Tips again

For a few months, I have been using commercial stainless steel knitting needles. Mostly they are fast and easy, but some decreases and fancy stitches were a problem.  Ordinarily such stitches are only 1% of the total number of stitches, so I seek needles to do the bulk of the stitches easily and suffer the fancy stitches.

Then, the other evening, it hit me, I had  been here before.  There was a solution.  Just use a bit of emory cloth to break the polish on a 1 mm annular area around the tip. Yes, it works. And those little annular areas are not so large or so rough that they interfere with knitting the 99 %.

Actually breaking the polish on the tips significantly speeded up my knitting with those needles. I am back to the position that commercial needles are just too polished for fast knitting.

The End

QA/QC on a large order of steel gansey needles presented me with something of an existential crisis.

As I checked them, they were blunt, and as everyone knows, my needles are pointy, and I make the needles that I like to knit with.  So how were these so blunt?

In the beginning, I made steel needles in the shape of all the commercial needles, and I polished them like jewelry. I felt that made the tips slippery, so I then left annular striations around the tip.  That was better, the striation helped the working needle "grab" the yarn.  In the last couple years, the striations have grated on my nerves and I have polished the tips more and more.  As I did that, I made the needles less pointy, so the yarn would be less likely to fall off the taper.

Along the way I changed from poking the working needle into the next stitch to sliding the working needle along the other needle and into the next stitch. A by product of this is that the working needle was not pushed as far into the working stitch.  These days I only push/slide the working needle about 4 mm into the working stitch.

A 2.5 mm Inox DPN has a 9 mm long taper.  If you only push it in 4 mm into the working stitch, then the tip of the needle where one wraps the yarn is less than a millimeter in diameter.  If you want to wrap the yarn around a full 2.5 mm needle then one must insert the Inox needle a full 14 mm into the stitch. These days, that is more needle motion that I want.

That means that I want the full diameter of the needle only a millimeter or two from the end of the needle.  That means a very short taper.  That means rather blunt needles.  That is the end of the pointy needle.

The 2 needles at left in the knitting are my latest gansey needles. The 2 needles at center left are commercial 16" & 14" DPN.  The single needle at center right is a striated pointy needle from the set that I used to make the Filey gansey 4 years ago.  The 4 needles at right are a set of old English needles given to me by a student.  They suggest that others knew that blunt needles do work if you have a knitting sheath and the right technique.  The paper is 1/4" grid.

On the other hand, blunt needles are crap for picking up stitches.  If you want to pick up stitches, you need pointy needles. Pointy needles are better for decreases and  most lace stitches.  Those ball tipped needles above are actually a bit too blunt for easy purling.  If you are using a knitting technique (such as those derived from Weldon) where the needle is poked into the stitch, then pointy needles are better.

And, these observations only apply to metal needles of less than 2.5 mm.

Edited to add, the above suggests that I am selling those ball tipped needles.  No, those are for my knitting garter stitch.  These days the needle tips that I sell are more like:

Not to put too fine a point on it.

There has recently been a lot of back and forth about the shape of needle points. This morning I got told about all the reasons why "good knitters" all use finely tipped needles. I bit my tongue and did not tell her that finely tipped needles are a real pain when one is knitting Lopi or alpaca or another "splitty" yarn. Conversely, those ball tipped needles that worked so well for the Lopi are going to slow you down when you try to use them on a firmer yarn. If you try to use these ball tipped needles on some 5-ply gansey yarn, then you are going to be coming around asking for my expanded list of "Swear Words for Serious Knitters."


Very sharp eyed people commented that the tips of the stainless steel 16 inch Inox double pointed needles that I used in the gansey needle video below, were not real pointy. (See right, Second from the top) That comment took me by surprise. I know that when that yarn came in, I really liked knitting it on my hand-made steel needles. (Needles 8-13 from the top in photo) Then, I had moved toward knitting it with the Inox. Well, that batch of yarn had spinning oil on it when it first came in, and then I had washed it. Thus, the yarn had gotten softer and fluffier. Of course, it wanted to be knit with less pointy needles! I was just doing what the yarn wanted. The Inox needles are primarily sold to Shetland knitters who use them with knitting pouches. They want needles that will not go through their leather pouches. Today, I really looked at those needles.



The photo at right is a closeup of the tips of 8 of the needles from above. The top needle a 2.5 mm Addi steel, # 2 is the 2.5 mm Inox used in the gansey needle knitting video, # 3 is a 2mm Susan Bates (the first needles that I bought when I started knitting, and the most hated needle I have ever owned). #4 is a 2mm Boye Aluminium. Needles #5-8 are my handmade 2.3 mm carbon steel. From this is clear that the Inox (http://www.shetland-wool-brokers.zetnet.co.uk/accs.htm) are more finely pointed than the Addis or the Boye.
However, what I like about steel needles is that I can change them to suit my needs, NOW! If I do not like the way they feel, I get up, take them over to the bench grinder, and grind the tip that I want on them! Evolution in action. It is clear that needles numbers 5 and 8 have been used for knitting 5-ply gansey yarn, while 6 and 7 have been used for MacAusland yarns. #7 was used for the oiled yarn and #6 was used for the washed yarn. I think these needle tip shapes are about right for the kind of knitting and the yarns that I use. If I had wanted finer points on these needles, I would have ground finer points on them. Somewhere I have needles with more rounded tips, but all the splitty yarn is put away and the ball tipped needles with it.

Over all, I think the 2.5 mm Inox needle is actually a good compromise, and a good general purpose needle tip shape. One has to be just a little careful about how sharp the tips of a 16" long DPN are, or you will seriously damage the furniture and your thighs. If you go with anything sharper, I suggest a leather knitting apron, e.g.,(http://store.weldingdepot.com/cgi/weldingdepot/4421xx.html?id=soRVWHTx ) I have one, and I use it!

OK, but how big a needle? I really do not care. I knit a swatch, and if I like the fabric, I knit an object. I like the Susan Bates "knit-check" as a photo prop, but not for not as a needle gauge. I work with a limited number of yarn types, and after a while I know what yarns I like to knit with which needles. If I need to know how big this needle is, I go to the shop and "mic" it.