My Genius Hour Reflection: The Supplies are Ready!

Today I was faced with the toughest decision (yet) of my Genius Hour project: choosing the yarn! Imagine walking through two aisles of a craft store where all of the shelves are packed with yarn in every colour imaginable! Beyond the multitude of colours, there was also thick yarn and thin yarn, glittery yarn and frilly yarn, wool yarn and acrylic yarn. How do you choose?! 

Thankfully I received some advice from my grandmother before I went shopping. She suggested choosing a yarn of medium weight. Very fine or light yarn can be quite challenging to work with as it results in very small stitches which are difficult to see and time-consuming to knit. Thick yarn helps the project to move along more quickly as it creates big stitches, but can be challenging to work with due to its bulkiness. Thus, yarn of medium weight is great for beginners as the size of the stitches are fairly easy to see and are not too time-consuming to knit.

Thus, after admiring the beautiful skeins of yarn for half an hour, I finally decided on this medium-weight yarn: 

Olij, B. © 2016
[Photo from personal collection]

My niece has beautiful blue eyes so I thought the mix of neutral and bright blue hues in the yarn would be a great choice for her.

The next step was to choose the needles. My grandmother has a seemingly endless supply of needles, so I was able to borrow a pair from her. As I learned in my research, the thickness of the needle determines the size of the stitch. Yarn packages typically recommend the size of needle that would work well with the weight of the yarn and the yarn I selected recommended size 5 needles. My grandmother had two pairs of size 5 needles; one pair was fourteen inches long and the other was ten inches long. This led me to do some further research on what length of needles was recommended for beginners. Most blogs and websites recommended the ten inch needles as beginner knitters tend to find the shorter needles less cumbersome to hold and work with. Taking this advice, I have decided to use the ten inch needles. If I find I am having trouble using these needles, I can always switch to the other ones. 

Overall, I have really enjoyed the first few steps of my Genius Hour project. While I have seen my grandmother knit a few times over the years, I never really knew the details of knitting. I have now learned that yarns have different weights, that needles have different thicknesses, and that it is important to consider these details when deciding which yarn and needles you want to use for a particular project. I love learning new things, so it has been fun to research and explore a new topic. Through this process, I have also learned how useful blogs can be in providing information, ideas, and advice. It has been really helpful to read the experiences of other knitters and to gain new insights as these knitters share their knowledge and advice. It is amazing to see how the Internet allows knitters from all over the world to connect and create a learning community where they can share their ideas and learn from one another. I am excited to take what I have been learning and to apply it to my own project as I prepare to begin knitting my scarf!