Review: My First KnitCrate
If you’re not familiar with KnitCrate, it’s a membership subscription service that sends you a couple skeins of yarn, 2 patterns (typically 1 knit & 1 crochet), and 1 extra item each month, all for $24.99. You can choose your color palette preferences and from there, you’re all set! I’d heard a lot of chatter about KnitCrate and always thought about subscribing, so when I came across a friend’s link for a $5 box, I didn’t even hesitate.
The other really cool thing about KnitCrate is that the more you share it in the community, the more you get back: for every person who uses your discount link, you get a free box!. So with that being said, here’s a link for your own $5 box, if you’re at all curious! If you’re not sure, keep reading for my personal take on my first box.
Sign Up
Sign up is easy. I followed the link for the $5 box and signed up immediately for a monthly subscription. KnitCrate actually has a few crate options (their main membership crate, a sock crate, as well as quarterly partnership crates: one with Malabrigo and one with Mrs. Crosby Travels. Truth be told, I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before I sign up for that Malabrigo one — I LOVE those super saturated colorways.
After you pick which crate you want, you choose your color “vibe” — Energize Me, All Natural, Chill Out, or Anything Goes. I’m the most indecisive person on the planet, and the thought of cutting myself off from any option seemed like a no-go, so I went with Anything Goes! Plus, I like being surprised, and maybe even a little challenged, by what I might get.
Shipping
Once the crate makes its way to the post office, KnitCrate sends an email with a tracking number. I can’t really speak to the shipping speeds right now, it’s tough to really gauge what it would normally be like, since right now everything is shipping extra slow due to the pandemic situation… This first one took a couple weeks to get to me once I got the initial email, but mostly because it was stuck at a post office in Florida.
The Crate
Once my crate arrived, I was pretty excited to get my hands on it. I’d been following along on instagram so I had an idea of what was coming, but there’s some fun in not knowing exactly what you’re going to get!
My first crate was the May 2020 Blank Canvas — this was actually a joint partnership with Rebecca Brown from ChemKnits Tutorials on YouTube. Included were 2 bare skeins of Nice & Round 100% Superwash Merino (415 yards each) in fingering weight from Dyer Supplier, 2 flavors/colors of Kool-Aid (red & orange), a couple zip ties, and a set of colorful post-it notes. My little helper quickly stole my zip ties, which I’m still looking for. 🤷🏻♀️
The idea for this crate was to learn how to dye your own yarn, which is pretty different from most of the more straight-forward crates they do. To be honest, I was a little back and forth on my feelings about this; part of me just wanted to have ready-to-use yarn selected for me, but I was also intrigued. I knew that if this hadn’t literally been sent to me, I would probably never go out of my way to order bare yarn and dye it myself. I never even really considered it, actually. I love hand-dyed yarn, so why not give it a shot? Even if it ends up super ugly, I could always just re-dye it a darker, solid color.
The cool thing about KnitCrate is that you can check in on the hashtags to see how people have played with the dye techniques or even how they’ve used the finished product. I spent some time browsing through, seeing what I liked and didn’t like, and came up with an idea of what I wanted to achieve with my yarn. I watched a bunch of ChemKnits Tutorials on both solid color dying as well as speckling, and then even looked up some other videos on how to add my own non-Kool-Aid color.
And with that, I give you my final result!
Not to worry, I’ll share my entire yarn-dying process in my next blog post. Stay tuned!
Final thoughts on KnitCrate
Overall, I’m actually really happy with what I received in May, especially considering it only cost me $5. I’ve already gotten my preview for the next one, which I should be getting soon, and I’m impressed by the yarn qualities I’m seeing. Natural fibers in large quantities, not a bunch of icky acrylics - it’s a great deal. Thinking about the fact that even at full price, my crate would have been $24.99 for 2 skeins (830 yards total) of 100% Superwash Merino wool in fingering weight. My next crate will include 2 skeins (702 yards total) of Audine Wools Interlock (cotton, linen, lyocell, & nylon blend) in sport weight in one of 3 gorgeous colorways. This doesn’t even include the patterns and extra gift/accessories.
I think it’s absolutely worth the price. It’s also nice to look forward to getting mail. It’s like a birthday surprise every month, with bonus inspiration for my next project!
And one more shameless plug for a $5 box, if you’re interested 😉
