My criteria were that it had to be both beautiful and useful, be of great quality, would feel like a treat to receive and come from small, independent businesses as I believe makers should support other makers. This is not a sponsored post, I just wanted to share the love! I have shopped with many of these businesses before and for others I have admired their goods but haven't treated myself. Yet.
I'm sticking with knitters as that is what I know best but many of these gifts will suit the crocheters in your life too. Make sure you take a look at the other wonderful things these companies have to offer.
This is the Garter Stitch Printed Panel from Beyond Measure This lovely print is by the artist Jan Brewerton and has been digitally printed on cotton calico. It is £12. I like the focus on the stitches but also the strong image of the hands. As makers, our hands are our most important tools and we don't always give them credit.
The marvellous thing about this panel, apart from the great design, is how versatile it is. It could be framed and hung in your craft room, turned into a cushion for your knitting chair, made into a knitting bag or pouch as is shown above. It could also be embroidered on or embellished.
How true the statement is on this rather fabulous Tillyflop Designs tea towel! It is £10. Who wants to dry up when they could be knitting?! But sometimes these mundane tasks do interrupt our knitting time so why not make it better with this lovely tea towel? Of course, tea towels don't have to be used for their intended purpose. This could also be framed or made into a knitting bag.
My Random Makes produce textile accessories on a variety of materials using decorative free hand machine embroidery. These fabulous knitting brooches are a great way for a knitter to show their love for their craft. They could be worn as jewellery or pinned to your knitting bag. As they are free machine embroidered no two are exactly the same which is rather lovely. In the top photo those on the left are stitched on boiled wool, £7. The ones in the middle are button badges, £6. The one on the right is a medal, £10. If you have a particular colour in mind Wendy takes requests.
If you follow me on Instagram you will have seen another fantastic brooch from My Random Makes.
The best Christmas jumper brooch ever!
To the uninitiated this may look like a rather adorable floral sheep face with random holes in it but to a knitter this is an extremely useful tool! This pretty needle gauge from The Knitters Attic is one of the most glorious needle gauges I have seen. It is £6.50. The gauge measure the width of a needle and tells you what size it is. This is particularly useful if you are using double pointed needles as they don't always have the size on the needle itself, just the packet. Needle sizes also rub off needles through wear or, if like me, you use lots of vintage needles these are in the old needle sizes and a gauge will tell you the modern needle size. So, beautiful and useful. Tick. Tick.
Yarnisty have a great range of knitting goodies in their Etsy shop. These lovely leather knitting ribbed pattern key rings really caught my eye. They are £5. So handy and with a great pattern on them. I'm quite fussy about key rings, I don't like them too large or bulky or novelty like so I think these are spot on.
Max's World makes knitting themed jewellery and gifts for crafters. These knitting earrings with their tiny balls of wool and needles are such fun, I couldn't resist them. They are £10. The needles are silver plated. The earrings come in a wide range of colours. I liked the glitz of the white and gold pair and also the more subtle grey pair. You are sure to find your knitter's favourite colour.
A knitter can never have enough bags to put their knitting in. They need bags to transport the knitting around such as these gorgeous knitting bags from the fantastic Temporary Measure. To prove my point I can tell you that I have both of these. I love both the illustrations and the text which is so spot on and makes me chuckle every time. They are £12.99. All their bags are printed in The Lake District on either organic cotton or ethically certified cotton.
Knitters also need smaller bags that are ideal for an ongoing project. If you knit several things at once, like me, you might have each project in a small bag and then pop them all in your larger knitting bag. These project bags are £12 and whilst it was very hard to choose I finally went with the alpaca one. But, that raccoon is calling to me!
Finally, knitters need even smaller bags to put their bits and pieces in. Mine contains a pen, tape measure, tiny scissors, stitch markers, yarn needles, stitch holders and a needle gauge. These little cases are perfect for this job and are £10. Then you can just pick up your case and bung it in with whichever project you are working on, knowing you will always have all the tools you need.
I hope that has helped you find a gift for the knitter in your life, or indeed, for yourself. If you need one more idea, many local yarn shops do gift vouchers so you can give your knitter a fun shopping trip and still support a local business.
