Knitting Rules! (11 page)

Straight needles are:

• Less expensive.

• Readily available and easy to find. Even a dollar store usually carries them.

• Used only for knitting things that aren't circular. (I know that seems obvious, but I'm trying to be thorough.)

• Possibly faster, depending on your knitting style. “Armpit knitters,” or those who tuck one needle under an arm, are among the fastest in the world, and they use straight needles exclusively, since tucking a circular under your arm leads to cramping, knitting failure, and an odd chicken-like posture.

• Traditional, and I really like that. There's a certain something about knitting with the same tools that people knit with centuries ago. Circulars are relatively new on the scene, and I like the idea of connecting with so many knitters who came before me. (This fantasy is blown right out of the water if you're knitting with shiny-colored aluminum needles, but I can ignore that.)

• Easy to store neatly in just about anything — a drawer, a bag, a vase, down the side of a chair.

• Useful as a personal defense system in a pinch.

Circular needles are:

• A little more expensive.

• Slightly less likely to be lost down a crack on the bus or to roll away from you loudly in a dark and quiet movie theater. (Not that I would know from experience.)

• Useful for flat (back and forth) or circular knitting. Thus making it possible (and I hate to admit this, my love for straight needles being as pure as it is) for you to use just circular needles your whole knitting life.

• More difficult to store.

• Tied together so you can't lose one. (Until you've lost a straight mid-project, you really don't understand the advantage of this.)

• Available in more sizes, since there are two parts to the sizing (the diameter of the needles and the length of the cord) and both measurements matter. Hence, you may need to purchase more of them.

Circular needles come in an assortment of lengths, as — at least when you're using them to knit circularly — you need a needle that is a shorter length than the diameter of your total stitches. (There are exceptions to this, and if you must know, they involve using two circulars or one very, very long one.)

These are a fancy animal. They're straight needles that you use to knit circularly. They scare the daylights out of a lot of new knitters, who see four or five needles sticking out of a sock in progress and immediately imagine that
managing five needles has to be more complicated than using two. All I have to say to newcomers to double points is this: Remember that no matter how many needles are present, you only use two at a time. Be not afraid.

Double-pointed needles are shockingly useful. They're good for small tubes, like the arms of a baby sweater; they're indispensable for making I-cord; and they come in handy for picking locks, fending off other knitters at a yarn sale, and retrieving things (like stitch markers) from small spaces (like heating grates).

If you're having a really good time with a needle someone else (or maybe everyone else) says is crap, ignore the warnings. You can like crap if it works for you.

Knitters don't get serious only about circular or straight; there's also the deeply divisive matter of needle material. Needles come made of all kinds of stuff, and they all have their advantages. For the longest time I knit exclusively with cheap aluminum-colored needles. I liked how cheerful they were; the way I could match the needle color to the yarn; and how sharp, fast, and inexpensive they were. These days I'm more likely to match my needle type to my yarn type, and though I miss the thrill of putting hot pink yarn on blue needles, I must admit I'm pretty keen on the way mohair clings to the wooden ones.

It's possible to buy crappy needles of every sort. There are wooden needles that break or splinter, there are metal needles that aren't smooth, and plastic ones with a point so blunt you couldn't poke a hole in Jell-O with them. The advantages of each type refer only to needles of reasonable quality. As with yarn, buy the best quality you can afford, and don't tar a whole group of needles until you've bought (or borrowed) them in their finest form.

Needles made of wood are available in many different flavors of tree
. Common woods are birch, beech, maple, and bamboo, though for a price you may choose warm, elegant rosewood or hard, exotic ebony. Knitters who love wooden needles say they're quiet, warm, pleasantly organic, beautiful to look at, and improve with age. Knitters say they're smooth without being too slick, making them very, very good for really slippery yarns that don't want to stay put on the needles and for complex lacework where control matters.

Knitters who don't like wooden ones say that they're “slow
” (the grip that helps with slippery yarn can work against you if your yarn is not slippery) and that they're quite breakable. It's true that some kinds are stronger than others, but virtually nothing will save a wooden needle if you sit on it. (I, having sat on both fragile and sturdy needles, advocate wood for the clumsy knitter. It hurts less.) Every once in a while you hear about a knitter whose wooden needle broke during normal use, but it's more common for either a tight knitter or a knitter experiencing an unusual amount of stress. (For the purposes of this examination, I don't consider “normal use” to be flinging them on the floor in a fit of rage over a stitch pattern that you've screwed up for the fourth time since dinner. Normal use and common use are not interchangeable.)

Metal needles range from the plain steel and aluminum ones all the way up to nickel- or gold-plated needles with
the appealing brand name Turbo. (This always makes my husband laugh; since he imagines race cars and rocket engines and knitters who need flameproof jackets to protect them from the exhaust emitted by the needles. He was disappointed to discover that they look like ordinary, if extra-shiny, knitting needles.)

People who love metal needles say that they're slippery, quick, and strong
; that they tend to have the sharpest points — a real boon to knitters doing a lot of cables; and that they are (with the exception of the Turbo variety) the least expensive of all. Knitters who like them say that they're good for sticky wool but far too slick for mohair or lace and that they're the sturdiest of all needles. I can vouch for this, having managed to snap all varieties of needles except the metal ones. (I don't try to do this; it's a talent.)

Knitters who don't care for metal needles say they're cold, heavy, and inflexible
and that the slipperiness makes for dropped stitches. Me? I love them.

These vary almost too much to discuss effectively. If you're thinking of those old, blunt, floppy needles that were as smooth as bricks … well. You can still buy those, but there are needle manufacturers that have elevated them way beyond that. There are plastic needles with a metal core to make them stronger; plastic needles with special tips; transparent colored needles that turn my 14-year-old's crank pretty hard; and plastic needles that,
in short, do not suck. Overall, today's plastic needle is flexible, warm, light, and probably the best option to give a five-year-old boy just learning to knit. (Having been poked with several kinds of knitting needle by a five-year-old boy just learning to knit, I can vouch for this.)

These are warm, light, and slightly flexible. Casein needles are made from milk protein and, as such, three things are true about them.

They share many of the advantages as plastic, but are a natural material.

Many strict vegetarians or vegans eschew them because they are an animal product.