Scientists Studied 3,545 People Who Knit. Here's What They Found.

Most people assume knitting is just a way to pass the time. Something to keep your hands busy while the TV is on. 

But there's more to it...

In 2013, three researchers decided to check.

They surveyed 3,545 knitters around the world and asked what it actually did for them. The results were published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy.

Here's what came back.

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1. The more they knit, the better they felt

People who knit three or more times a week felt better than people who knit once in a while.

Better how? Calmer. In a better mood than when they sat down. Clearer in the head.

And it didn't matter how the day had gone. Whatever mood they were in when they started, most came out of it in a better one.

The people who sat down upset were the clearest case: afterward, fewer than 1% still felt sad, and eight out of ten said they felt anywhere from a little happy to very happy.

One thing worth noticing: what they measured was calm, not excitement. Two different things.

All of this, with only 3 hours a week.

2. It wasn't only about mood

The people who knit most often also reported the sharpest thinking.

That one surprises people. The benefit didn't stop at how they felt. It showed up in how their minds were working.

3. They were more social

Knitting with others improved happiness even further, and made people feel more connected and easier to talk to.

Knitting alone worked. Knitting together worked better.

4. Almost everyone did it for the same three reasons

Out of thousands of answers, the same three came back again and again: to relax, to handle stress, and to make something.

Nobody said they did it to fill time. 

What all of it adds up to

Four separate findings, and they point the same direction. Knitting made people calmer, sharper, more connected, and it worked better the more often they did it.

That last part is what makes this different from most wellbeing research. It wasn't a one-time effect. It scaled with frequency, which means it behaves less like a treat and more like a habit.

 Which raises the obvious question...

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Why does it work?

One of the researchers has a simple explanation. Knitting asks both of your hands to move in coordinated patterns at the same time, and that's enough to take up your whole brain.

There's no room left over for anything else.

There's no many hobbies that can activate both left and right sides of the brain at the same time.

A separate study found the same thing from a different angle. Knitters and crocheters regularly slip into a state of flow, where your mind and body work together without effort and time stops mattering. 

That's the difference between knitting/crocheting and scrolling. One asks something of your hands and quiets your head.

The other asks nothing and leaves your head louder than before.

So where does that leave you?

If your days feel heavier than they should, if you're wound up most of the time, if you can't remember the last Sunday that actually felt calm, this is the part that matters.

Knitting isn't just a way to pass time. It's one of the few things that asks your hands and your head to work together, and that's the whole mechanism. 

Three sessions a week is enough.

And it fits into the life you already have. It goes in a bag. You can do it on a plane, in a waiting room, at a coffee shop, on the couch while everyone else watches TV.

You don't have to carve out a quiet hour or go anywhere special.

Then there's the part nothing else gives you. Knitting ends with something you can wear, or hand to someone, or keep.

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But isn't knitting hard?

It's only hard if you start the wrong way.

It's hard when you pick something complicated and cheap yarn that splits as you pull it. Every row turns into a fight with the material instead of a break from your day. That's what makes people quit in week one and decide knitting isn't for them.

Here's what you actually need to start:

• Yarn thick enough to see progress fast. Thin yarn on a big project is how beginners lose motivation before the first payoff.
• Yarn that doesn't fight against you. Most yarns are not beginner friendly so they cause problems. You spend the session fixing instead of knitting.
• Yarn that doesn't itch. You're doing this to relax. Scratchy wool defeats the point. Plus, you don't want to wear that.
• Something you'd actually wear at the end. Most first projects end up in a drawer. That's the real reason people don't start a second one. If you can picture yourself wearing it before you cast on, you'll finish it.
• A video for the exact thing you're making. Not a generic tutorial. The actual design in your hands, so when you get stuck you press play instead of guessing.

Get those five right and knitting isn't hard. It's just repetitive, which is the entire point.

And that's exactly what we built our kits around.

1. Our yarns are 60% baby alpaca and 40% Peruvian Pima cotton. No plastic. Unlike ours, most of the beginner yarns are acrylic, and acrylic is what makes a finished piece look cheap and uncomfortable.
2. Our fibers are also what make the process easier, faster, and the result looks like something you bought, not homemade in a bad way.
3. Every kit comes with a video for the exact design you picked. When you get stuck, you press play.

(Our yarns are different because of Cloudtouch®, the technology that makes them soft as a cloud and easy to knit with. This is what makes our customers come back)

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Why knitting is making a comeback

If it feels like knitting is suddenly everywhere, that's not your imagination.

Searches for hobbies you can take outside, like knitting, crocheting, and embroidery, jumped 136% in just six months. And Mintel found that 71% of US adults said they had done a craft project in the past year.

Open TikTok or Pinterest and you'll see it everywhere. Olympic diver Tom Daley went viral knitting poolside at the Tokyo Olympics, and has called it the one thing that lets him switch off completely. Ryan Gosling told GQ Australia that a day spent knitting would be his perfect day. Demi Lovato picked it up specifically as a way to disconnect from her phone.

The reason lines up almost exactly with everything above. People are tired of how much of their attention their phones are taking, and they're looking for something that gives it back. Knitting happens to be the version of that with something wearable at the end.

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Three times a week

That's the number from the study. It's not much. It's less time than most people spend on their phone before lunch.

Start with a beginner knitting kit: a beanie, a scarf, a blanket. Something you can finish in a sitting or two, so you feel the payoff early.

And by the end of the year, you could have your first real garment finished. A sweater. A cardigan. A tank top.

Not bought. Made.

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This Is Our Mission

We want to make knitting cool again. The only way to do that is to make it easy for every beginner.

So if you want to put the phone down, this is your way out. Hands busy. Mind quiet. And a scarf or sweater to show for the hours, instead of a sore thumb.