So I’ll admit, I lay in bed last night wondering why I purchased yet another hook and why I can’t just be happy using my Boye hooks. Have I mentioned to you all that I am very impressionable? I can’t handle peer pressure at all, even if it is inadvertent. Every time someone posts in a crochet group they are thinking about getting new hooks the top brands that always pop up are Clover and Tulip. So… what am I missing about these hooks!?
Well it turns out I don’t care for either, as you can read about in my blog post from yesterday. This morning I was still reeling with myself over my dislike for the Tulip hook so I decided to do what any math/science loving nerdy girl would do. I went to one of those crochet groups (that has 65k members) and asked questions for science. While I was eating lunch I compiled the data together, in Excel because that’s what nerds do. Then I posted it to the group because they were curious about my findings as well. Below I’ve copied and pasted what I shared.
Here is what I came up with:
I collected data from the first 100 people to post answering all of my questions from this morning and this is what I discovered: (SCIENCE)
43% of people have no idea what brand hook they started using but most reported that it was plain, metal hooks.
25% of people have stayed with the original hook brand they started with.
The most popular starting brand for hookers (who remembered) was Boye followed by Susan Bates.
About 50% of people who started crocheting with Boye and Susan Bates hooks stayed with those brands.
About 40% of people who started crocheting with Boye or Susan Bates hooks switched to Clover.
The most used hook (present time) for crocheters from this polling was Clover with 44%. Followed by: Boye @ 21%, Susan Bates @ 14%, Knit Pro @ 5%, Prym @ 4% and 22% was a misposh of other odd brands.
My theory was that as humans and creatures of habit we tend to stick with what we know and perhaps that was the driving force for our choice of hooks. The data doesn’t suggest that at all. I will be curious however to see what the numbers look like in say, 30 years because there is clearly something about Clover hooks that is pulling everyone to them, even if I’m not one of them.
I’ve been having an issue lately with inadvertent peer pressure on the hook front which was the reasoning behind this polling. I am a science/math person and I thought my disliking all other hooks besides Boye could be linked to my being familiar with them as they are what I started using. I also theorized that if you learned to crochet using a certain type of hook (inline or tapered) you’d be more inclined to remain with it but this polling blew that out of the water as well.
In conclusion all I have to report is that like John Snow, I know nothing… still. It does make me feel better to know that of the nearly half who remembered what type of hook they started with; half of those remained with what they knew. Perhaps I am not so strange after all, at least with his. Hopefully it will quell my jealously when I see someone showing off their new crochet hook and save those in my household from enduring my screeching as I announce, “SHE’S GOT A HARRY POTTER WAND FOR A CROCHET HOOK, I WANT ONE NOW!”
Also, 57% of the polled users were knife wielders. So here I am, holding up my cup of coffee to you fellow wielders of knives. We’re all rebels and we’re taking over. You pencil grippers cannot argue with science! (All in good fun, please don’t word murder me… the poking fun was the fun part. Not the science.. that’s still science.)