07 August 2007

Knitting Needles Revealed

Or, "Why I Stay Out of Needle Organization Discussions" (given that I have maybe a few more knitting needles than many knitters)

The double points are fairly easy to deal with. Some are missing from the shot, of course. I can think of at least 4 sets stuck in projects around and about the house. And I KNOW I have several sets of size 3 double points, so who knows where the rest of those are.



The circulars are a little tougher. There are at least 5-6 circs not pictured, currently at work on projects. This number (5-6 missing) assumes I remember what projects I have currently "on the needles", which is, of course, poppycock. I often open a canvas bag and discover some knitted thing taking shape (sometimes I have no idea what it was I was working on; like, there's this pink thing in the closet that I'm really puzzled by. What was it supposed to be?).


The Addis and Crystal Palace are definitely mine; the large ziplocs with marker definitely Grandma's. Who knows who bought the rest.

I store all of the needles in a large plastic tub. The double points and circulars form the upper layer. After digging through those packages, things get sort of odd. We have the bag of a dozen stitch holders (Grandma aparently believed you could never have too many stitch holders), the bag of miscellaneous cable needles and needle-sizers, and then the black moire taffeta needle holder:



Oh, hey, there are some more double points in there! How about that! The needle holder belonged to someone else, who either died or lost interest in knitting (is there a difference?). The needle case was then given to Grandma, who gave it to me. It's very nice, and can hold about as many needles size 1-6 as most knitters would ever need, except for the lack of space for circulars.

But, of course, most of my single point needles don't fit in it:


This is the bottom layer of the plastic tub. And, yes, there are some missing from the shot due to their obligations with knitting projects in my closet or on the nightstand or ... somewhere. The ones in the rubber band are the latest installment from Grandma.

(Note the rogue wooden crochet hooks that missed the crochet hook photo shoot a few days ago. They are decades old; I'm not sure if they were Grandma's or Great-Grandma's.)

I am so beyond the concept of storing needles artfully in a vase


I was going to get a better shot of this, and I was thinking about lining them up end to end and seeing how far they'd stretch, but then I realized that my neighbor was in her yard, watching me kneeling in the ivy taking pictures of 50 pairs of knitting needles whilst still clad in my jammies. Suddenly my creative flow screetched to a halt. But you can click on for a close up, if you'd like. And, yes, I did take a quick count of the needles themselves, and there are 100 needles there.

7 comments:

Ami said...

You should have handed the camera to the neighbor so you could be in the picture too!

:)

GailV said...

Good point. I could've been spread eagle on the ground with the needles in the ground all around me forming an outline.

Would've given her something to talk about for years and years.

Pensguys said...

Oh, TOO funny!!!!! LOL

Anonymous said...

Oh, I *dare* you to start taking those knitting needles out in the yard every few days and take weird pics with them all within sight of your neighbor. I'd love to be a fly on her wall after that!

chipper said...

you could call the collection of photos "when good needles go wild" :)

km said...

I love your wild needles. And, no matter how smooth my Addi's or how perfect my bamboo DPN's...the needles from my Gram are so much more precious. In the current VK there's a photo of needles and it says that they're like shoes...you can never have too many.
***There must be some story about the neighbor...do tell.

Staci Eastin said...

I'll never forget the time I was arranging a pair of knitted socks on the bushes and taking pictures of them when I looked up to see my neighbor watching me.

I would say we were soul mates, except that you don't like Imo's pizza...