I said that circular knitting needles were horrible, and so they were. I said you’d have to pry my lovely straight needles from my cold, dead hands, but perhaps that wasn’t entirely true. I was married to my straight needles for fifty-odd years and they served me well, true and trusted friends. I learned that 30cm was my magic length for straight needles, though I’d venture a centimetre or two over if pushed. Take it up to 35cm and it was too much, the needles would feel like magic wands in the hands of an incompetent wizzard. Through the years, I would dig out the circular needles on very odd occasions. For example, if I needed to knit with more stitches than would comfortably fit on my straights as you do when knitting a border around the whole open edge of a cardigan. The other use for circular needles, and for knitting in the round, was when I knit a couple of Fairisle designs.
Recently, though, I have been wondering whether the straight needles were exacerbating the aches in my hands. There’s only so many years of knitting in any of us and the time will inevitably come when we have to make adjustments if we’re going to carry on. A combination of knitting, typing, handwriting and (I strongly suspect this is the real villain) using a mobile phone have left me with the odd twinge at the base of my thumbs. Time to do something about it. Enter the circular needle with interchangeable tips.
In my youth, circular needles came in one flavour: very annoying plastic cords with a fixed tip at each end. The plastic tended to be set in its ways – it was coiled in the packaging and never really wanted to uncoil, so it would be a little reluctant to comply with comfortable knitting. Now I come to think of it, the fact that the circular needles I have in my collection are 40-50 years old may play a part in their less than stellar performance. Knitting technology has come a long way since these were purchased, and a lot of it is in improvements to the plastic they use for the cords. So now, the plastic relaxes quite quickly and we don’t experience the kinks of previous years. Added to this, interchangeable sets have been the rage for several years now and these are a massive stride forwards. You buy cords of different lengths which are fitted with a screw or bayonet end, then you buy pairs of tips in the standard knitting diameters which fix onto the cords. You don’t have to buy a whole new needle when you need a longer cord, just buy the cord and fix your existing tips to it. You don’t have to move the stitches from one set of needles to another when you need to change the size of the tips – you just bunch them onto the cord and change the tips. For all that we’ve been able to do this for years now, it still seems slightly magical in practice.
Until this week, my knowledge of these newfangled instruments was entirely second-hand. I’d watched and read as knitters explained how great they are. I’d even eyed them up in knitting shops and a shows, though on an intellectual level only, never intending to buy. I said I wouldn’t ever buy circular needles and then, at the weekend, I did.
I’m starting small. Not for me the splurge on an entire curated set in rosewood, or those sexy driftwood models from Lykke. No, just a single cord and two sets of tips which should suit my next project. Try them out, see if I like them, then think about expanding my portfolio. One of the best reasons not to buy a set is that there are so many sizes of needle that I’m unlikely to have a need for, and many sets don’t include some of the sizes I use the most. I bought the 60cm cable, knowing that the measurement is not the full length of the cable, but the total length when both tips are in place. In making my swatch, and using the needle for the neckband of my pink cardi, I can tell that I would like a bit longer cable so I’m likely to buy the 80cm length before starting the next garment. It will be a while before I can tell if these are better than straight needles so far as my hands go, worse, or exactly the same. That’s another good reason not to leap in at the deep end.
I should make it clear that I have no intention of starting to knit in the round just because I’m using a circular needle. It will be back and forth, just like on straight needles, it’s just that the bulk of the knitted fabric will hang at the centre of the cord, rather than moving from one end to the other of the straight needles. It’s the distribution of weight which I’m hoping will be easier on my hands.
Right now, though, I need to push on and work the front bands for the cardigan. It’s slow progress, but it is progress. For those who are interested, I decided to stick with the original should shaping and as soon as the decision was made I got the seams sewn and was happy with the result.
Pam Alison Knits 