Which Knitting Needles are Best?

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Let’s talk about it,

Somehow the aluminum straight knitting needle became the iconic depiction of knitting. we all have them, a jumble of sometimes matching straight needles that were passed down to us from someone’s grandmother.

Do I ever use them? seldom. I find the length of these needles to be cumbersome, and when I am knitting a large garment, the weight of the fabric on the needles hurts my hands, so if I have a choice, I always opt for the circular needles, even if I am not knitting in the round.

I find circular needles to be the most ergonomic of the Knitting needle options.

even when I am knitting back and forth, I will use a fixed circular needle.

Circular needles are most commonly used when knitting “in the round” which means you are creating a tube of knitting, like the body of a sweater, a sock, a sleeve, or a hat.

There are many people who prefer to knit back and forth and seam their garment later, that has never been me.

Circular needles come in a variety of different cable lengths depending on how large you are making your garment. For socks and sleeves, I use a 9 inch circular and later switch to Double Pointed Needles (DPNS) (see below) for hats, I generally use a 12 inch circular and switch to DPNS when I am decreasing at the crown.

for sweaters I will use at least a 20 inch cable, and depending on the size I will go up if there are a lot of stitches (usually when knitting with a smaller gauge yarn).

Double pointed needles are also used to knit “in the round”.

I will use DPNS when the circumference of my knitting becomes too small for my 9 inch circulars.

I knit my socks on 9 inch circulars, but after years of teaching a sock knitting course, there are some people who prefer to do the whole sock on DPNS.

Holding DPNS has a learning curve, because you are arranging your needles in a circle, and using 4-5 of them at a time.

For this reason, I really like to use bamboo DPNS because, well, I’ve got the added pressure of keeping all my needles in order, I don't want my stitches to accidentally slide off too.

And my favorite, is the interchangeable needle set.

Although they are pricey, I have gotten every penny’s worth out of using this set.

There are many knitters who talk about the sheer size of their needle stash, I have saved space and limited my amount of extra needles by investing in this interchangeable set.

My favorite thing to knit is sweaters, and shawls, so I need to be able to accommodate a large number of stitches without injuring my wrists and fingers, something about the cable in between the needle takes the pressure off of my hands when knitting. I almost always use my interchangeable set.

It comes with 3 sizes lengths of cables for sizes 2 all the way up to 13.

So, the only extra needles I have had to purchase are, 9 inch circulars, and sizes that don’t fit into that range. which, I do use size 0 sometimes.

but, you can get interchangeable for those sizes too!

I have both a bamboo set, and a stainless steel set, and I use them both for different applications.