Basic knitting uses two long, straight needles to “cast on” stitches. The two basic stitches are “knit”, and “purl” and all the loops are held on the needles while you work and until you finish them off. This means that all of the stitches on the needles are “live” at the same time. If you remove the loops from the needles without finishing off, your work will unravel.

• Two long, straight needles 

Basic crochet uses one needle with a hook on the end. You use the hook to pull up loops of the yarn through various parts of other stiches. There are more basic stitches with crochet. They are the slip stitch (ss), single crochet (sc), Half double crochet (hdc), double crochet (dc) and treble crochet (trc). All other stitches and patterns are variations of these five.

• One needle with a hook on the end

One of the biggest differences between crochet and knitting is that for crochet, there is only one live stitch at a time. This means that prior stitches are complete and relatively secure as soon as you move to the next stitch. For beginners, this may be an advantage because the work-in-progress is not as susceptible to accidentally being unraveled.

Is knitting or crochet easier for children? There are different sized needles and hooks, so either knitting or crochet can be done by crafters of all ages and skill levels. The number of different stitches for crochet may seem intimidating to young crafters, but it’s fairly easy to start with just two or three of them and build skills from there. Some crafters with small hands find the motion of knitting and the process of keeping tight tension while keeping all the live loops on the needles more complicated.

The great news is that you don’t really have to choose one or the other. You can learn both and then your crafting possibilities are nearly endless. If you’re a beginner, and you’re trying to make a fabric with a very tight weave, or something that will be stuffed, crochet will be easier to do and get the desired results. If you’re a more experienced crafter who is able to knit with a very tight tension, you may be able to achieve the same results with knit.

There is a learning curve with either craft, so for either one, expect to spend some time learning the ropes. Many projects come with both knit and crochet instructions, and there are endless instructions for converting one type of stitching to the other. It may be fun to create a craft project, like this gorgeous doll in a crochet pattern first, then convert the pattern to knit and work it again to compare the two. If you do this, be aware that crochet projects use about 1/3 more yarn for the same projects.