YarnoverChicago: Stitchual Orientation: born that way or don't stitch / don't tell?

Crocheted Rippled Wrap in Progress
(pattern by Cheri McEwen)
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rippled-wrap

Beginning students often ask, “Which is harder, knitting or crochet?” I usually answer that the craft you learn first is the easiest. But more often than not, other students will chime in with their opinions, and their opinions tend to be equally divided between knitting and crochet.

What’s my opinion? Well, I’m bistitchual, but I lean toward crochet. Generally, in crochet (unless you’re doing Tunisian or Afghan crochet), you only have one live stitch at a time. So if you find you have to rip back to correct a mistake, it’s easy to determine exactly where you are in your pattern, and to begin from that point. In crochet, you can’t really “drop a stitch.” If you find you’ve missed a stitch, you can just go back to that point and start again. In knitting, if you miss a stitch, the whole column can unravel like a run in a stocking (and we all know how attractive those are). Now if you’re knitting stockinette or garter stitch, a dropped stitch is pretty easy to fix; but if you’re knitting cables or lace, unless you’re a very experienced knitter you can forget it.

On the other hand, knitters will tell you it’s all just knit and purl. If you master the knit and the purl stitches, creating knitted fabric is just a matter of how you combine them. In crochet, there are many different stitches. The basic building blocks of crocheted fabric are the chain stitch, slip stitch, single crochet, double crochet and triple crochet. Everything else is a matter of combining and arranging. Generally, I find that crocheters who want to learn knitting complain that there’s no hook on the end of the needle to hold their stitches in place. Knitters who want to learn crochet complain that they hadn’t realized there’d be so much math involved.

THERE’S MATH INVOLVED?! Well, yes, I guess there’s math. But there’s also math in knitting. How many times have you watched a knitter on the subway counting her stitches? In my classes, the students who are able to visualize how their stitches will fall into place seem to be the ones who catch on the fastest. There are always students who simply can’t see how it works, but they can follow the written directions and achieve the correct results. Those students will generally prefer knitting. It isn’t that they can’t master crochet – just that to them, knitting is more intuitive.

My theory is that if in school you were better at geometry than at algebra, you’ll be better at crochet than at knitting. If you preferred algebra, you’ll be a knitter. So I guess stitchual orientation really is a matter of being born that way. And for that reason, I think we can all agree that knitters and crocheters should be allowed to marry and get yarn insurance.

But if you’re bi-curious enough, you can do both. So if you’re trying to decide which stitch is for you, I say try them both. You’ll know soon enough which you prefer. If you’re already a knitter – why not add crochet to your repertoire? Expand your horizons. We promise not to tell. And who knows? You might just fall in love all over again.