Knitting advice!!

[roaringwater]

I am very new to knitting and not very knowledgeable.

I am making a sort of wrap / poncho which is essentially a big oblong that then gets sewn together.

My pattern says to cast on 90 stitches onto a 5mm circular needle.

I hate the circular needle.

I have straight needles of 4mm and 6mm. Can I use either of these? What will happen? Will the stitches fit?

If you use the 4 mm needle then it may knit up smaller and tighter, with the 5mm needles it will be bigger and looser. 90 stitches is a lot - if you needles are long it might be OK. Alternatively if you could get a set of double ended pins then that would work. I too dislike circular needles and would always knit in the round with a set of double ended pins.

I would use the 4mm and knit a bit loose.

Use the 4mm and cast on what it says on ball band for a 10 cm square.

Something like 18 stitches a and 24 rows?

Measure your square. You might need to add a couple of extra stitches or rows to make it the same size.

Or you might be happy with it slightly smaller?

Or if you want it slightly bigger, use your 6mm needles.

Knitting is an art more than a science.

There is no right or wrong answer here.

But to be the closest to your pattern, I would use 4mm and work loose.

And another little trick for you...
If you have some documents of wool laying around.

Cut some bits about 5 or 6 inches long.
Tie the ends together to make little loops.

10 would be good!

Cast on 10 stitches. Slip loop on to needle.
Repeat until you get to 90. Much easier to count 9 loops!

Thank you - this is all very helpful!

Can you fit 90 stitches onto our straight needles? The reason you tend to use a circular for big flat pieces like this.

If you do want to use your existing straight needles I would do a swatch to see what sort of fabric you get going up / down a needle size. In general if you use the 6mm needles you will get a bigger piece of fabric an if you go down a smaller one using the pattern instructions. This is likely to affect the size of the finished poncho.

You can do maths comparing the size of the swatch you knit with the tension measurements given in the pattern to work out how many additional (4mm needles)/ or fewer (6mm needles) to cast on but this can get complicated.

I've had a go at casting on 90 stitches onto my 4mm needles and it's a bit of a squeeze. However, the 6mm straight needles are 33cm so might be OK. I'm not worried about the finished "garment" coming out a bit bigger so long as it doesn't look too open-weave. Might do a swatch and see how it looks.