In a previous post, I sang the praises of circular knitting
needles. This post is about a
sub-category of circular needles – interchangeable. For those who are not familiar with them, interchangeable
needles come in a set with several different sized needle tips and lengths of
cable. The needles attach to the cable
by either screws or snaps. You can
easily make the exact size/length needle needed for your project. Instead of having five different circular
needles of the same size with various lengths, one set will make them all (just
not at the same time).
There are a lot of brands out there – Lykke, HiyaHiya, Addi
and ChiaoGoo are well-know names. Due to
the cost, I have only tried two brands.
One I love and one I did not care for (I will not talk about them). I am going to talk about why I love my Denise interchangeable needles.
About 20 years ago, I was looking to get some circular needles. I was new to knitting and wanted to get the
best tools I could without spending a fortune.
During my research, I found mention of interchangeable knitting needles
in a forum post. Realizing that option
could save me money, I started looking at brands. I easily found the Boye brand at my big-box
craft stores but they didn’t get great reviews.
On a different forum thread, I found a recommendation for Denise. I had never heard of them, but several people
sang their praises. My LYS did not carry
them, so I found my set on Ebay (Denise did not have a retail site at the time). I loved them from the very first time I project
and now own two complete sets. I also
have a set of their interchangeable crochet hooks and their travel knit set.
 |
| Pastels Knit - Supports Breast Cancer Research! |
Why do I love them?
Several reasons. First, the needles
are easy to connect to the cable, require no tools and rarely come apart while
stitching. In 20 years, it has only
happened to me twice. I think both times
were due to user error locking in the needle.
They are made of a plastic resin, so they are smooth but not
slippery. They are warm to the touch and
very quiet. I have yet to wake my
husband from a nap while I am knitting with Denise. A standard set has 4” needles from US5/3.75mm
to 15/10mm and six cables Six cords: 5” 9” 12” 14” 16” 19” (13, 23, 30, 36, 41
and 48 cm). It also comes with four
buttons to make a cable a stitch holder or a flexible straight needle. There are two connectors so you can connect
two cords for a custom length. It comes
in a hard-shell case with a slot for everything. From their website, this set is $69.95, and they
are also available on Amazon, much more affordable that some of the other more
famous brands. My two sets are older, so
the needles are white, and the cables are a light aqua blue. The new sets have color choices – the standard
blue (white needles, dark blue cables, blue case), Brights (primary colored
needles, red cables, blue case) or Pastels (pastel color needles, pink cables
and case – they will give $5 to cancer research with this kit). Plus, they have lots of other needles, cables,
and accessories.
 |
| Crochet Kit |
The crochet kit has 4 5/8” hooks in sizes (one each) F5/3.75mm
to 19/15mm, 7 cords: 2 each 3” and 5" (8 and 13cm) 9", 12" and
16" (23, 30, 41 cm), four end buttons (turn any cord into a
Tunisian/Afghan hook or stitch holder), and two extenders for cord-to-cord
connections. It also has a hard-shell
case. These kits come in blue (grey
needles, dark blue cables) or the Brights and Pastels (now with lavender cables),
all in light blue cases so it’s easy to tell them apart from the knitting
kit. They are priced at 64.95 for the
set. Lots of accessories for crochet,
too. I don’t use these as often because I
don’t do a lot of Tunisian projects. Being
able to select the cable length is great for Tunisian because you won’t have a
very long needle for a narrow project, saving weight and making it easier to
stitch.
Are there any drawbacks?
A few. The needle ends have a
moderate taper, so I’ve had issues when doing lace patterns that require knit 3
or 4 (or more) stitches together. It is
possible for the needle to discolor from a yarn’s dye. My size 5 needles from one set are teal
colored from a shawl project. It doesn’t
bother me, and I’ve used the needles on other projects with no discoloration
issues on the lighter colored yarns. One
cable had a tiny rough spot near the connector.
I look a nail file and a couple of light strokes and the rough spot was
gone. If you are a person who has a lot
of WIPs, it is very possible to run out of needles/cables to hold all your
projects (ask me how I know). I overcame
that issue by limiting the number of WIPs I have at any one time.
All in all, I highly recommend the Denise brand. Several of my knitting friends purchased them
based on my recommendation and they are also very happy with them. Full disclosure – I am not getting paid by
anyone for this endorsement.
No comments:
Post a Comment