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Which Cities are the Best for Crafters?

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Have you ever wondered which cities are the best for crafters? I hadn’t, either, but Liberty London recently crunched some data to find out.

In all they looked at 76 different data points for the 100 largest cities in America, such as the number of knitting and fabric shops, search engine data and posts on Instagram and TikTok. Based on this data they determined the cities where crafters are likely to have the most resources available to them, as well as other people to craft with.

Overall, San Francisco came out on top as the best city for crafters in the United States, and it topped the list as having the most knitting shops as well.

The full top 10 for overall crafting is

  1. San Francisco
  2. New York City
  3. Chicago
  4. Los Angeles
  5. Portland, Oregon
  6. Santa Ana, California
  7. Minneapolis
  8. Newark, New Jersey
  9. Jersey City, New Jersey
  10. San Diego, California

They also declared California the craftiest state, followed by New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Texas. (Though the first Texas city to make the list, Dallas, falls at number 24.)

Looking at Google search popularity, the most search for craft was pottery, at nearly 40 percent of all searches (unknown if that’s all people who want to learn how to make pottery or also includes people wanting to buy pottery, or even searches for the store Pottery Barn). Crochet comes in second at 25 percent, with knitting in third at a little more than 16 percent of crafty searches.

The city where knitting is most popular? According to the survey, it’s Portland, Oregon. (Having been there I tend to agree.) The survey says crochet is most popular in Minneapolis, and sewing in Atlanta.

Residents of Phoenix are most likely to post about crafts on social media, as determined by searching crafty hashtags on Instagram and TikTok. Phoenix tops the list for crafters on TikTok, while Pittsburgh crafters dominate Instagram.

If you don’t live in one of these cities and want to plan a crafty trip, head to San Francisco. It has the most craft stores and the most thrift and charity shops of any city in America.

Check out all the data including a list of the top 100 cities ranked by craftiness at the Liberty London website.

[Photo: Liberty London]

 

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Stacking Stars Knitting Pattern

There are so many things I love about the Stacking Stars pattern from Frankie Brown.

First, it looks like a kid’s toy, which it totally could be, though the intent is to stack the stars into a Christmas tree bit of decor.

I love the rainbow gradient, which makes it all the more cheerful, and serves as a reminder that, while you can plan out your colors beautifully, you can also use your stash for your own brilliant hodgepodge of a star tree.

It includes patterns for nine different sizes of stars, from 2 inch to 6 inch, which makes the perfect pile to look like a tree. What’s more, these stars are worked in garter stitch, so it’s a pretty easy pattern, even if you’re new to knitting. And the stars are solid, so not only can you use them to make your own amazing stack of a tree, you can make more to decorate packages, use as Christmas tree ornaments, make a darling garland, or all of the above.

The pattern calls for DK weight yarn but of course you could play with the yarn weight, too, to make stars that are even larger or smaller than the ones shown. And the bigger ones are made by just working more repeats, so you could continue to work as established to make larger ones to suit all your crafty purposes if you like.

Frankie’s patterns are free on Ravelry, but they ask that people who enjoy their patterns send a donation to the Children’s Liver Disease Foundation. Through the years they have raised more that £26,000 for the charity, which helps families of kids with liver disease. You can donate to Frankie’s fundraiser here. They have tons of great holiday projects and other designs you can check out on their designer page on Ravelry.

[Photo: Frankie Brown]

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