Klutz Knitting product reviews

I was rather excited to get this Knitting pack to review. I learned some basic knitting as a child but never knew how to cast on or cast off and I think that whether I was doing a knit or pearl row was a bit of a guess for me!

The pink box appealed to me from the moment I saw it and was excited to see that the box contained everything I needed in order to learn the basics taught in the kit. Initially, when I was setting myself up, I thought that the part of the kit which contained the wool, needles etc should have been a bit more stable - I found that the box didn't stay closed and the wool kept falling out while I was trying to read the instruction book. After a while I looked more carefully and found that the book was designed to be untaped and you could slide it out. That made a lot of sense but wasn't initially obvious to me.

It is great that on the "what comes with this book", each item that is included in the pack is listed. It has exact descriptions so you can repurchase any lost items.

I followed the instructions to create a ball of wool and even though I thought I was quite methodical about it, I still got myself in a bit of a tangle. I used the over the chair method as I didn't have someone to hold the wool for me. My 11 year old niece tried the same kit out at her house and got into quite a mess and ended up having to cut the wool. I didn't let it faze me but I think that it could stop a young person from continuing.

As a child, I learned some of the basics of knitting so I had a little prior knowledge to fall back on. I found the instructions and diagrams worked well for me. I am left handed and I coped ok too. My niece and her mum (my sister), have no prior knowledge of knitting and found that the instructions and diagrams didn't work so well for them. It complicated things more that one of them is left handed and the other right handed. That is hard enough to deal with when one of the people actually knows how to knit. They really needed a person sitting beside them to help them out. I think that there needed to be more details for the absolute beginner. Perhaps some video clips online would be useful.

There are six projects to make in the book and I decided that I would go for the hat. I am finding that I am very slow at knitting and it will be a while before I have a finished hat. Interestingly, it doesn't actually tell us in the instructions what sized head the hat is likely to fit, so I am still not sure if I am making a hat for an adult or a child! The number of stitches required for the hats only just managed to fit on the needles. It might have been better to put slightly longer needles in the kit.

This is a fun kit which has rekindled my interest in knitting but I think it could do with some improvements for people who are new to knitting.

I put my hand up to review this as I have had a mild interest in learning how to knit for years and given how good the klutz kits are directions wise I thought that it would be a good aid in learning.

First thing I'll point out is that there are a lot more instruction pages in this book than I have seen in the other Klutz kits that I have reviewed and that is thanks to the fact that knitting is a tricky craft to learn, that being said I knew I'd give it a good go. I was frustrated within minutes, but that was my misreading the directions more than anything else. Once I got into actually doing the knitting it was slow progress but I got there in the end, slow and steady.

This tells me that you should be able to make most of the projects that are in the book (there are 6 all up) with the 200 yards of yarn that there is. My patience could only stretch to one and I have done a sunglasses case as that looked like the easiest to me. It didn't turn out that great but my four year old loves it so at least it is getting some use.

For a novice I still found this book confusing and I think it will be a year or two before I tackle knitting again.

I requested to review this as my 11 year old daughter has been asking me for a long time now how you knit. I am a complete novice knitter and have never learnt to cast on, however once someone has cast on for me I can knit a very basic knit pattern scarf. Which didn't really make me the best teacher of knitting for my girl. When I seen this I instantly thought haha this could be just the ticket!

When we got it we opened it up and had a look through there are 6 projects in total including a cell phone case, a scarf, a beanie and others. Given that I had knitted scarves before I decided this would be our starting point. It looked quite basic and I knew knitting straight lines was within my skill level. So then it came to following instructions on how to cast on, the book gives you clear directions with visual aids but I still could just not get it. My 11 year old also didn't quite get how to do it so we had to turn to Granny to explain who ended up doing it for us.

Once the tricky task of casting on was complete we went about starting the knit. I started off showing Casidy how to do it before passing the needles in her direction. She kept dropping stitches at first so we went back and started again as it was starting to look pretty holey and I wasn't sure how you pick the stitch back up once you have dropped it. We haven't got very far at all to be honest after spending most of the day on it but it is coming along and I will update with photos on facebook once it actually resembles something worthy of a picture lol.

All in all I think the kit is pretty cool although the process of knitting and trying to help a beginner learn the basics is extremely frustrating. I think we will get there and I think knitting is a cool craft to learn which is starting to get more popular. This klutz kit makes knitting seem more cool and less like something your granny might do so a big thumbs up in that regards!