Circular needles

[merglemergle]

I want to try circular needles. But they seem complicated!

Can anyone tell me: 1. Do I need to buy any particular sort of circular needles? I'm looking to start with a baby's hat of around 35 cm diameter. (I"m assuming there are no lovely bamboo circular needles).

2. I want to do 2x rib (kn p2) for most of the hat. Do I just do this in the usual way?

3. Is it true that if I do plain knit it will come out as stocking stitch?

Any online instructions would be most helpful!

TIA!

Hi merglemergle, I am in a bit of a rush but couldn't resist. I will come back later to post some links.

1. Yes, you can get bamboo circulars; if you are going to do lots of circular knitting it might be worth checking out the Denise system of needles (link later!)
2. Yes, rib is the same as on straight needles.
3. Yes, just knit all the time and it looks like alternate knit and purl rows on straight needles.

It's terribly easy really as long as you make sure after casting on that when you join it into a circle there are no twists. Back later but good luck!

Oh, the denise needles are lovely. tamum recommended them to me, and I just use them for everything now. (You can use circular needles instead of straight, just knit normally.) They're light, and really easy to use.

I'm afraid I haven't done proper circular knitting, though.

One thing I've noticed from my baby hat patterns is, you do need double-pointed needles, too, for the decreasing. You can't really do this part with the denise system, annoyingly.

My mum uses circular knitting for jumpers etc then you don't have to sew up,

Also I think she used to put a false seam in sometimes IIRC.

hi

So-where can I get the denise system from? Is it worth whatever it costs?

Just searched for an answer to my question and found a sort of answer here. But could do with some further clarification as I'm a circular needle virgin.

The pattern I'm doing is here and circular needles are used on the hood section. I'm a bit confused though because in the pattern it says Row 1 purl, Row 2 knit, then repeat rows 1 & 2 until 2" from the beginning. The problem is that if I do this then isn't the stocking stitch effect going to get mucked up. How do I do this right? Should I be turning the work around every time I end a 'row'?

Does this make sense?

Its only suggesting that you use circular needles because of the number of stitches - just knit forwards and backwards as normal, don't go round in a circle as you can do with circular needles... I've made a whole jacket using circular needles - start at one cuff, up sleeve, when doing body the row starts at the bottom of the front, goes over the shoulder and down to back - and finish on the other cuff....

Hi mistlethrush - I've already put the stitches onto a circular needle so don't fancy taking them all off again! I wanted to do it like this as I've never used them before. Thought it would be a good learning experience.

They are really easy to use - you just keep knitting in plain. It's an idea to put row marker down every five rows.

I think 35cm is quite a small circle. I have 40cm and 70cm needles. It is a real stretch to knit loose cuffs with the 40cm needle (although a baby hat is clearly much bigger).

It may be easier to use 4 double-pointed needles, especially as you are inevitably going to taper it down to almost nothing.

Hi scienceteacher. It's not me who's doing the baby hat, that was the OP. I'm confused about some pattern instructions (see a couple of posts down). Although I'm getting the feeling I should just do the knit stitch all the time.

You're right, you need them on a circular needle, don't worry!.

Its just you can use a circular needle in two ways. To knit a 'tube' of knitting you make a circle of your stitches and continuously knit round in a circle - there are no 'ends' of rows, and you have to try to make sure that the circular bit is roughly the size of the tube you want to knit.

The other way of using them - which is what you want to do for this one, is to still knit rows. So, you've got all the stitches on the needle. Hold the jumper so that the WRONG side is facing you - you will have a needle bit sticking out on the LHS and the RHS. You want to start knitting on the righthand end. Push the stitches towards this end of the needle (though not so much that they fall off) - this should leave the LHS end with lots of spare space. In order to have a needle to knit onto (ie the one you would hold in your right hand), bring the LHS needle round in a circle so that you've got it in your right hand (I think that I probably find it easier to do this in front of the knitting, but it depends whether you prefer knitting on the 'inside' or 'outisde' of the not joined up circle..) . This will mean that you are knitting on to a relatively empty needle, from a full one. Once you've got to the end of the stitches, instead of carrying on on the stitches that are coming around the needle and joining it up, just turn the whole thing round and start a new row.

Does this make sense? If not, I might be available to talk through when you've got it in your hands!

Bunjies - no, definitely follow the pattern, but you're not knitting in circle even though you're using circular needles...

Circular ndles are also great for knitting on the go - i use them on the train - small so you dont elbow your neighbour! Hi mistle how are you ?

i treated myself to a set of harmonies. absolutely lovely join and i'd highly recommend them. i don't really knit on normal needles anymore (well, didn't anyway - am on sabbatical from knitting at the mo)!

Ontheup - I'm fine thanks! How are you? I've somewhat sloped off the threads I was wont to post on and have found other locations to lurk!

Thank you Mistlethrush & for your kind offer to talk me through it. Sorry to have gone AWOL, have just seen your last message. I think I've really gone and done it now though as I was too impatient to wait. I thought I'd just carry on in purl as when I did the knit part it mucked up the look as I wasn't turning it round. The trouble is I'm not sure I can start doing it the 'row' way now. Oh bugger, bugger, bugger! Might have to turn it into a roll neck jumper now and forget the hood part.

I'm fine really - I too decided to leave those threads...far healthier to focus on something creative....