Pony Metal Knitting Pins/ Knitting Needles 35cm long - 3mm

Product Information

A large, heavy project like a big blanket will need longer needles (or cables) to carry the stitches. Small projects with relatively few stitches can be knit on any length of needle. The knitting stitch pattern: Typically, you will knit lace patterns using relatively large needles to create a lace like appearanges. Rib stitches, on the other hand, will benefit from using relatively small knitting needles. Circular needles are two needles connected by a long, flexible cable. This cable allows you to knit in a tubular shape, and is designed to support the weight of your stitches when knitting in the round. The longer the cable, the more stitches you can support.

As a beginner, you should consider the length of your knitting needle. Listen to the pattern you’re knitting to know what to use. Most people find shorter needles more comfortable to hold, but longer needles allow more room for stitches along the length of the needle.Lace weight yarns will usually need needles between 1.5 and 2.5mm in diameter, worsted or middle-weight yarns will need needles between 3mm and 5.5mm, and chunky yarns will usually need 5mm to 8mm sized needles and larger. That, of course, does not explain the conundrum of the US needle sizes. Why don’t they follow the Imperial system? To be quite honest, nobody really knows! It remains a fact, however, that from around 1900 US manufacturers started selling their own needle gauges – following no system at all. Or rather, the actual sizes followed (more or less) the Imperial system but the numbers were rising, much like the metric system popular in mainland Europe. Read your knitting pattern. Almost all knitting patterns include a recommended needle size that’s suggested by the pattern designer. This will have been chosen to match the yarn used in the project, so you can achieve similar results. It’s worth noting that your knitting tension may differ from the pattern designer’s, so you may still need to use a different needle size to reach your desired gauge.

The size and diameter of knitting needles is typically measured using four main sizing systems: US, UK, Japanese, and metric.If you have knitting needles from all over the world or of unknown origins, your best bet for identifying their size is by using a knitting gauge. Unfortunately, working out the right needle size isn’t always easy. Knitwear designers from all over the world use different measurements to indicate the recommended needle size, and vintage knitting patterns often use a different system altogether. Chunky, super chunky, and bulky yarn like Wool and the Gang’s Crazy Sexy Wool will almost always require large knitting needles. The average size of needle used with this type of wool is approximately 5mm – 8mm, with the smaller needles producing a tighter material. Chunky yarns are typically knit with wide needles. If you were to find yourself a vintage pattern then you will notice a big difference. Needles were once sized differently, the higher the number, the smaller the needle size, e.g. what we now class as a 2mm knitting needle was actually a UK 14. A UK 14 was the smallest available, with the numbers decreasing all the way down to a 10mm - UK 000. The length of your knitting needles might not be important for straight needles, but it is very important when it comes to knitting in the round with circular needles.

Feel confused? Don’t worry! Use the chart below to convert different knitting needle sizes and find out exactly which needles you need for your project, yarn, or pattern. You can convert mm to US sizes and vice versa, in much more detail than most other conversion charts out there.

If you’re starting a new knitting project, choosing the right needle size is essential. The size of your knitting needles affects how big your stitches are, which ultimately determines how big your project turns out. Given the many immigrants (but also the rising economic power) from Germany, this mixture cannot be seen as all that surprising from a certain point of view – especially as it feels a little bit more intuitive that a larger number constitutes a larger size. It would be very limited to assume the U.S. only imported haberdashery from the UK. After all, companies like addi have been selling fine knitting needles since 1829!