INSCRAFT 113-piece crochet kit: An Honest Review

I bought the INSCRAFT 113-piece crochet kit in the first week of March, mostly because I was tired of my hooks living in a coffee mug and my yarn living in three grocery bags behind the recliner. Six months later, after blankets, dishcloths, a dozen granny squares, and one very determined cat, I have opinions. Some of them are the ones you expect. A few of them are not.

What Is Actually in the Box

The title says 113 pieces, and I counted. There are 40 colors of yarn totaling 1600 yards, all 100% acrylic. There are 9 ergonomic crochet hooks, 1 pair of scissors, 1 measuring tape, 3 knitting needles, 10 stitch markers, and a storage bag with one transparent PVC side. The INSCRAFT listing calls it 73 pieces of crochet hook kit accessories plus the yarn, and that math lands close enough to 113 that I stopped counting at the stitch markers.

What the product photos do not tell you is how small the yarn balls are. Each one is a modest little skein, the kind you finish in an afternoon if you are making a baby blanket. That is not a complaint, exactly. It means you can hold forty colors without dedicating a closet to them. But if you are imagining endless yarn for a king-size blanket, adjust your expectations now.

The hooks are the surprise. For a kit at this price, I expected plastic handles that feel like toys. These have a soft ergonomic grip, and the hook heads are smooth. I have mild arthritis in my right thumb, and I can crochet for a full evening without the usual ache. That alone made the kit worth it to me.

The first thing I did was empty the bag onto the dining table and count, because a retired librarian does not take a number like 113 on faith. My husband came through and asked if I was opening a yarn store. The whole kit, bag and all, weighs about 1.14 kilograms, which I know because I put it on the kitchen scale out of curiosity. That matters more than you think. I carry it from the den to the kitchen table and back most days, and it is light enough to move one-handed even when my thumb is acting up. The transparent side faces me when it sits on the floor, so I can see the colors without bending over.

The scissors are small and sharp enough to cut yarn cleanly without sawing. I have reached for them from the kitchen more than once. The measuring tape has stayed in the bag since March, which for this house is a genuine accomplishment. The stitch markers are the first thing I reach for on any project. I have dropped two under the recliner and Pickles has batted one under the bookcase. The remaining seven still do the job.

How I Have Used It

I have used the INSCRAFT kit almost daily since March. That is six months of baby blankets, dishcloths, granny squares, and a few amigurumi attempts that are slowly improving. The hooks have been dropped, sat on, and once batted off the side table by a cat who shall remain nameless. They still feel as smooth as they did in March.

The yarn is where I have to be honest. It is 100% acrylic, and it behaves like 100% acrylic. It does not split as much as I feared, but it is thin. A double strand works better for dishcloths and anything you want to feel substantial. The colors are prettier in person than in the listing photos, which surprised me, and the assortment is the reason I reach for this kit instead of my older stash.

The stitch markers get used every single time. The scissors are small but sharp. The measuring tape lives in the bag and has not vanished, which is a small triumph in this house. The knitting needles I have used exactly twice, because I knit about as well as Pickles does, but they are there if I ever get brave.

The first real project was a baby blanket for my neighbor's granddaughter, who was born the second week of April. I started it the Monday after the kit arrived, using a double strand of two colors I liked together, and finished it in nine evenings of sitting in the recliner with the floor lamp on. I used a shell stitch for the border because it is the one I can do without looking, and by the ninth evening I was down to the last row and the last of that color. It came out better than I expected for a first project with yarn I had not chosen myself, and the mother asked me for the pattern, which is the highest compliment a crocheter gets.

In June I made twelve hats for the hospital charity drive, one in each of the bright colors, and they all went out the door in one bag before I thought to photograph them. The third hat I misread my own pattern on and had to frog the whole thing. The yarn came out clean, no fuzz, no splitting, and I started over the same evening. That is the test I use for acrylic now, whether it survives being pulled out. The nurse who took the bag said they go fast in the winter, so I am already planning the next dozen.

The amigurumi situation, for the record: my older granddaughter asked for a frog in July. The first attempt looked like a potato with ears, and I frogged it before she could see it. The second attempt used a smaller hook from the kit, the one I now think of as my amigurumi hook, and it has legs and eyes and everything. She named it Ribbit and it lives on her dresser. I count that as a win for the kit and for me.

The Storage Bag Nobody Mentions

Here is the thing the reviews do not tell you. The storage bag with the transparent PVC side is the best part of the whole kit. It is waterproof, lightweight, and big enough to hold the yarn and the hooks and the scissors and the measuring tape and the stitch markers and still close. I keep it on the floor beside my recliner, and I can see exactly which colors are inside without opening it. It is the first project bag I have owned that I do not have to dig through, and at my age, not digging is a feature.

There is a downside, and the downside is a 7-year-old orange tabby named Pickles. The transparent side is apparently the most comfortable sleeping spot in the house. He has claimed it. I have learned to check before I unzip, because a startled cat and a lapful of yarn is not a relaxing crochet evening.

The storage bag with the transparent PVC side is the best part of the whole kit, and the reason my yarn no longer lives in grocery bags behind the recliner.

What Nobody Tells You About the Hooks

The ergonomic hooks feel wonderful in the hand. That is the good news. The less good news is that the size is printed on the flat part of the handle, and after a few weeks of use, the printing on a couple of them has worn down. I can still tell my sizes apart because I have used them enough to know which is which, but a beginner cannot. If you are new to this, write the sizes on the handles with a permanent marker before you lose track.

The other thing nobody tells you is that the hooks are lighter than the ergonomic hooks I have bought separately over the years. For my thumb, that is a benefit. Lighter means less strain over a long evening. But if you like a heavy hook with a lot of heft, these will feel almost too light at first. Give them a week. Your hands will thank you.

The nine hooks range from a small one I use for amigurumi to a large one I use for granny-square throws. I cannot give you the exact millimeter sizes, for the reason I just mentioned. What I can tell you is that the difference between them is obvious in the hand, and after six months I reach for the same three every time. The rest sit in the bag like good soldiers.

A word about the grips, since this is the part I care about most. The ergonomic handles are soft rather than hard plastic, and they have a little give when you squeeze. On a bad arthritis day, a hard handle makes my right thumb ache by the second row. These do not. I have crocheted for three hours straight on a good evening, and the only thing that hurt was my pride when I had to frog a row of a shell stitch I have known since I was nine. I keep one of the smaller hooks in the side table drawer for the evenings when my thumb is worse, so I do not have to dig through the bag to find it.

The hook heads are smooth, which I did not expect at this price. I have bought single ergonomic hooks over the years that had a rough spot where the metal met the handle, and they snagged every other stitch. None of the nine in this kit has done that. The first week, I ran a strand of yarn across each head the way my grandmother taught me, and all nine passed. That is the test that matters.

The Yarn: Honest Words

Let me be plain. This is not luxury yarn. It is 100% acrylic, it is thin, and it will pill a little on things that get heavy use. For baby blankets and charity hats and granny squares, it is perfectly good. For a sweater you want to last ten years, spend more money on nicer fiber. The INSCRAFT kit is a starting point, not a lifetime supply.

The color range is genuinely wide, 40 colors, and the assortment skews bright. There are the usual pinks and blues and greens, plus some cheerful yellows and oranges that made a baby blanket look like sunshine. The yarn does not feel scratchy against the skin, which is the first thing I check with acrylic. It is soft enough for a gift, and that is the standard I use.

One honest warning. The balls are small, so you will run out of a color faster than you expect. If you are making something that needs a lot of one color, buy extra. The kit is a sampler, not a bulk purchase. I learned that the hard way, and I am still a little annoyed about it.

The yellow incident happened in May. I was making a granny square blanket with a yellow border, and I ran out of yellow with one row left on the final square. I checked the bag. No second yellow. I checked the old bags that used to hold my stash. No yellow. I drove to the craft store and bought a yellow that is close but not identical, and the border is now two yellows if you look closely. The round trip took forty minutes, and I spent the drive muttering about yarn math. I am the only one who notices the two yellows, but I notice every time.

I washed a test swatch in warm water with the same detergent I use on baby things, and it came out soft, with no bleeding and no shrinking. I have since washed the finished baby blanket twice, once because the baby spit up on it and once because Pickles decided it was a bed. It came out of the dryer looking the same as it went in, which is more than I can say for some yarn I have paid more for. I hung the swatch over the back of a kitchen chair to dry, the way my grandmother did, and it kept its shape.

The pilling is real but mild. The dishcloths I made in March, the ones that get used and washed every few days, have a light fuzz on them now. Not holes, not thinning, just a soft surface that has worn in. For dishcloths I actually prefer that. For a gift blanket, I would tell the recipient to wash on gentle, and I would not be embarrassed to give it. I have already started the next set in a different color, and I will know by October whether the fuzz gets worse.

Who This Is For

This INSCRAFT kit is for the beginner who wants to try crochet without buying seventeen separate things. It is for the person who wants to sit down with one box and make something. It is for the grandmother who wants to make a baby blanket and does not care that the yarn is acrylic, because the baby will not care either. It is for the charity crafter who needs forty colors for hats and squares and does not want to store forty separate skeins.

It is also for the person who, like me, has been meaning to organize their supplies for three years and needs a bag with a transparent side to finally do it. I am not saying the bag changed my life. I am saying my yarn no longer lives in grocery bags, and that is a genuine improvement.

Who Should Skip It

If you already have a collection of hooks you love and a stash of yarn that fills a closet, you do not need this kit. You will use the bag and maybe the stitch markers, and the rest will sit in a corner feeling redundant. If you want to make a large blanket in one color, the small balls will frustrate you. Buy a big skein of the color you actually want instead.

And if you are buying for a child under 12, the INSCRAFT listing says it is not for children age 12 and under. The hooks are sharp enough, the scissors are real, and the yarn is a choking hazard if a small child decides to taste it. This is an adult kit or a supervised teen kit, not a toy.