Starting Knitting At 65 Plus: Basic Stitches, Ergonomic Needles, And Free Patterns On Ravelry

Knitting is one of the small set of hobbies that suits an older adult almost perfectly. It costs little to start. It can be done sitting in a recliner with the radio on. It produces a usable thing in a few hours. It keeps the hands and the eyes working together in a small steady motion that has been shown in occupational therapy studies to support joint mobility, hand strength, and a calm mood. The starting plan below is the simplest path from never having held a needle to a finished dishcloth in one afternoon.

The whole hobby rests on two stitches. The knit stitch and the purl stitch. Every pattern in every book and on every website is some combination of those two. A beginner does not need to learn anything else for the first month. A garter stitch scarf, which is the most common first project, uses only the knit stitch on every row. A stockinette dishcloth uses knit on one row and purl on the next. The visual difference between the two is striking, and the surprise that one tool and two motions can produce so many fabrics is part of what hooks people for life.

The starter supplies for a first project are short and inexpensive. A pair of US size 8 wood or bamboo needles, which are 5 millimeters in diameter and roughly 10 inches long. A skein of medium worsted-weight yarn in a light color, because dark yarn hides the stitches and frustrates older eyes. A pair of small sharp scissors. A blunt yarn needle for weaving in ends. A printed pattern with large type. Wood and bamboo needles are kinder to arthritic hands than metal because the yarn does not slip off as fast and the warmth of the wood feels easier on the joints. Many older knitters who started with metal needles in childhood switch back to bamboo after age 60 and never go back. Brands worth knowing include Clover Takumi bamboo, ChiaoGoo bamboo, and Knitter Pride Symfonie wood. A starter set with several sizes runs roughly 25 to 45 dollars at a local yarn shop or on Amazon.

The pattern library that drives most of modern knitting is ravelry.com. Ravelry is a free website with more than one million patterns, of which more than 100,000 are free downloads. After a simple email sign-up, a beginner can search by skill level, set a filter to Free, set the skill filter to Beginner, and find thousands of dishcloths, scarves, and washcloths to start with. The site also tracks projects, yarn stash, and progress, and connects to one of the largest crafting communities online. Source pages for this guide include ravelry.com, yarnsub.com for yarn substitutions, and the Craft Yarn Council at craftyarncouncil.com which publishes the standard yarn weight chart used by every pattern.