I’m having some trouble with my KPOs! I THOUGHT I had 2 sets of size 5 US and the regular set, but according to my Boye needle gauge, my size 7s fit snugly in the size 6 hole, the 6s fit in the 5 hole, SOME of the 5s fit in the 4 hole, and the 4s fit in the 3 hole. Am I going mad? Have I completely messed up my set?
The reason for my asking is this:
I started a sweater knit in the round on 6s (I thought) and put a 4 on the left hand needle to make picking up the stitches easier. I made a mistake just above the waist level and frogged back a few rows and accidentally put the needle in backward, knitting on the 4 instead of the 6. I knit like this for about 6" before I noticed!:doh: But it actually looks kind of nice–good waist shaping! Now for the hips, I’d like to switch back to the 6, and THOUGHT I had put the 6 on, but when I went to my needle case, I noticed the 7 was missing. I just finished a couple of other projects, so I gathered up the needles and have been TRYING to put them in the right pockets. So what’s going on with these needles? How do I figure out which is which? Does anyone else have this problem?
Note that my 5s seem to be of different diameters!
Input, anyone?
in the past (say when i started knitting 45 some year ago) Needle sizes (size 6 say) depended on the manufacturer.
different brands (zepher, boye, susan bates, paton) all had different size 6 needles… they were close --but different!
nowdays, (past 5 to 10 years) most needles are US/mm sized, and more standardized–but some size 6 are 4.25 mm, and some are an even 4mm!
and there are size 1 (2.25mm) and size 1 (2.5mm) and size 2(2.75mm) and size 3 (3mm) and size 3 (3.18mm)
Needle gauges of Brand X (say Boye, or Lion brand) are accurate only with the same brand (Boye’s needle gauge is perfect for measuring Boye needles, but Lion Brand (or susan bates, or Knit picks, or…) might not be the same size!
This makes knitting interesting–especially if you buy old needles at a thrift store, or inherit old needles.
(and this doesn’t even begin to deal with different sizing methods ([COLOR=Blue]UK 15[/COLOR]=[COLOR=Green]US 1[/COLOR]=[COLOR=Orange]2 or 2.25mm[/COLOR]!) used in different countries. (for a long time canada used both US and UK needles… its amazing anything got knitted!)
and to further muddy the waters, KP (which as now resolved the issue) did at first have some needles mis labeled (and some people got complete sets with doubles of one size, and another size missing!)
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so what size are your needles? [/COLOR] Its a mystery you have to resolve! if you are missing sizes, get in touch with KP, and have as much info as you can gather about :
when you purchased
and what size needles you have (doubles)
and what size needles you are missing!
It could be the needles, it could be the sizer is set for Boye needles and that might not be the standard. Get another sizer to check and if the needles really are off, contact KP to see what they say. The tips can be mixed up in sets so they may send some the new size.
I hate US sizing…it is so impercise! I always abide by metric when dealing with needles (even though I prefer to measure my knitting in inches…go figure)
The US sizing chart doesn’t even have a 7 mm needle!
That happened to me when I bought some of there needles. I called and said you shipped me the wrong needles. At the time I didn’t realize that there was three size two’s. There response to me was did you buy our needle sizer. No I said I had three of them already I didn’t need another. Well you do just to make sure what size you have. I agree I wish they would make all the needles in mm at least we would get all the right sizes. I hope it works out for you and you get the answer you like.
Mine fit in needle sizer properly. I bet they can vary as well making it all the more confusing. I figure the small amount of difference really doesn’t matter in the end anyway though. :shrug:
As long as you stick with the same needles for the whole project, I’m sure it wouldn’t matter. I wasn’t that smart, though!:doh: Now I can’t figure out what needle I was using. :roflhard:
Yeah…I used to go into a Lewiscraft (defunct Canadian craft chain) and get the sizes in between…but they went out of business maybe a year or two ago…
I know I can get them other places, I am just bitter at places like Walmart and Michaels that won’t carry them because they don’t fit the US size scheme!
I recently gave in and bought the KP view sizer. I have three or so US/metric sizers, which never seemed to get my KPs correctly. I have one that I picked up at a yard sale that was a metric-only sizer, and that didn’t really help me all that much, as I’m so American, I think in US sizes. I was very sure that some of my KPs were “off”, not just from US sizes (which some of them are, specifically 6 and 9 are the metric sizes, not the US size, so off by a partial mm here or there), but maybe even from eachother…
Then I got the sizer and am now quite happy to be able to figure out which tip is which, and which dpns are which. I quickly discovered that I had my 5’s and 6s mixed up (one of each in each set!!)
