Knitting needles can be slippery beasts. How often have you gone to start a knitting project only to find that one of your straight needles or DPNs has sloped off leaving no hint of its whereabouts? Or been ready to move from jumper hem to body only to realise, to your horror, that the circular needle you need next is kinked up beyond recognition? Or, my personal favourite, how often have you called a knitting needle amnesty, gathering up needles from the various corners of your house, only to learn that for inexplicable reasons, you’ve somehow collected six pairs of 6mm [US 10] needles, despite the fact you rarely knit with anything heavier than a DK-weight yarn?
A good system for organising and storing your needles can go a long way to avoiding (if not completely removing) these frustrations. But how best to do it? A few weeks ago, we were chatting about this over on The Knitalong Hub, and I thought it’d be fun to share how Jen and I store our needles, as well as some suggestions others made. Maybe it’ll provide some inspiration for New Year needle organising (that’s a thing right?). At the very least, it can be just peeking into other knitters’ tool kits. As with most knitting-related things, there’s no right or wrong way to keep your needles tidy. The best solution for you will come down to what types of needles you need to store and personal preference.
Jen’s Solution: The Roll
Jen uses this set of needle rolls to keep her pointy sticks organised. She’s got a roll for each needle type. The straights live in, in Jen’s words, a “really old Lantern Moon roll” from “back in the day”. As you can see, it’s stood the test of time well and is very much still fit for purpose. You won’t find a Lantern Moon case, but if you search for a straight knitting needle roll, you could probably find something similar.
As you can probably see, needles are grouped by size and rest, pointy bits protected, in the rolls clever little sleeves. Her DPNs are stored in a similar way, in a roll bought at Wonderwool from QunicePie:
The eagle-eyed among you may spot that there is an unruly gaggle of DPNs in the 7mm slot. Jen has a LOT of small sized DPNs so that she can knit multiple tutorial samples for 4ply projects, but her needle roll doesn’t have quite enough space for those sizes. So Jen has an amnesty pocket where everything that doesn’t fit goes!
And this nifty roll from Picperfic holds her circulars, including interchangeables and cables:
While also providing a perfect spot for displaying an enamel pin collection (can you tell I’m a wee bit jealous?):
The benefits of rolls (aside from the obvious concurrent enamel pin storage opportunities) are that they combine tidiness with compactness. If you tend to use lots of the same size needle, you might find certain slots get a bit crowded.
Kat’s Solution: Binder + Cases
I use circular needles for pretty much everything and have since I began knitting. While my dream is to one day have a circular knitting wall of glory à la Bristol Ivy, my current system works pretty well for me even if it’s not quite as photogenic!
The lion’s share of my needles live in this massive fishing lure binder. Each plastic bag page holds a size. I got the idea and the case from my mom, who uses something similar but smaller to store her needles. When she ordered mine, she didn’t realise it was quite a bit bigger than hers, but the large size (each sheet measures roughly 8.5 x 11” or 22 x 28 cm) gives me plenty of space for my many, many needles to live without having to wind up my needle cables too much. I’ve had this case for years, and it’s served me very well. My more recently purchased Chiaogoo interchangeable needles came with their own cases … the larger case can hold sizes 2.75 mm (US 2) to 10 mm (US 15), while the smaller mesh bag has a sleeve that holds teeny sizes. I do have multiples of tips I use frequently, so some slots do get a bit crowded!
But there are, of course, many other ways to organise your needle stash! Some suggestions from the Hub: get large Ziploc bags equal to the number of needle sizes you have, use a permanent marker to write sizes on the front and divide your needles amongst them (like my binder, but without the binder bit!). Or get three Ziploc bags, keep one wherever you knit with your most commonly used needles, another with needles you use slightly less often, and a third that’s put away (but somewhere you can find) with your least frequently used needles. Have a mug or jar where you put needles as they come out of projects, and sit down with a needle gauge a few times a year to put them all back where they belong. Sew your own needle case or roll. Even more ideas: use an Excel spreadsheet, a notebook, or Ravelry (if you’re able) to inventory your needle collection, so you know just what you have. And if you’re trying to get your needles organised and have some circulars with cables that are bent up, try holding them over a boiling kettle or steaming pot of water to relax the cables!
Jen has just started a list of needles in tutorial samples so that she knows where to look if she’s short of a set. That’s the point in the book cycle that we have reached – everything partly started and almost ready to reveal…
Do you have a clever way of keeping your needles in line? We’d love to hear in the comments or come chat about it with us over on The Knitalong Hub!