If you are new to knitting, or a seasoned pro, a knitting group might be just what you have been looking for. Joining a knitting group can offer you help with a new pattern, help completing a lingering project, new knitting project ideas, and the ability to make new friends with a very similar interest to yours.
You may have investigated the idea of getting some classes to help with your knitting and found that the cost is too high for your budget, or there are no class times which work for your busy schedule. A great alternative to the structure and cost of knitting lessons are knitting groups.
Knitting groups are simply a collective of people who get together to knit and teach each other things about knitting. Whether you have never knit anything or if you have a bunch of successful projects under your belt, you can benefit from a knitting group.
Here are four of the top benefits of a knitting group:
Benefit #1 – Learn New Patterns from People Not Books – Have you ever read a knitting pattern and went “huh?” Most everyone who knits does that at some point. The abbreviations get the best of us and we have no idea what a pattern is talking about, let alone try to knit it.
When you are a member of a knitting group, you can bring your patterns and knitting projects along with you to the meetings, and get help and advice from others who understand the techniques better than you do. Learning something like knitting is always better when you learn from another person rather than to try and learn it yourself from a book.
Benefit #2 – Help and Motivation to Finish Your Lingering Projects – Nearly every knitter, at some point, finds that they have an unfinished project which they are either stuck on, or that they have become bored with and abandoned. Knitting groups are great for finding help to finish up the project yourself, or for getting a volunteer who will happily finish it for you. Sometimes, even the act of showing your half-finished projects to other people can prod you along and get you finishing them up.
Benefit #3 – Make Friends Who Knit – One of the best advantages to a knitting group is that you will make new friends who also love to knit. While knitting is generally thought of as being a pretty solitary art, getting together allows you to learn from each other and also to simply make friends. At group meetings you can swap ideas and you can even make-up fun contests or community service projects. Your knitting group is truly what you make it. So, get involved in a group and help to improve it!
Benefit #4 – Get Ideas for Your Next Projects – It happens to even the best knitters, they run out of ideas for their next project. Sometimes you can look through a ton of knitting resources and nothing screams “make me” to you. When you are an active participant in a knitting group, you can see what everyone else around you is making and that can spark something in you. You might love the new yarn that someone is using and think of something you could make with it, or you might love a new technique and have just the right yarn at home to try it out.
No matter what your motivation is, there is a great knitting group in your area just waiting for you to join. There really isn’t any reason for you to struggle with your projects or making new friends when you can attend knitting groups and accomplish both goals at once. If you happen to live in an area where there is not an existing knitting group, maybe you should start one for yourself. Advertise with free flyers and get some other knitters to join you. Before long you will have a room full of happy knitters in your group.
