Everything You Need to Start Knitting, According to Experts (2024)

When she’s recommending yarn for beginners, Berta Karapetyan, author of Runway Knits and owner of New York City’s oldest yarn store, School Products Yarn, tends to choose single-ply yarn that won’t get split while knitting in a light color that makes it easier to see each stitch. Purl Soho’s merino wool yarn is a popular choice among beginners since it meets all of these requirements and also feels plush and cozy. “It’s a nice, chunky weight so you can accomplish your first project [quickly] and not get bogged down in hundreds or thousands of stitches,” says Whitney Van Nes, vice president of communications and editor-in-chief at Purl. “We feel like you should always be inspired by the materials you’re using. Happy yarn makes you feel great.”

Advanced knitters might gravitate toward metal needles that make it easier to knit at a faster pace as the yarn slides on and off them with less effort. But our experts explained that this slickness is often a stumbling point for beginners. “I find that metal needles can be a bit challenging for beginners because they’re so slippery that stitches can fall off,” says Heitmann. She and others suggest bamboo or wooden needles, instead, for new knitters who are focusing on technique, not speed. Heitmann and Chin are both fans of Clover needles, made from Japanese bamboo. Heitmann says, “I love all Clover products. They’re high-quality and they’re nice to look at.”

The yarn you’re knitting with will dictate needle size, with thicker yarn requiring wider needles, so it’s not like you’ll buy one pair of needles and be set forever. “That’s an important piece that a lot of beginners don’t realize and it gets overlooked,” says Heitmann. While beginners working off medium-weight yarn generally won’t require anything smaller than a U.S. size 10 (around 6 millimeters), as they move on to new projects and use finer — or thicker — yarn, they’ll need a new pair of needles. “For every new project, you need to buy new needles,” says Van Nes. “It slowly dawns on [beginners] that they need to buy so many needles to become a knitter.” Therefore, she recommends this set with 16 needles (U.S. sizes 0 through 15) that will work for a range of projects.

If you’re inheriting a set of needles from a crafty friend or family member and the size numbers have long worn off, you can use a plastic card, called a needle gauge, to check each one’s size. You might as well get one shaped like a fuzzy sheep.

“Little scissors are always necessary for cutting your yarn and when you want to change colors,” says Van Nes, and it’s important to have a pair just for your knitting kit. As Heitmann points out, “a lot of the time, general all-purpose scissors that people have in the kitchen are not particularly sharp. With a really nice pair of sharp scissors for cutting your yarn, you can cut more closely to the project and make a nice cut that’s not going to be unraveling. ” She likes the small, sharp embroidery scissors from Gingher, like this elegant gold, stork-shaped pair.

When you’re finally finishing up your scarf or neck warmer, you’ll probably notice tails of yarn hanging off various points that need to be woven in. Experts recommend adding a handful of tapestry needles to your kit, which you’ll use for these finishing touches.

If you’re starting to wonder where you’re going to store all this stuff, especially if you want to take your knitting on the go, you’ll be happy to learn about “project bags,” designed specifically for toting around your knitting supplies. Van Nes and Heitmann like the canvas bags from Fringe Supply Co., with their thoughtfully designed features that perfectly fit knitters’ needs. “They look nice, like a bag you’d carry around and not necessarily a knitting bag,” says Heitmann. “They have a couple of pockets, a flat base, a drawstring, and an easy-to-carry handle [that] make them pretty handy. A flat base is always good because if you’re at a table you can set it down and it’s not falling all over the place.”

For everything you need to get started, Purl Soho’s kits include yarn, needles, a tapestry needle, and patterns for three beginner’s-level scarves.

After starting a local knitting group of the same name in New York’s East Village, Debbie Stoller, also a co-founder of Bust magazine, wrote a modern guide to knitting, covering everything from casting on and binding off to quick fixes for dropped and extra stitches. Gaughan says the book “has launched and encouraged a whole generation of knitters,” and Chin says it’s one of the most popular titles at Knitty City. Stoller also hosts how-to videos on the Creative Bug YouTube channel, one that Gaghan calls a “fantastic resource for new knitters.”

For an on-the-go resource, Karen Bailey, a knitting instructor at Rows of Purl in Chester, New Jersey, calls this note card-sized manual “a fantastic little book.” Small enough to stash in your project bag, it includes illustrated instructions for different stitches, a reference chart to check your needle size, and much more.

First published in 1989 by the editors of Vogue Knitting magazine, this 350-plus-page tome got a serious update this year. Van Nes says it’s a “beautiful book” that’s great for “the entire life of a knitter,” with answers to newbie questions and advice on technique for more advanced knitters.