Product Review: Annie's Hook & Needle Kit Club

When I'm not decorating cake, my other passion is crochet (and crafting).  I have been getting mailings for a while now from Annie's Hook & Needle Kit Club and have been tempted but just haven't broken down and tried it.  I finally decided to give it a shot recently.  The first kit is $8.99 plus shipping....so the total of this particular kit was roughly $15.  All kits after that are $18.99 before shipping.  This kit came with a gift....pictured on the left....a crochet & knitting stitch guide.  It's a very nicely put together pamphlet with lots of references for knitters and crocheters.  It shows you abbreviations and pictures of basic stitches.  A really nice reference to keep and refer to.

The kit itself comes each month with the yarn needed to complete the project plus the instructions written for BOTH crochet and knitting.  You get to choose which way you will construct it.  Personally, I'm not very good at knitting, so I chose to crochet.  The booklet pictured above in the pack with the yarn was eight pages long. The first four pages gave instructions to make two different scarves and the two different skeins of yarn are laying there in the bag with it.  All I needed were my tools:  A crochet hook, scissors, and a needle for sewing in loose ends.

I started with he white one which makes a frilly scarf.  It was classified as an "easy" pattern, and I totally agree with the pattern writer.  It was six rows total, and it was done basically in all single and double crochet. Any beginner crocheter could do this scarf.  I clocked my time with a stopwatch as I worked on it, and it took me exactly 4-1/2 hours from start to finish to complete the white one.  I'm going to try the red one next.

In the picture here you can see the two scarves as they would look if knitted as well as a picture of the two scarves as if they were crocheted.

I thought the patterns were well written, easy to understand, and categorized correctly in terms of difficulty.  I thought the white one was such a nice pattern that I would consider doing another one in the same pattern.  A total of 4-1/2 hours...  that can be (and was done) in one day.

I'm anxious to try the red one next!

Whenever I work with yarn, I always stop and roll it into a ball.  I have a special holder that is a clear plastic container with a hinged lid on top that has a hole in the lid.  I pop the rolled up ball of yarn inside and thread the loose end through the hole in the top and that gives me a safe, clean place to keep the yarn, and the ball spins around as I work on my project, making it easy to work quickly and not having tangles in my yarn.

I have this particular container in several sizes.

For the white scarf, the yarn supplied for the project was sufficient to make one scarf, and I estimate that I have enough left to do about a third to a half of another scarf.  I'm going to place the rest of this yarn in my "stash" and pull it out sometime when I need a small amount of thin white yarn.

The finished scarf looked really pretty and is all ready to wear!

Now....will it be mine?  Or will I end up gifting it to someone?  Or will I sell it?  Only time will tell.

I think the quality of the yarn and the wonderful set of instructions, plus the ease of use, made it a great value, and I am looking forward to next month when a different kit arrives.  Whatever it is, I'll have the choice between crochet and knit once again.  Now to get the red one done!

If you have been on the fence about whether to subscribe to this club, let me tell you, I think the value is worth it, and I wouldn't hesitate to sign up!

Does anyone need a scarf???