That, of course, does not explain the conundrum of the US needle sizes. Why don’t they follow the Imperial system? To be quite honest, nobody really knows! It remains a fact, however, that from around 1900 US manufacturers started selling their own needle gauges – following no system at all. Or rather, the actual sizes followed (more or less) the Imperial system but the numbers were rising, much like the metric system popular in mainland Europe. A knitting gauge is a small tool made of plastic, metal or wood. Like a slice of Swiss cheese, it has a bunch of variously sized holes all over it.

Most patterns will specify the yarn that they used to make the project. If you didn't want to use the exact same yarn, you could substitute for something which is the same weight yarn. Knitting needle and crochet hook sizes Think of how Apple forced unique chargers and cables on their customers for two decades. Miss Lambert probably called her needle gauge “ Standard Filière” for very similar reasons – distinction. The Singer Corporation famously heralded this change towards international marketing around that time with their sewing machines ( source) with a kind of success that would dominate the industry for the whole century to come. Your personal tension: Are you a tight or loose knitter? Your knitting style and even the needle material (wood vs metal) will have a huge influence on your gauge. Remember, knitting gauge is very sensitive. If you change mid-project from plastic to bamboo needles, for example, you might find that your gauge changes, too. Types of knitting needles Wooden needles: As with Bamboo, these are a great choice for when knitting with more slippery yarn if you find that your stitches usually slide off your usual metal needle tips. Our favourite wooden needles are from LYKKE and come in a fabulous range of colours.So, your first step should always, I repeat, always be knitting a gauge swatch to confirm you are knitting a satisfying fabric in line with your thoughts or the requirements of your pattern. what size knitting needles for beginners On top of that, different materials (e.g. wool, alpaca, or cotton) are also an important factor. Some of these might change their appearance drastically after the first wash. A large crochet hook, at least 6.5 mm, should be used with chunky wool. The larger the hook, the more space you will see between stitches. What size crochet hook should I use for DK wool?

Gauge can be affected by a number of things. Different fibres might behave differently. So if you are knitting with a DK yarn made of cotton and the pattern is written for a DK yarn made of wool, your gauge could be off. Also, every knitter is different. Some of us naturally knit more tightly, while others have looser stitches. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's important to be aware of it. It's not generally a good idea to try to change the size of a pattern by sizing up or down your needles. For example, you might want to make a jumper pattern oversized, by using larger needles than the pattern suggests. However, you'll probably end up with extremely large arm holes and a bad fit - not the chic style you were going for! What is gauge and how does it affect needle sizes? Smaller needles are great if you want a piece that's going to be a bit stiffer; for instance, if you are crocheting a basket or hat, you might want a tight, rigid fabric. Smaller needles can also be a good idea for certain knitting designs, such as Fair Isle colourwork or cables. Knitting needle sizes can be confusing. That’s because different countries have different ways of numbering their knitting needles. Given the many immigrants (but also the rising economic power) from Germany, this mixture cannot be seen as all that surprising from a certain point of view – especially as it feels a little bit more intuitive that a larger number constitutes a larger size. It would be very limited to assume the U.S. only imported haberdashery from the UK. After all, companies like addi have been selling fine knitting needles since 1829!These days, I see an increasing switch among U.S. pattern designers to the metric system for similar reasons. Since the Imperial and the U.S. knitting needle size system still exist side by side, recommending size 6 needles can be very confusing as knitters from both sides of the pond are likely to buy a given pattern. In the US, needle sizes start at 0 and increase to 50. However, in the UK, sizes start at 14 and go up to 000. Americans use their own numbering system, which you will often see if you're using patterns from the USA. In this system, 2mm needles are a size 0, and the numbers go up as the needles get bigger. Confusingly, there's also an old British system where the numbers go down as the needles get bigger, so 2mm needles are a 14. This isn't used very much anymore, but you may still see it on vintage patterns. Using the needle sizes in our table will generally give you a knitted fabric that is neither very tight nor very loose. It will not have visible gaps between the stitches, but the finished fabric will not be particularly rigid, either. A handy little guide to knitting needle sizes including size chart for US, European, and Japanese needles.

A pattern typically only provides you with a size, aka the diameter of the needle. The rest is up to your own preference. Your knitting needles need to be long enough to accommodate all stitches without them being squeezed together so tightly that they fall off whenever you relax. The knitting stitch pattern: Typically, you will knit lace patterns using relatively large needles to create a lace like appearanges. Rib stitches, on the other hand, will benefit from using relatively small knitting needles. Of course, new materials (like celluloid) might also explain the departure from the SWG (as they required different machines and thus resulted in different sized needles). One also has to keep in mind that around 1910, commercial flights across the Atlantic were not available, and neither were telephone calls possible. Unlike today, knitters around the world were much less connected internationally and the world moved much slower and still a bit in isolation.

Now, you might be wondering about the difference between knitting needle sizes? Why are there so many and which size should you use? What’s the difference? Well, depending on your yarn weight, you will need a different needle with a different diameter to create an attractive fabric! This can be an incredibly complicated topic or super simple. So, let’s go through the details step-by-step. Close-up shot of a typical commercial yarn label