3 Reasons Beginners Should Look Forward to Vogue Knitting Live 2022

One day in late 2017, my mom suggested we go to an upcoming event she learned about while shopping in a local yarn store called Vogue Knitting Live. Even though I knew how to knit at that point, it wasn’t something I was doing frequently, so I imagined I’d be going just to keep her company. Little did I know, Vogue Knitting Live would be the spark I needed to really advance my knitting skills and find patterns that were worth wearing. 

And for me personally, Vogue Knitting Live really represents what this blog is all about: focusing on learning new skills and witnessing both my abilities and confidence grow as a result. I’ll never forget walking around the event for the first time feeling intimidated and how different it felt to return a year later. It was remarkable. After my first Vogue Knitting Live, I went home and learned how to do a provisional cast on, use double pointed needles, change colors within a row, and (the dreaded) kitchener stitch. And that was all from just one project! Vogue Knitting Live inspired me to try just one new project that was outside of my comfort zone. Returning for a second time made me realize how much could change in a year if I really focused on stepping outside my comfort zone to learn new skills. 

Were it not for the coronavirus, this weekend would be our fourth annual Vogue Knitting Live, so I’m a little nostalgic. It’s really special to be around so many other creative people, and it’s where I gathered up a lot of courage to try new techniques. If you’re currently learning how to knit or crochet, here are three reasons to stick with the skill throughout 2021 and look forward to Vogue Knitting Live 2022. See you there!

But first, what is Vogue Knitting Live?

Vogue Knitting is a magazine that knitters can subscribe to for patterns, articles and more. In 2011, the magazine began hosting an annual event called Vogue Knitting Live, which is a traveling convention for yarn lovers that, according to their website, centers around fashion, fiber, and education. While the event is called Vogue Knitting Live, it’s not strictly for knitters. There’s something for anyone who uses or appreciates yarn. Vogue Knitting Live usually comes to NY around Martin Luther King weekend and is hosted in the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Though the event travels to cities around the country, I believe lots of people from all around the world actually fly into NY and make a mini vacation out of it! 

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1) Shop for more yarn.

Local yarn stores (LYS) and specialty yarn companies set up booths to sell their unique yarns and knitting supplies. Sometimes, yarn companies will even release a limited-edition colorway that can only be purchased at the event. The large (and sometimes overwhelming) number of LYS in attendance is a convenient way for people who don’t ordinarily live near these stores to buy high quality yarns. Nothing against crafts stores like Michael’s or Jo-Ann’s, but the selection in chain stores is frequently limited when it comes to the type of fiber, the weight of the yarn, and color options. By shopping for yarn from a LYS, you’d open yourself up to more fiber variety (you usually won’t find yarn made of angora, mohair, cashmere, silk, bamboo, linen, etc. at a chain store) and often find more unique colors... all while supporting a local business!

 2) Take a class and learn a new technique.

When you purchase your ticket to the event, there is also an option of adding classes to your package. These classes are often taught by “celebrities” in the knitting/crochet community: popular pattern makers, book authors, or business owners. These classes sell out really fast, and if it’s a really well-known teacher or popular technique, I’ve even seen seats fill up before a la carte class tickets go on sale. (This is because Vogue Knitting Live first opens ticket sales for vacation packages for out-of-towners, and these often include classes.) Once general admission tickets go on sale, class sign-ups are cutthroat. Make sure you review the available classes and rank the ones you’re interested in ahead of time. 

The first year at Vogue Knitting Live, we learned 15 Cast-Ons and Cast-Offs with Debbie Stoller, author of Stitch ‘n Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook, and more recently, we attended Susan B. Anderson’s class on how to knit a tiny toy hedgehog. My mom was just getting into knitting stuffed animals and toys at the time, and at least in our household, Susan B. Anderson is the queen of tiny adorable stuffed toys. Securing seats in Susan’s class was so exciting. Like scoring front row seats to a Beyonce concert exciting. In fact, while in that class, Susan told me she’d never seen a student try to knit a hedgehog with such tight tension before. And while I know she told me in hopes I would loosen up (I was on the verge of snapping my bamboo needles), I can’t help but believe I made an impression. 

3) Find inspiration. Commit to taking on new crafting challenges.

In addition to buying yarn and taking classes, Vogue Knitting Live also features so many opportunities for inspiration. From yarn art displays to a fashion show of knit clothes, Vogue Knitting Live makes it clear that there’s no limit to what could be done with some yarn and a little thinking outside the box. I’ve seen things like a gigantic blanket version of Claude Monet’s “The Water Lily Pond” made out of tiny knitted squares, an absolutely charming landscape of miniature gnomes made completely out of felted wool, tiny gnomes having fun in a ball pit, and some more abstract pieces. It’s virtually impossible to attend this event and not walk away feeling inspired. I also left with a collection of trendy patterns to add to my Ravelry queue!

There are also a few opportunities to get your hands on some yarn. One being a “tasting bar” where you can sample what it’s like to knit with certain featured or popular yarn brands, and another opportunity at the infamous yarn toss. The toss is one of my favorite parts of the weekend-- event organizers toss free skeins out into a packed crowd of excited attendees. And who wouldn’t love that?

Tory Tries to Crochet

Me and my mom at Vogue Knitting Live 2018. When I saw this flamingo, I knew I needed to learn how to make a (slightly smaller) version for myself.

I first became interested in learning to crochet the first time I went to Vogue Knitting Live in 2018. My mom and I were roaming the stalls looking to buy more yarn we certainly didn’t need, and we came upon a booth for a pattern book called Edward’s Menagerie. The booth was decorated with the most adorable stuffed animals hung on clear fishing line to look as though they were floating. And to top it off, they had a 10 foot tall flamingo. I made my mom take a picture next to it, and that was the moment I knew I needed to learn to crochet. 

Since then, learning to crochet has been my New Year's resolution every year for the past three years. I haven’t made much progress. This year, I hope to change that. If all goes according to plan, I’ll have to come up with a new resolution for 2022 because the first skill I’m chronicling on this blog is crochet! 

In the past, it was hard to stick with learning to crochet because I believe it’s really hard to teach yourself how to do something, even when YouTube provides an endless supply of teachers. In the “before times,” (when I had a commute and a busier social calendar) I wasn’t really left with a lot of time or mental energy to sit down and focus on learning a new skill. And if I did have the time, I’d probably choose to knit because it gave me a greater sense of accomplishment. I could just pick up my needles and make something I’d actually wear instead of another practice granny square (or in reality, blue and purple rectangle of awkward length?) that I had no intention of turning into a blanket.

Teaching myself to crochet will be difficult for the same reasons as before, but this time, I will be accountable to you, my readers, and this blog.  And luckily for my crochet hooks (but unluckily for just about everything and everyone else), these days I have a lot more time to devote to learning. 

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Learning to knit was easy. I did so at 12 years old, sitting in the back of my parents car on the way up to Wyndham Mountain to go skiing. It was really the only time I ever felt like leaning to knit because it’s the perfect cozy activity to do while relaxing in the ski lodge after a long day of being out in the cold. My mom would cast on maybe 20 stitches, and I would go back and forth practicing the garter stitch. If I ever made any mistakes, I would just pass the project to the front seat, and it would come back fixed. I don’t know how I would have learned or maintained interest in knitting if she wasn’t there to help.

Learning to crochet will be different. I am living quite far away from my mom, and she herself only learned to crochet a year ago after resisting for the better part of the last decade. (I’m not sure why, but I think she finally gave in and taught herself when a number of her knitting patterns called for crochet embellishments.) I did take a couple of crochet classes at the Lion Brand yarn store in Manhattan back in 2018, but I never really committed the stitches to memory so I’ll be starting afresh this time!

From my past stalled attempts to learn to crochet, I did learn enough about it to be able to compare it to knitting. Knowing what I do about both, I think I would have preferred to learn crochet first. I find knitting to be much more straightforward. And since crochet seems more complicated to me, I’d rather do the harder thing first. Here is why I think knitting is more easier to learn:

• With knitting, all the “live” stitches you have to work are on the needle. In crochet, you don’t keep any “live” stitches on your hook. Knitting is very linear: you work all stitches on your needle in last on first off order. And in most cases (assuming you’re not trying to increase stitches) you don’t really mess with anything that isn’t on your needles. When crocheting, you make new stitches by poking your needle through loops, and they don’t necessarily have to be the same loops from your last row. From how I understood it, you can basically create a new stitch from…. anywhere. As someone who appreciates the linear and organized nature of knitting, I found this very overwhelming.

• There are only two stitches in knitting: knit and purl, and everything is a variation of those two stitches. After I had been knitting for a while, I would see patterns I liked that looked really complicated, and my mom would say, “Oh that? You could make it.” Every. Single. Time. It didn’t matter what I was looking at, she always said that if I knew how to knit and purl, I could make whatever it was. And she wasn’t wrong! With her encouragement, I ended up making a lot of complicated things I otherwise wouldn’t have attempted, and anything I needed to do always boiled down to a variation of a knit stitch or a purl stitch. With crochet, there are six basic stitches, and I think (according to my research for this post) there are even more that aren’t considered basic? During my past false starts at learning crochet, I had a hard time committing each of them to memory because there are so many. Crochet stitches are also tricky to learn because there are two sets of terminology used to refer to stitches: US and UK terminology. The term “double crochet” means one thing if you’re using a US pattern, and something else entirely if you’re using a UK pattern. 

For the above two reasons, I’ve always said that if I could go back and choose, I would’ve picked to learn the more complicated technique (in my opinion, that’s crochet) first. This is of course just a matter of preference, and I know that practice makes progress, regardless of the task at hand. The good news is that there’s no right or wrong order to learn-- if you want to start knitting first, go for it!

And if that didn’t convince you, here are some other reasons why I think it’s worthwhile to learn to crochet, even if you know how to knit:

• Crochet projects tend to work up faster than knitting projects because crochet stitches can be quite tall. Sometimes, knitting can be slow going. The size of your knit stitches depends on the size needle you use, the thickness of the yarn, and your tension, but not much else. With crochet, you can use stitches of varying heights, so depending on what you’re making, you may finish projects in less time.

• Crochet stitches use about 33% more yarn than knit stitches, but this produces a thicker, warmer fabric. Crocheted hats and scarves may end up being warmer than knitted ones.

• It’s easier to make rounded objects or more organic looking shapes which comes in handy when making stuffed animals. Some things just look better when crocheted versus knitted (and vice versa). Stuffed animals, or Amigurumi, is one of those things where crochet has the edge. Amigurumi is the Japanese art of crocheting stuffed and often small yarn creatures. They’re extremely cute and as of right now, the number one thing I can’t wait to do once I get the hang of crochet. Take a look at the snow crocheted leopard that my mom made Mike for Christmas. It would be really hard to achieve the same pear shaped body when knitting!

So, for the upcoming year, I’m going to spend some time teaching myself to crochet. I’ll share the resources I found most helpful, and talk about the challenges I’ve encountered. How will I know when I’ve “mastered” this new skill? The goal I’m setting for myself is to crochet one of the animals in Edward’s Menagerie. Hopefully, in a few week’s time with a bit of dedication and some good YouTube videos, I’ll be able to do just that!