The 5 Essential Knitting Tools
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Here are my 5 essential knitting tools, a minimalist knitting kit if you will. These are the items I absolutely must have in my project bag if I’m not at home knitting.
1. Foldable scissors. Obviously we need to be able to cut our yarn. I’ve used other tools in the past, but now that I have these I’ll never go back. When I used small scissors with a little protective cover on the end it would fall of in my bag. Not helpful. Then I tried a pendant yarn cutter. I was worried that my WIP would get caught on it and get cut when I pulled it out. Yarn cutting pendants are super cool for wearing, but I don’t keep one in my bag anymore. (The adorable clippy charm on my scissors is from Yank Your Yarn.)
2. A darning needle. You may know that I don’t always weave in my ends 😬, but I always keep a yarn needle with me. If I seriously mess something up and need to put stitches on waste yarn, the darning needle is a must. Sometimes I’ll finish a project on the go and the only thing left to occupy my time is to weave in the ends. And, finally, if a loose end starts showing on the knit I’m wearing, I can grab the yarn needle from my project bag and weave it in! 🤣
3. Removable stitch markers. These can be lifesavers. If I notice a dropped stitch, I’ll catch it with a stitch marker until I get back to it on the next row. I use them to mark rows so it’s easier to go back and count later. When fixing a mistake a few rows down, I’ll hold the live stitches on either side with stitch markers so I don’t drop them. Which brings us to…
4. A stitch fixing tool. This little tool has a hook on one end and a point on the other. I use it frequently. You could just keep a crochet hook in your kit, but it’s kind of nice to have a smaller tool to keep your essential kit compact.
5. A retractable tape measure. Trust me. You don’t want to spend a whole road trip knitting and then get home and find that your sleeve is 5 inches too long. All that glorious car knitting time gone to waste!
That’s it! My absolute must-haves for my project bag. I promise I have a million more notions than this, but these 5 essential knitting tools are all I really need.
If you’re looking for good take-along knitting patterns, I recommend Downtime or Inanna. Both give beautiful results with minimal counting and the knitting is easy to read if you forget where you left off.
