Knitting in the Round

Have you stopped to consider your own knitting and doing it in the round?  For centuries the only way to do this was to use long double pointed needles.

Double point needles are still the method of choice for many.  The needles are not nearly as long.  As a matter of fact,  they are a good deal shorter.  There are 5inch needles usually reserved for knitting fingers on gloves and toes on socks for those who like novelty socks. There are 7inch needles used most often.  I like them for socks.  Then there are the 9 - 10 inch for sleeves and baby sweaters.   I like them. Until I lose one or break one.  There used to be longer ones but I think the circular needles have made them obsolete.

Circular needles can be one of two types, fixed and interchangeable.  Fixed circulars are those where the needle tips are permanently attached to the cable.  Interchangeables are those where the needle tips can part company from the cable when the knitter decides to change the tips.  This can happen by accident also.  That is frustrating and anger causing.  The most popular fixed length of circular needles available to most knitters in the big box stores is 29 inch.  This is the length of the tips plus the cable, not just the cable.  However, fixed circulars needles come in many lengths from 7 inch up to 60 inch.  In general,I love my interchangeable circular needles.  I use them as intended.  I use them in really large projects as super long straight needles.  I even use them in a strange configuration that is a variation of magic loop when I do 2 sleeve at a time with one long needle.

Magic Loop.  This uses a very long circular needle to go around a small circumference.  You manage this by pulling the cable out of play between stitches.  It just hangs out waiting for you to move it.  You can even pull the cable out of play in more than one place.  I'm not a fan of this technique.  It takes me too long to fiddle around moving the stitches and arranging the cable.  This is a personal bias.