The Essential Guide to Buying Yarn for a Mother’s Day Gift

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So you want to buy your mom yarn for Mother’s Day, eh? Awesome! But I’m going to throw a caution flag your way: avoid buying yarn as a gift for a knitter unless you are familiar with their fiber preferences and the yarn requirements of the projects they like to knit.  You just want to be sure you’ll pick out something she can use and enjoy.

If you’re not sure, I promise she’ll love a gift card to Etsy, Knit Picks, Jimmy Bean’s Wool, WEBS, or her favorite local yarn store or craft store chain. But, if you know what mom likes and you’re ready to shop for yarn, here are some yarn gift ideas based on the projects your mom likes to knit.

If Mom Knits Socks…

You’ll want to buy fingering weight yarn labeled as sock yarn, this is typically made of special wool that won’t felt and it contains some nylon for strength.  Buy one 100 gram skein or two 50 gram balls so she has enough for a pair of socks.  Look at other socks she has knitted for color inspiration.  For example, I usually stick to solids, heathers, tweeds, or tonals. (I love, love, love the Knit Picks Stroll lines!) However, some sock knitters would be devastated to get a solid sock yarn – they want beautiful multicolored hand painted pieces of art.  If this is your mom’s jam, she’d probably love if it you surfed Etsy for a unique indie-dyed sock yarn that she might not otherwise splurge on.

If Mom Knits Hats or Scarves…

If your mom likes to knit hats or cowls, she’ll get good use out of a single skein of worsted weight yarn (100 grams).  For scarves, she’ll need two or maybe three of these. This is where it’s super important to know her fiber preferences.  Some knitters cringe at the thought of knitting with an acrylic yarn while other knitters cringe at the thought of putting wool anywhere near their skin. To complicate matters, there are also wool/acrylic blends.  So sneak a peek into her project bag and read the labels of the yarn she’s working with to get started.

I’m a huge fan of Knit Picks yarns, so here is a link to their worsted weight yarn options. I love Swish Worsted if you are looking for wool (those are 50 gram balls, so buy two) and Brava (solids, tweeds, or speckles) if you are shopping for acrylics.  You also can’t go wrong with Cascade 220 for wool or Berroco Vintage if mom likes a blend.

If Mom Knits Sweaters…

If your mom knits sweaters it’s going to be very difficult to buy yarn for her because you will need to estimate the weight and yardage she’ll need for her chosen pattern and size.  The worst thing you can do is to not buy enough yarn for the whole sweater.  (Yarn comes in things called dye lots – the colors vary ever-so-slightly between lots, so you need to buy all your yarn for a project in a single go.  If she comes up short and has to go buy another ball later, there is no guarantee she can get the same lot).

But, never fear! Here’s what you can do: buy mom a sweater kit!  I’m going to send you back to Knit Picks for this one because it’s so easy to build a sweater knitting kit from their pattern library.  Just browse the patterns and find a sweater you think mom will like.  On the pattern page, just scroll down and you’ll see the kit builder.  You’ll need to know mom’s bust size so the kit generator can calculate how much yarn you need to buy… sorry if that’s a traumatic thing for you to have to research… that’s just how we size sweaters in the knitting world.

Happy Mother’s Day to all those knitting moms out there! I know they will love the yarn you pick out!