Knitting vs Crochet

I've come across quite a few people who see me crocheting a piece and they go, 'Oh! you knit!. That's nice. I used to knit too in secondary school' (high school in some parts of the world).

Or, now that I machine knit for a living when I tell someone I'm a knitter, a lot of them automatically assume I mean crochet.

If you are one such people who wonder, 'what's the difference?' 'Aren't they all just the same?', then this post is for you.

THE SIMILARITIES

Both knitting and crochet turn yarn or strings into things. But that is where the similarity stops for me. 

THE DIFFERENCES

1. The tools are different

With crochet, you use a hook to work your yarn into fabric. Most crochet is done using a single hook.

A Set of Crochet Hooks

 

Crochet Granny Square

 

Hand knitting, however, uses two knitting pins to work the yarn into fabric.

Knitting Pins with a Swatch 

Then machine knitting uses a knitting machine, which has multiple needles, to turn yarn into fabric. Watch the video below to see how I knit an ear flap hat using the  Brother KH930 knitting machine.

 

 

2. The Stitches

Crochet has at least 5 basic stitches, which can be worked into hundreds of stitch variations to produce really beautiful projects. 

Chain Stitch

 

Single crochet

 

half double crochet stitch

 

Double crochet stitches

 

Knitting, on the other hand, has just two basic stitches: the knit stitch and the purl stitch. These two stitches can be knit in different arrangements to produce, beautiful projects too.

Knit stitch and purl stitch

 

Using either knitting or crochet, you can create beautiful creations only limited by your imagination. If you learn how to knit and crochet, you can use both skills to create items like the hoodie in the main picture. It is machine knit but has crochet flowers.   You can get the pattern for that hoodie here. 

For more on different types of knitting machines, check out this great article from the knitting and crochet guild.

Have you noticed any other differences between knitting and crochet? Please tell me in the comments.