What every hooker and knitter should have in their bags

Tip: What every hooker and knitter should have in their bags

What you should have in your bag

After becoming bi-craftual (a crocheter AND a knitter) I realized that there are certain things I must carry with me in my main work in progress bag. I know some of these things are obvious but some might not be. So here is what I feel every crocheter and knitter should have in their bags:

A. Liquid Stitch Stitchless Sewing – I found this product over a year ago when I read a post on craftster.org about some people using various glues to glue down their ends. This is the best product I have found for this purpose so far. You can both weave in your ends and then snip them down very low and put a dab of this glue on it. Your project will NEVER fall apart. It is a permanent glue that dries completely clear and will not come off if you wash the garment in a machine. It is about $2.50 for a tube at walmart, and about $2.99 at Michaels. It can be found in the sewing notions areas.
B. Gauge check & needle chart – These are easily available everywhere yarn crafts are sold. The one pictured is made by Susan Bates. While I don’t particularly like the brand for their needles and hooks, I have to say this little tool is very helpful. If you are a crocheter learning to knit, one of the easiest bind off methods is to knit off with a crochet hook. However, in order to avoid having an extremely tight or extremely loose bind off you have to know which hook is equivalent to your needles. This chart shows you that. It can also tell you what size hooks or needles you own if you have any unmarked ones (i noticed that a lot of circulars are unmarked so this is really helpful for that).
C. Paper and writing utensil – The more you crochet or knit, the more you will find that you will make modifications to patterns. For example, I wanted to modify an adult hat to an infants. I used different sized needles and a different number of cast on stitches to do this. If you’re not near a computer, a paper and pencil is perfect to jot this information down.
D. Crochet Hook – Even if you do not crochet, a hook is useful for many projects. Like I mentioned above, you can use it to bind off or you can use it to help pick up stitches or fix messy looking stitches on your knitted project. Make sure you always carry the equivalent hook to your needles, though!
E. Knitting Needles – These are self explanatory. If you knit, your needles are a must!
F. Scissors – Also a serious must because without scissors you can’t change colors, bind off a project, or finish anything!
G. Measuring Tape – Even though you might have a gauge tool like the one outlined in B., you still need a measuring tape. Example situations include wanting to make a hat for yourself or someone else but don’t want to make it the wrong size, or if you want to make a cozy to fit your ipod but you need to know the size of it. A Measuring tape is an indispensable tool in your bag!
H. Markers and Clips – If you are a crocheter, you need a removable type stitch marker so that your marker does not get stuck in your project (the pink heart shaped marker and the earring style marker with the blue beeds are perfect examples). If you are a knitter, you need stitch markers with a ring, especially if you plan on knitting in the round (the purple marker on the far right is an example of a knitter’s stitch marker). Finally, these hem clips that look like hair clips are perfect if you are making an afghan composed of squares. I used it on my last granny square afghan and highly recommend it. You can use these clips to “piece” together your afghan before you sew it together. It’ll help you keep a row of squares together while you’re sewing them or you can simply use these to see how your finished afghan will look like incase you want to make any changes to it.