Glorious Notions

There are many great knitting and crochet notions out there, invented by some very creative people. They saw a lack and they filled it with a gadget specifically to aid the creators in need. While I respect and admire these people, I must confess that even more than finding a great amimono* notion, I love to find things that weren’t made for amimono but fit the bill nicely just the same. Or even to see a great notion and then see a similar tool out there that does the same job. My heartfelt thanks to all the tools (and their makers) out there that give me inspiration to find or make things that I would otherwise have to buy.

One such example is a set of knitting clips that you can buy and use in place of pins or basting your work together before seaming. Pins are almost more trouble than they’re worth (so I’ve heard, at least) and basting—well, heck, you might as well just go ahead and sew the darn thing from the get-go. So—voila!—knit clips were born to hold your edges together, making it easy to make that seam seamless. The moment I saw those, I went out and got some binder clips (the big kind that you use to keep a whole stack of papers together) at the 100-yen store. I can buy eight or ten clips for 100 yen versus much more money and inconvenience for the ones specifically for seaming. Plus, I can use them to keep my papers together too.

I know this is short, but I’ll continue to post more amimono gadgets and ideas in later entries.

*One thing I love about Japanese knitting/crochet is the fact that they have one word to describe all yarn/thread pursuits with either hook or needle: amimono. From now on, I’d like to use this word in place of knitting or crochet when I really mean both. Ami (as in amigurumi) means knit/crochet, pulling one loop of something through another, and mono means thing. Easy peasy. Amimono. Now try saying that 10 times fast!