Has anyone ever told you that? I’m not talking just about knitting; I’m talking about anything.
Having recently been caught short in saying something about knitting that was actually, factually wrong, I was reminded of times when I’ve heard people say (even sometimes at knit night), “You’re not doing that right.” And, God forgive me, I know I’ve thought it about a jazillion times myself (let’s not even ponder how many times that thought escaped through my mouth).
Please, oh please, do not feel compelled to get gauge using the needle size listed in the pattern or on the yarn’s ball band.
This is one reason to keep extensive notes of your projects. You’ll be able to look back and see that for worsted-weight yarn, you almost always use a size 4 needle to get five stitches per inch in stockinette stitch (which is what I almost always need, even though most projects and ball bands recommend size 5 to size 8). If your next project in worsted-weight yarn suggests a size 6 needle to get 5 sts/in in stockinette, you can be pretty confident that your trusty size 4 is what you’ll really need.
So many knitters I know scribble highly abbreviated project notes on scraps of paper like old envelopes or on the edges of the pattern photocopy–or worse, on the pages of the actual book.
My question is, why?
I like the U-shaped ones best, as long as the legs are different lengths.
I hold the long side of the U while I slip the stitches onto the short leg, then I slide the stitches into the curve.
I move the cn to the front or back as needed, and since the stitches are in the middle of the U, I make the pointy parts point straight down, which means they’re out of my way.
I have two sizes, small gold ones and large silver ones. They are different from safety pins, because there’s no loop at the bottom.
I use them to mark groups of stitches as I cast on. (I only use circular needles, so even the small ones fit over the cables.)
Jump to half-stitch seaming in 1×1 ribbing, full-stitch seaming in 1×1 ribbing, or half-stitch seaming in 2×2 ribbing. (In this series of posts, “half-stitch seam” means any seam that consumes half a stitch from each edge, and “full-stitch seam” means any seam that consumes a full stitch from each edge. See the first post for more information.)