4KCBWDay6 — A Tool to Covet

[bunrab]

Write about your favourite knitting or crochet (or spinning, etc) tool. It can either be a tool directly involved in your craft (knitting needles or crochet hook) or something that makes your craft more pleasurable – be it a special lamp, or stitch markers. Is it an item that you would recommend to others, and if so for which applications/tasks do you think it is most suited. Conversely, do you have a tool/accessory that you regret buying? Why does it not work for you?

Wow, I don't really have a favorite tool, honestly. I have a fairly large knitting bag - some friends refer to it as my "war zone" knitting bag, since it is made of the kind of industrial orange Kevlar-ish fabric that professional photographers used to haul their equipment in, when they were visiting such places - but it's not my favorite thing, the way my friend Angela's new messenger bag with a Tardis on it is her new favorite thing. And while I like having a swift and a ball winder, they aren't really favorite things, either. I like my interchangeable needles from KnitPicks - thank you, Larry! - but again, to call them my favorite knitting tool would be to exaggerate. I don't use any one tool or thing so intensively that I could call it a favorite. Nor do I have any one tool I recommend that everybody just has to get and try for themselves. (That's often how I decide to answer the question of my "favorite book" - which one have I been boring everybody to tears by repeatedly insisting they have to read it?)

However, there is something I do frequently wind up recommending to other crocheters, and that's that they investigate the difference between Susan Bates-style crochet hooks and Boye crochet hooks. I personally find that I crochet much better, faster, more even tension and control, less yarn-splitting, with Bates hooks. Many people don't even realize there are different styles of heads on crochet hooks, and that depending on how one happens to hold one's hook, and one's hand size, and preferred types of yarn, the different heads on different crochet hooks can make a huge difference in how easy and comfortable crocheting feels. Boye heads are pointier, and taper gradually down the length of the hook and the throat; Bates heads are less pointy, and the tapering to full width is almost immediate, so that the throat is the same width, all the way along it, and the hook part of the hook is also the same width as the throat. This probably won't make sense to you just trying to imagine it, but go look at them in the store, and compare one of each kind, and you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that the Bates is necessarily better for everyone, but if you constantly get annoyed using one kind, because poking the head through the stitches seems difficult, or you frequently find yourself splitting yarn, try the other kind and see if that makes a difference.

If it's any help, I use a "knife" hold on my hooks; I don't know whether the use of knife hold versus pen hold affects which kind of head one feels more comfortable with. But it may be a factor. Since many people have noted that I crochet fairly fast (not Guinness Book fast, never been interested in trying for that, but fast) and that I can crochet in the dark, or while otherwise looking at something else entirely, I don't think there would be any point to going to a pen hold I'm not comfortable with, just to try hooks again that I don't like, to see if it makes a difference.

Most of the wooden crochet hooks I've seen - mass-produced bamboo ones, hand-made ones out of exotic woods - have had Bates heads. They may be easier to turn (as in, on a lathe) than the tapering Boye heads, perhaps that's why - but I have seen a very few Boye-style hand-made hooks, so it's obviously not impossible. If you are considering buying someone you know a fancy handmade hand-carved ebony crochet hook as a gift, it would certainly be worth finding out which type of head they prefer first; it would be a shame to spend that much money on one crochet hook and then have the recipient not enjoy using it.

This post will have been entirely unintelligible to anyone who doesn't crochet.

Comments

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

I prefer the Boye crochet hooks, because they're pointier, and I use a pen hold, as well. That's one of the reasons I've never bought any of the beautiful wooden hooks I've seen: they don't have the Boye-type head on them.