Knitting Tools and Notions
Learn about knitting needles, essential tools, and other notions
4/14/20252 min read
The only materials you need to get started are a pair of needles and, of course, yarn. You can find more information about choosing the right yarn in my blog post here. In this post, I’ll focus on the tools.
Knitting Needles
Knitting needles are typically made of wood/bamboo, metal, or plastic. Metal needles are very slippery, while wood and bamboo needles are more “grippy,” and plastic ones are kind of in between. Any would be suitable for beginners, but I recommend starting with bamboo if you’re having trouble choosing (it’s also my personal favorite). Eventually, you should try other types, as it really comes down to personal preference.
When you’re first starting to learn how to knit, you should get straight needles, about US size 7-9 or 4.5-5.5 mm. These sizes work well with worsted weight yarn, which is usually what is recommended for beginners. Once you’re ready for circular knitting, you will upgrade to circular needles or double-pointed needles (DPNs). Learn more about knitting in the round in my blog post here. Circular needles have two tips that are connected by a flexible cable, which comes in multiple lengths. They can be fixed to the cable or be interchangeable (tips can be detached from the cable and reattached to different cable lengths).
As the name suggests, DPNs have points on both ends and come in packs of 4 or 5. Your stitches will be divided evenly across all but one of the needles to form a circle, and the last needle will be free to knit with.
Essential Tools
Tapestry needles are also essential; they are used to weave in the loose ends of yarn when finishing your project. Scissors or a yarn cutter, of course, are necessary for cutting yarn. Stitch markers are useful for marking where to increase or decrease, stitch pattern repeats, or the beginning of the round when circular knitting. There are lots of other tools out there to help make knitting easier in various ways, but these are the most important ones to have.
Other Handy Tools
The metal spirals in the photo above are used as cable needles, which make cable knitting much easier. They hold stitches in the front or back of the work while you work the next stitches, basically swapping their places to create a cable. Once you start working with patterns, a row counter will come in very handy. There are row counters that attach to your needles, there are ones you can wear, or you can find apps that count rows. Cordsmiths, like the ones pictured below, make it fast and easy to make I-cords.
I hope you find this helpful. If you use other neat tools in your knitting, I would love to hear about them! Send me an email using the form below to let me know what you're using or to ask me any questions. Happy stitching!
