What will circular do for my knitting?

[AnnieSnap]

I haven’t knitted for 35 years. My new love is sewing (machine and overlocker), but I’m recovering from Covid (I’ve been ill with it for 3 weeks now. Over the worse, but still tired and weak). I don’t currently have the energy for working in my sewing room, so I’ve started a spot of knitting. The pattern tells me to commence with circular needles. I’m not sure they existed 35 years ago. Anyway, I don’t have any and have never used them. I do however, still have some good wool and a fairly extensive collection of traditional knitting needles, so I have gone for it with those. For information, I am knitting a sleeveless jumper in 2 pieces front and back. Would there be a value in using circular needles that I’m not aware of?

it’ll work fine on standard needles. On a circular you could work it so you just did continuous knit to get stockinet stitch, no purls, also find on big stuff a circular needle distributes the weight better. Also, on a circular needle you might be able to do the body of it on circular in one’s pieces as tube ( if working from hem up) divide it at arm pits and work the back and yoke separate. Save some seeming. If you have a set of double pointed needles you can do same as a circular.

I do everything on circulars now. Way easier on your hands and wrists as you are not holding the weight of the yarn up.
Symphonie Pro Interchangeables are my favourite as I like wooden knitting needles (but aluminium crochet hooks!) and the joins are smoother.
It's so nice not purling and not having to sew up. Really recommend giving it a go, it makes knitting so much more enjoyable.

Circular offers the joy of no pearl stitches or seams, so personally I find it a much swifter and satisfying knit.

Thank you everyone. That’s really helpfully. Based on your comments, I f I carry on knitting when I’m better and get back to my sewing, I may well buy some circular needles.

There are a couple of reasons why circulars might be preferable. I personally much prefer the shorter needle length and use them for everything (apart from socks where I use dpns), if you are knitting something big like a blanket, using circulars with a long cable makes it easier to manage, I hate sewing up jumpers and cardigans so I knit the sleeves in the round, knit the body up to the arms and then join everything together on a long cable and continue knitting up to the neck - a completely seam free cardigan!
in your pattern, I would say the advantage would be knitting it all in one piece and not having to see up.

@NannyR weirdly, the pattern calls for circular needles for the ribbing and regular needles for the body, followed by the instruction to sew the front and back together! That’s why I just went for it with what I had handy this evening as I couldn’t see any justification for them stating circular needles.

my only problem with circulars is getting the join right without twisting at the outset. Once I’ve got past that, I love not purling

I find them much lighter as easier to rest the bulk on my knee. Use them for everything whether flat or in the round.

Having never used them, I don’t really understand this. Could you explain it a bit?

When you’ve just got all the cast-on stitches looped around the needle it’s really easy to accidentally join them with a twist (think moebius strip if you knitted it for long enough) and for it not to be noticeable for a few rows. I solve this by knitting back and forth for the first two rows and just sewing it at the end when I darn in the dangling cast-on end. Hope that makes sense!

Can someone recommend a knitting pattern for a simple round necked jumper on circular needles? I’ve also not knitted for years but would really like to give it a go.

I’ve only ever used circular needles for blankets* with too many stitches for ordinary needles. It did take me a while to get used to them.

*Just garter stitch, mindless TV knitting. Current one on a big fat needle uses one strand of chunky until it’s used up, plus a random colour of DK from my overflowing stash, changed each row. Ends just knotted together, ultimately turned into tassels and trimmed. No sewing squares together or sewing in of ends. 🙂

The other good thing about interchangeable circular needles when you’re knitting in the round (not back and forth) is that you can have a smaller diameter needle on the holding side (the one you knit from) - makes the whole thing run more smoothly.

Has anyone ever tried knitting in the round and then steeking? I’ve seen a couple of videos recently - it looks horrifying but apparently it’s good for things like fair isle?

Circular needles are the best! They are brilliant for knitting in the round, but also really good for knitting very large, flat projects which would be hard to squeeze onto straight needles. There are also two methods you can use them for to knit very small projects in the round - the 2 circular needle method, or the magic loop method. I now use the latter for socks, having always used dpns previously.

One reason I love circulars is that I loathe sewing up knitting projects and am awful at it! I recently made a jumper that was entirely done on circulars - not s single stitch of sewing up. If you're likely to use circulars a lot, it's really worth buying a set of interchangeable ones, so that you will always have the right combo of needle size and cable length. Otherwise you end up constantly having to buy different ones!

Has anyone ever tried knitting in the round and then steeking?

Nooooo! It gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about steeking

I suggest you have a look on Ravelry - loads of free and paid-for patterns.

I always use circular needles (or double pointed for sleeves, mittens, socks) aa I hate sewing seams. To the person who said they weren't around 35 years ago I've been using them longer than that. I think they've been around for centuries.

I've only done steeking once so far, but I'm a total convert - it was brilliant for a really complicated fair isle knit - the whole jumper was done on circular needles in the round, so I could see the pattern the whole time and wasn't struggling with purl rows. I was apprehensive about cutting the steeks, but if done correctly, they don't unravel and provide a really nice firm edge to pick up stitches from to do the sleeves or edges etc. I think you need to be a reasonably confident knitter to cope with the fair isle etc, but it's not as complicated as it looks - the patterns only use two colours at a time. If you can get the tension right (looser than you think!) it turns out really well.

No. I've sways chickened out of that. If I'm knitting a cardigan I still use circulars but go back and forth.

Well @Fairislefandango with your name you would know! :)

@Couchpotato3 I can fair isle and I can see that knitting in the round would give you nice even tension, but I can’t conceptualise how you would end up with a firm edge after cutting - and I’m not brave enough to try! Did you find that you had the right tension in the carry over threads?

You do alternate stitches in different colours on the steek, then cut between 2 rows. It does give you a nice stable edge. I would suggest that you do a trial on a small circular piece first so that you can get the hang of the technique. No issues with carry over threads on this bit as so short.

I took up knitting again a decade or more ago. I only use circular needles now and they are a life changer. Lots of patterns now are knit in the round and it was designed for that purpose, but it's great for back and forth knitting too. They are particularly good for big items, such as garments and shawls.

I would suggest trying with knitpro ones first and see how you get on. They are an ok needle and not too pricey. The Pony ones are cheap, but awful. The very best ones are Chiaogoo in my opinion, but they aren't cheap.

That was me. I never came across them 😲

Genius!

Thank you! No-one’s ever said something that nice about one of my posts before! I usually manage to kill even the most promising threads