became the most beautiful cowl I’ve ever made.

My Favourite Things to Make (And the Projects I Keep Starting and Never Finishing)

Blankets are my great love and my great nemesis. I adore the idea of a blanket. The scale of it, the impact it has in a room, the warmth it carries. I start blankets with tremendous enthusiasm and then, somewhere around row seventy-three, I hit a wall. The blanket is big enough to be awkward and still small enough to be nowhere near finished, and it sits in a bag looking reproachful for months. I have three blankets in various states of existence right now. One of them I started in 2022.

Socks, on the other hand, I can finish. There’s something about the small, contained nature of a sock, the way you can work through it in a week or two, that satisfies the part of my brain that needs to see completion. And hand-knitted socks! If you haven’t worn them, you truly cannot understand. They’re warmer, softer, and more structurally interesting than anything you’ll find in a shop. I’ve converted several sceptical non-crafters by simply making them a pair of socks and watching their faces when they put them on.

Shawls are my spiritual home. Crocheted lace shawls, asymmetric knitted shawls, big cosy triangle wraps in squishy yarn — I love them all. They’re wearable, they’re gift-able, they photograph well, and they let you play with colour and texture in ways that a more structured garment doesn’t. If you follow me here for any length of time, you’ll see a lot of shawls.

Garments are where I’m still finding my confidence. Knitting a sweater is an act of optimism. You commit to a size, work for weeks, seam everything together, and then there’s that terrifying moment when you try it on. I’ve had sweaters that fit beautifully and sweaters that have never been discussed in polite company. What I’ve learned is that swatching is non-negotiable (even when it feels like a waste of time and yarn), and that ease is everything. When in doubt, go up a size.

Tools I Actually Use and Swear By

Over the years I’ve tried every hook, needle, and gadget imaginable, and I’ve arrived at a core set of tools that I genuinely love.

For crochet, I’ve become a firm convert to ergonomic hooks. I spent years with basic aluminium hooks and thought the fuss about ergonomics was overblown, until I developed some wrist discomfort and was forced to reassess. The difference a well-balanced hook with a comfortable grip makes to a long crocheting session is not subtle. I now have a full set that I reach for almost exclusively.

For knitting, I use interchangeable circular needles for almost everything. The ability to switch tips and cables means I don’t need forty separate pairs of needles cluttering up my storage, and circulars are better for large projects anyway because the weight of the work rests in your lap rather than on the needle tips. I use double-pointed needles only for the very tips of sock toes and top-down hats when nothing else will do.

A good row counter is underrated. I used to rely on scraps of paper and my own memory, both of which failed me regularly. A digital row counter that I can click without looking has saved more projects than I can count.

And stitch markers. So many stitch markers. I have stitch markers in little dishes, in a tin, in every project bag. I use them to mark the beginning of rounds, to hold my place in a pattern repeat, to flag increases and decreases. If you’re new to either craft and feeling overwhelmed, my single most practical piece of advice is: use more stitch markers.

Reading Patterns and the Art of Trusting Yourself

Pattern reading is a skill, and like any skill, it takes time to develop. When I first started, a pattern that contained anything more complex than “chain, single crochet, repeat” sent me into a small panic. Now I can read a pattern the way someone else reads a recipe — scanning ahead, making mental notes, adjusting as I go.

The most important thing I’ve learned about pattern reading is that patterns are not infallible. They contain errors. They make assumptions about what you already know. They’re written by a human who crocheted or knitted one specific version of a thing, in one specific yarn, with their own particular tension, and then had to translate that experience into language. Treat them as guides rather than commandments.

If a stitch count doesn’t add up at the end of a row, first check your work, then check the pattern. If the shaping doesn’t look right, trust your eyes and your hands. This is your project. You’re allowed to adapt.

Written patterns, chart patterns, video tutorials — they all suit different learning styles. I mostly prefer written patterns with charts as a visual aid, but I know crafters who can only work from video and others who find charts far clearer than any written instruction. There’s no wrong way to learn a pattern, only the way that works for you.

The Community Side of Yarn Crafts

One of the best things about crochet and knitting is the community. And I don’t mean that in a vague, hand-wavy sense. I mean that the community of yarn crafters is genuinely one of the warmest, most generous communities I’ve ever been part of.

Online, places like Ravelry have created a kind of shared creative database that is astonishing in its scope — millions of patterns, project notes, forum discussions, yarn reviews, all contributed by crafters. The Ravelry model of crowd-sourced knowledge feels almost radical in the best way. And on social media, knitters and crocheters share their WIPs and FOs (works in progress and finished objects) with a generosity that’s refreshing.

In person, knit nights and crochet-alongs create a social fabric (forgive the pun) that I think is increasingly rare and precious. There’s something specific about crafting with other people — the shared focus, the conversation that drifts comfortably in and out, the passing around of someone’s almost-finished project for admiration. I started attending a local knit night about five years ago and the friendships I’ve made there are among my most valued.

A Note on the Mental Health Side of All This

I want to talk about this because it’s real, and I think we should say it plainly: yarn crafts have been genuinely good for my mental health. Not in a magical cure-all way, but in the very real, practical way that having something absorbing and satisfying to do with your hands can calm an anxious mind.

The repetitive motion of crochet and knitting is genuinely meditative. There’s research supporting the idea that it engages the same neural pathways as meditation, reducing cortisol levels and promoting a sense of calm. I don’t need a study to tell me that, because I’ve felt it in my body — the drop in tension when I pick up a hook, the slight slowing of breath, the narrowing of focus to the immediate and manageable.

Making things also counters the feelings of helplessness or unproductivity that anxiety can bring. Every stitch is evidence that you can do something. Every finished object is proof of sustained effort and patience. When the world feels large and uncontrollable, a small, beautiful, handmade thing is an anchor.

If you’re coming to yarn crafts for the first time and you’re curious whether it might help with stress or anxiety, my honest answer is: it might, and it’s worth finding out.

What’s Coming Next on Fiddlesticks

This is just the beginning of what I plan to share here. In the months ahead, I’ll be posting pattern reviews, yarn reviews, tutorials for techniques that took me ages to figure out, honest reflections on projects that didn’t go to plan, and probably more than a few photos of my cat investigating whatever I’m working on.

I’ll share my thoughts on sustainable yarn sourcing, because the environmental side of fibre arts is something I think about a lot. I’ll write about gift-making — the joys and the pressures of it. I’ll talk about travelling with crafts, and the particular challenges of keeping a project alive through airport security and long haul flights.

Mostly, I want this blog to feel like a conversation. Like a knit night on the internet, where everyone is welcome regardless of skill level or how long their list of unfinished projects happens to be. Whether you’re just learning to chain stitch or you’ve been turning out intricate lace for decades, there’s a seat here for you.

Thanks for reading this far. Now go pick up your hooks and needles. There’s yarn waiting.