Knitting Needles - It's Personal!

Ask any random five knitters which needles are the best and you'll get five or more different answers.

For the non-knitters, needles come in a couple of styles, with different uses for various projects.  The style people are most often introduced to first are straight needles.  They come in various lengths and materials.  The first needles I ever had were a gift from my Aunty June.  They were metal and about 14 inches long.   They were silver, shiny and slippery.  

In my 50's I developed arthritis in my hands.  It got bad enough that I did some research to see what I could do to prevent the constant ache I got from doing various things.  One thing I had noticed was that holding metal needles hurt, not because they were bad needles but they felt cool to the touch all the time.  The fact that they were slippery made me grip things tighter, which caused aching later in the day.  So bye-bye metal needles.  Now I have bamboo straight needles, and a few sets of plastic needles.

Next come double pointed needles, or DPNs.  These are great for knitting things in the round, like socks or sometimes sweater sleeves.  They'll be in sets of four or five or six, and anywhere from four to seven inches long.  The fancy type has a metal tip with a plastic or wooden barrel.  I knit my socks on dpns,

although I have flirted with other methods.  Like magic loop, or two circs.  But more on that later.

Sets of four plastic needles in various sizes.

                                            

Knit Picks Wood Needles in colors that change by size.  Fun!

The last type of needle in my collection is the circular needle, also known as the curly needles by my grands.  They are needles connected by cables, and come in lengths from nine inches to 40 inches, and can either be fixed or interchangeable.  Fixed is as you would expect permanently connected.

Interchangeable have ends that come off, and various cable lengths that can make any of a gazillion combinations of needle size.  This shows what normally come with an interchangeable set:  Ends, cord, caps and pins. 

The pins are little wires to tighten the ends of these interchangeables.  That prevents the disaster of lost stitches when the end comes off because it was too loose!  And the black circular items are caps that  make the configuration of one end and one cord into the equivalent of a straight needle.  They prevent lost stitches.

Interchangeable needles are expensive when you buy the whole set, but probably cheaper than the total price of the equivalent number of fixed needles you'd have to buy to make everything you can make from the set.

I have two interchangeable sets.  One is bamboo from Clover.  I like them and use them a lot.  The one drawback as I see it is that they don't lock so the size five ends tend to unscrew and I have to tighten them periodically.  Why only the fives is a mystery.  I also have a set of Knit Picks wood needles with a longer end piece.  Their longer length makes them reach out past the heel of my hands when I knit. This is more comfortable for me. They lock and stay secure.  I love them and use them for nearly every sweater project I start.

That is my dissertation on knitting needles!  There are reasons to use each type for various projects, and every knitter has his or her preference.  Some day I may tell this blog about my sock knitting adventures, but you can learn more from the experts than I could tell you.  My advice?  Take a little trip to your local yarn shop and stand in front of the needle display.  Start a conversation with anyone who comes to visit you there.  Listen, learn, absorb.  Then try some!

Knit on...