Knitting and Crocheting are the two most popular yarn crafts today. The growing crafting community is constantly on the lookout for new ideas and inspiration to practice knitting as a hobby. They use it to create apparel, accessories, and home goods.
While knitting uses two straight needles to make thread loops out of yarns, crocheting uses a single, hooked needle to make intertwined loops. Multiple of these crafted yarn loops make the final product. Here are some knitting statistics that you might find interesting.
Knitting During Coronavirus Pandemic
- Swiss online retailer Galaxus reported that sales of knitting needles, sewing machines, fabric scissors and wool “rose by 646%” from April 2020 to March 2021.
Sales of sewing machines alone increased more than 10-fold during the period, while sales of crochet and knitting needles jumped eightfold. (Source – HindustanTimes) - Notable people like Michelle Obama hooked onto knitting to pass time and manage stress during the coronavirus pandemic. (Source – Standard)
- As per survey, knitting is the most relaxing hobby that everyone can take up.
The survey was conducted with 2,379 participants. About 20 common hobbies were listed that help to reduce stress, including the likes of hiking and cooking. The participants were asked to wear a fitness band to track their heart rate which helped the team to find the lowest heart rate hobby in the activity.
The survey found that people who knit has a lower heart rate by an average of 19 per cent as compared to other participants who perform other activities. (Source – News18) - Hobbycraft, the UK’s biggest arts and crafts retailer, said that its “50 sewing projects for beginners” blog post had been its most popular post during the pandemic with searches for sewing machines, fabric and thread up 155%, 60% and 310%, respectively on the previous six weeks on the back of it. (Source – TheGuardian)
- According to Shira Blumenthal, brand ambassador and fifth-generation employee of the 143-year-old company, Lion Brand’s (that sells yarn online), their sales have been up 80 percent since coronavirus lockdowns began. (Source – Inc)
- We Are Knitters” founders, Pepita Marín and Alberto Bravo shared that their sales have increased 75 percent each week. They also had an increase in their social media following by 50 percent.
According to them, since the crisis, they have reached 3 million new subscribers. They also gained more than two and a half million views on their stories. (Source – Forbes) - Owing to a gradually surging trend of non-medical masks, or better called fashion masks, a lot of knitwear designers, brands and manufacturers all around the world are used their technical expertise to produce knitted face masks during the COVID-19 crisis. (Source – apparelresources.com)
Benefits of Knitting and Other Related Statistics
- As per survey, knitting is the most relaxing hobby that everyone can take up.
The survey was conducted with 2,379 participants. About 20 common hobbies were listed that help to reduce stress, including the likes of hiking and cooking. The participants were asked to wear a fitness band to track their heart rate which helped the team to find the lowest heart rate hobby in the activity.
The survey found that people who knit has a lower heart rate by an average of 19 per cent as compared to other participants who perform other activities. (Source – News18) - About 45 million Americans know how to knit or crochet. One-third of them buy knitting supplies at least once each month. Most buyers of knitting products are women aged 25-40. These are women who want to learn a new hobby. They also believe that knitting is cool and trendy. (Source – Forbes)
- In their research, AFCI found that knitting had a market worth $2.79 billion in 2016. This gave them an average knitting spending of $20.57 per household. They also found out that there 28.8 million American knitters and crocheters.
The research also showed that 71 percent of knitters and crocheters are female. Twenty-nine percent (29%) are male, and 37 percent are full-time employees.
77 percent of knitters buy their supplies from physical stores. 4 percent buy outside physical stores (can be online) and 19 percent buy from both sources. (Source – AnthonyThomas) - Knitting industry sales were $1.2 billion in 2019. The knitting industry has grown at an annual rate of 0.1% over the last three years. The average sales per knitting company were $5.5 million in 2019. (Source – Apparel Knitting Mills Research 2020)
- Yarn crafting like knitting and crochet were in Google’s top searches in 2014. The search even increased by 70 percent since 2013.
- There are over 7.3 million knitters in the UK and 53 million knitters in the USA. (Source – WATG)
- As per a survey, continental and English knitting were by far the two most common knitting styles. Nearly half of the respondents (46%) prefer the picking style whereas more than a third (35%) use the throwing method.
A little over 80% of knitters are right handed, around 10% left handed, and the remaining ambidextrous to a degree. The same is true regardless of geographical region. (Source – Susanna Winter Survey) - The worldwide export value of knitted or crocheted fabrics was approximately 36.42 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. (Source – Statista)
- Among knitters, we discovered that 69.6% of them are women, while 27.3% are men. The most common race/ethnicity among knitters is White, which makes up 55.8% of all knitters.
Comparatively, there are 22.3% of the Hispanic or Latino ethnicity and 17.5% of the Black or African American ethnicity. The majority of knitters are located in NC, Mount Airy and NC, Lumberton. (Source – Zippia)
