Making knitting needles

[tigercametotea]

My 8 year old wants to learn how to knit and I thought it would be a nice thing for her to try making her own knitting needles. I'm thinking of making a needle of about size 8 and using worsted yarn. Only problem is I am not sure where to get the wooden dowel for it. Would B&Q stock it? I did manage to find a stockist online I think here www.woodworkscraftsupplies.co.uk/index.php?cPath=117_1

A size 8 knitting pin is 4mm which funnily enough is not on the website, but they might supply anyway. Make sure that the ends are properly 'knobbed', nothing more annoying when you are trying to learn to knit than stitches falling off the pin at both ends. Which is why you usually don't learn to knit with double pointed needles.
Are you on Ravelry yet? There is a section for young/beginning knitters.

Hi DutchOma, nice to meet you :) We did manage to make those needles last month with the 6mm wooden dowel purchased from the website I mentioned, and then we bought wool yarn that was the right thickness for the needle. Coincidentially, some salvaged wooden beads from one of the children's broken wooden toy actually fitted perfectly onto the ends of the needles - no double-pointed knitting for my beginner daughter at this point.

My daughter is going to start her first knitting project. By the way, this is totally unrelated but I just feel like mentioning it anyway :) - my DH is from South Africa and has Dutch ancestors and his Oma Bola still knits up jumpers and sends them over here to the UK for our children to wear. So when I saw your mumsnet nickname "DutchOma" it made me smile :)