Friday, January 18, 2008

Blogstalking '08, Week Two. My needles.

I actually suggested this topic, "my knitting needles all in one place." I figured that it would be an easy one for me, since I mostly use my Knitpicks Options set for most things. But then I realized that I would have to round up my many WIPs and needles that I do not use often. Suddenly, I got scared. If I show all of it, then people will know about how many projects I have on the needles, with little to no hope of finishing. ouch. Maybe that should have been my "bad habit" post last week. I have developed a bad case of Cast-On-itis.

In the interest of good sportsmanship, I did round up a few WIPs for this assignment, but not all of them. There are at least three still sitting in project bags, not pictured. I would love to finish any of them, but between my desire to start new projects and my children and this here computer thingy, I don't hold out much hope for them.

But I digress. I'll get down to business. First up is the tin where my DPNs live. They are pretty happy in there, as it still smells like cookies, but I'd love to have a needle roll, so I didn't have to sort through them, then pull out the needle gauge to figure which ones I need. (That's on my very long sewing to-do list.)
And here are most of my needles, attractively displayed. I think metal needles are so pretty and shiny. They make me happy. Wooden ones are great, too, but I don't own any of them (anymore,that is. The boy broke my one pair), so I cannot vouch for the happy-factor of wood needles. The Knitpicks Harmony needles are awfully pretty, though.

And here is my favorite set. This is a vintage Boye Needlemaster set, as bought at auction by my grandmother. It apparently originally was owned by a woman named Louise Jones. I wonder if Louise agreed that it was the "most exciting knitting innovations ever." It really is quite a nifty concept, but the execution in the 1960's lacked a little.


Look at the cords. The things are huge. When stuck through my handy dandy needle-sizer, I find that they are equivalent to a US6 needle: a far cry from today's skinny cords. Funny enough, though, they aren't much less flexibly than some of the cheaper circs' cords I've tried. And the needle tips are actually a bit smoother and nicer than the modern Boye Knitmates needle(one-at-a-time version of the Needlemasters) I bought last year. When I was a novice knitter, I did complete a few projects on these. I'm quietly proud of that.


So there you have it, most of my needles in one place. Ta daa! Now I am going to sign off and use them a little bit.

6 comments:

  1. That vintage set of needles is very cool. I wish I had something like that of my grandmothers. I have a vase that she had, but it's not very useful for knitting or crochet now is it?

    Thanks for the comment on my blog.

    Happy Knitting!

    Shea

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  2. I love that vintage set! The case is awesome by itself. I didn't realize that Boye has had the same basic design for the past forty-odd years. I guess once you find a formula that works...:)

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  3. The bag is currently hibernating, not because it is hard to knit (the hard part was changing the needle size after knitting so small, because the plastic doesn't slide that well on plastic needles), but because I had Christmas knitting which became more important. I am still finishing up a few items and thinking of knitting a slouchy hat before I get back to it, but actually I like knitting with plastic quite a bit.

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  4. You are a brave woman. I'm scared of confronting the WIP pile so I can take pictures of my needles.

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  5. I obviously did not do my homework for this assignment. I completely missed the fact that ALL your needles included those with projects...

    I think you should be loudly proud that you knit things with the vintage Boye set! It's fabulous.

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  6. This is a test comment. I'm trying to see if people need to have a Google account to comment. K

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