Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Tip of the Needle or A needle Tip

  If you've been knitting longer than 10 minutes, you've probably already started your knitting pet peeves list.  Well, here is one that hits the top of my list:
* knitting a narrow project on long needles!!!  I hate getting poked, having to adjust how I hold my needles, or just plain start yelling at the needles to stay outta my way when I'm working on something like a scarf that only needs a short needle; And finding short knitting needles in all sizes can be a challenge.

Well, after one of my wrestling matches with my Susan Bates 14 inch needles, I gave them to my husband and said "Cut these in half!" About 3 minutes later, I had a pair of lovely 7 inch needles!

Here's how: This works best with the Susan Bates metal needles (I wouldn't recommend you cut your wood or plastic needles)
With a pair of pliers, pull off the top of the needle (the part that has the name on it), set aside and using metal snips or a hack saw, cut off the excess needle from the 'non pointy' end. With some glue of your choice, pop that top back on, let dry and voila!! 

So, the next time you buy a set of needles, buy 2 pair! You'll have a long pair for the big projects, and you can make a short pair for your smaller things.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are so smart! I hate long needles, but have a hard time finding shorter ones. Now I don't need to!

Laurinda said...

I hate long needles too! I use cabled needles, usually my Knit Picks, instead