Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Knook...

I was in Joann's the other day with coupons burning a hole in my pocket.  I know, it's a rough life. Jake was roaming the aisles with Mims, trying to keep her amused while I took way too long to pick out the beads for the surfer girl necklaces and the friendship bracelets (beads were 30% off! Score!).  As they wandered, they ran across a package of Knooks and thought the weird little hooks looked like fun, so they brought it to me.  I threw it in the cart, since it did look like fun, even if I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting, and it wasn't on sale (and thusly, I would be able to use my 40% off coupon).  So my $9.99 Knook set was only $6-something, and with an additional 25% off-of-everything coupon (double score!) I think the final price was around $4.50.

I had read a review of the Knook on Planet June awhile back, and so I went back to try to find out what exactly I had brought home with me.  After re-reading her post, and the booklet that came with it, and then playing around with it for awhile, I can say, I think the set was worth $4.50 to me, but I'm not sure how often these will be used in the long term...

The size H knook.  My set came with a G, H and I.
Here's the deal.  If you know how to knit, this is a challenging, rather inconvenient way to knit.  It is fun in the beginning, but I am not a pleasure knitter.  **Okay, I'm going off on a tangent here, if you don't want elaborate back-story, just skip to the next set of double astrisks...  My first yarn-craft love is crochet, but I spent most of my twenties as a knitter.  A knitter with great focus and determination.  I went to classes, flew cross-country to workshops, and actually worked free-lance as a professional knitter finishing sweaters for clients that 'didn't want to screw that part up'.  It was not relaxing to me, ever.  I used to knit to get the item that I was knitting, not to enjoy the journey. On the plus side, I am a crazy fast knitter, so at least it wasn't too many hours of teeth-grinding determination to get through a set of hats for my family as Christmas presents... **  So for me, taking the relaxing, calming, peaceful aspects of a craft that I adore and putting in the extra frustrating knit/purl stitch aspect, not being able to 'throw' my yarn the way that I'm used to, and the fact that it's slower than just using knitting needles, made this a not so perfect fit for me...  

Until I realized that it was perfect for small amounts of knitting in the middle of my beloved crochet.  I've been lurking on a freeform crochet forum, and I've been reading Renate Kirkpatrick's Freeform Crochet and Beyond: Bags, Cushions, Hats, Scarves and More so I've been trying to think of some ways to add some freeform fun into my projects.  Once I thought of it that way, I couldn't wait to knook...

I was able to effortlessly switch between knitting and crocheting!  I didn't have to keep track of rogue knitting needles.  I had so much fun, before I knew it, half a scarf was done...

 But, now that it's halfway done, I've kinda run out of steam.  I took these pictures, but instead of bringing my project upstairs with me to sit in the air conditioning and work, I left it downstairs.  I'd like to blame the fact that I wanted to take a nap, but I brought a different project up to work on.  I'm sure I'll come back to it, but for now, I'm all knooked out.

xoxo

4 comments:

  1. I have seen these at wal-mart and have been planning on buying them for a while now, I can't wait to buy them now! Oh my gosh, that is awesome.

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    1. ♥♥♥ It was really fun to play around and experiment with them, but I'm not going to be starting a Knook Dynamite blog anytime soon. LOL!!

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  2. Hi Jaime,
    I can usually tell if an item was knitted or crocheted by just looking at the stitches, but this knook really throughs that skill right out the window. It looks really great AND hard to figure out, just by looking. GREAT JOB!

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    1. Thanks Mom! I'll show it to you the next time you come over!
      xoxoxoxoxoxoxo Jaime

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