By Tawni Rogers
Anytime you get into a serious craft, you know how quickly it takes over your life. How many people here have craft rooms, quilting rooms, space in their garage, things everywhere? I have the same for my crochet.
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I have a little craft chair that is in the corner of my living room, and the side table holds everything that I might need for whatever project I'm working on at the moment. It's not organized, it's not pretty, but there are a lot of tools that I've collected over the years that I use all the time.
One thing would be stitch markers. I have a little bag of stitch markers. I don't use them all the time, but when I need them, it's really nice to have them within arm's reach.
I also have my little book of hooks that sits there, and I can grab any size I need at any time.
The Pottery Yarn Bowl a Friend Made Me
Now, none of this is really in a craft bag, but I have various places where I put everything. I have a yarn bowl that sits on my table that I can feed my yarn through. I also put my scrap yarn in there if I have just a little left over for using something, so that I don't forget to use it up and not waste it.
That bowl also holds bobbins that I've got in there for my yarn. When I'm making my throw blankets, a lot of the time I'll need bobbins to do tapestry work and more complicated designs. This bowl was gifted to me by a friend.
She makes pottery and handcrafted this custom bowl for me to use!
Why I Gave In and Bought Stitch Markers
When I first started crocheting, I thought stitch counters were kind of ridiculous. I didn't understand why you might need a marker for your stitch or why you wouldn't be able to find where you started and stopped. But I quickly learned that was foolish of me.
I do now have stitch markers. They're in a little bag. Different colors I can use for different projects or make note of things.
For example, maybe I'll use green ones to denote that that's the back of something and pink ones to denote that that's the right or wrong side of something. When I first started crocheting, though, I did not have stitch markers. I used things like scrap yarn or paper clips that I would slip in the stitches so that I would know where to start and stop.
However, this is a really cheap tool to buy if you're getting into it. If you find that you need some really good stitch markers, it's a couple of dollars to buy a bag like this.
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You'll also see pictured here my neck light that I cannot work without! It helps me see my dark yarn and be able to work in those darker winter months without having to have all the bright room lights on.
Simple Scarves and Hats for the Road
When I'm traveling and I want to continue working, I try to pick something really simple to take with me. A lot of projects will require you to change the color of yarn and change your stitches, and maybe require a really intricate pattern that you have to have in front of you. You also can't travel with scissors, which means that it's harder to cut your yarn.
I have seen some people work around this by using fingernail clippers and things to cut their yarn, but I just try to make it as simple as I can. When I'm traveling, I just take a skein of yarn, whether it's a color or a cupcake skein of yarn that has multiple different colors in it, and I'll make scarves or hats, things that I have memorized in my head and don't need a written pattern or book for.
Also, things that don't require me to change colors or change stitches frequently or start and stop with cutting. This way, all I have to have is my yarn and my hook, and that's it.
The Night I Tore the Room Apart for Needles
I've lost my upholstery needles many times. It gets scary when they're on the floor and you can't find them; that happened to me a couple of months ago. I tore the room apart and could not find my needles.
So I ordered some more.
You can see I've got a little hedgehog friend that is my pincushion. Those needles come in handy when you need to sew in your edges or your extra yarn tails. It also helps me when I'm sewing together pieces of animals.
They've got to sew their ears or their legs on. I have different pieces. And having these really thick, not typically sharp needles really helps.
Neck Light, Good Hooks, and the Hedgehog
I think the non-negotiables I couldn't work without would be my necklight, especially at this time of year when things get dark really early, and you're working with darker colored yarns. Having my really good hooks, I can't pretend to work with hooks I don't like. It just makes it so unenjoyable for me to sit and craft.
Things like bobbins as stitch markers- you can always fake it with other things. You can use scrap cardboard for bobbins; you can use paper clips or safety pins for stitch markers. But I would really be lost without my little pincushion of needles, my neck light, and my nice hooks.
