I guess I’ve always assumed Knitting was more popular than Crochet, because I’m so immersed in knitting culture!  But I’m totally wrong! 

According to a 2017 survey by the Craft Yarn Council, more than twice as many people responded that they prefer crochet to knitting.  51% of respondents prefer to crochet, 20% love both skills and 29% prefer to knit.  So, those of us who knit are in the slight minority!  71% enjoy crochet, and only 49% enjoy knitting.

I’ve created an infographic to summarize what I learned from the CYC study.  You can find it at the end of this post.

So, can this data be trusted?  It’s already 5 years old, and a lot has changed since 2017.  The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted how many of us live in the world, and how we move within social circles.  This means that many at-home hobbies had a huge boon in 2020-now.  I wasn’t able to find a more recent survey.  So, I took to Ravelry, the most popular pattern website in the world.  What I found is that there are almost 50% more knitting patterns than crochet patterns posted currently on Ravelry (Feb 21, 2022).  But is Ravelry just known as a more knitting-friendly site?  I analyzed just new knitting patterns posted between 2020 & 2022.  Of these, it was very close to a tie, with only 5% more knitting patterns than crochet patterns published during the pandemic.   This data makes a lot more sense, when viewing it in connection with the CYC study. 

So, apparently, crochet is more popular than knitting!