Hello everyone. I’m a Newbie on this site and wonder if someone could please help me understand circular needles. I bought a pattern online for a lovely slouchy beanie hat that required 4mm, 60cm circular needles. I bought these and cast on 100 stitches as required but the needles seem too long for the stitches which would stretch dreadfully if I tried to knit on them. I assume I should have bought shorter needles - but how do I know how long they should be - and why didn’t the pattern explain?! Any help gratefully received. Thanks.
Understanding circular needles
60cm seems very long for a hat.
I’m making a hat at the moment, 40cm circular and CO 144 stitches.
I use 40cm for hats, 25cm for mitts, and bigger 80+ for shawls.
Welcome to KH. That’s long for a hat. You can get a shorter needle or a longer one. I prefer longer because I can’t use short tips. A longer needle would allow for using traveling loop or magic loop. Another option is to use two circulars. If you’re interested in learning about the other ways of knitting in the round let us know and we can help with links for tutorials.
That’s very frustrating. What is the pattern you chose?
Try to find a video about “magic loop”, it explains how to knit smaller projects with long circular needles, without stretching the stitches. Even if you would get shorter circular needles, you will need this as a beanie usually got decreases.
Yes, you’ll either need to learn magic loop or get a set of dpns (they come in packs of 5) to do the decreases.
Thanks Engblom. I will tty to find a video about a magic loop.
Kate
Hi Grumpygramma, a link might be really useful. Thankyou!
Here you go. There are lots of other videos showing these techniques so you might want to watch several.
Magic Loop for Small Circumference Knitting // Technique Tuesday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gtIaM6H7H4
Traveling Loop // Technique Tuesday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHHSZQYuy9Q&t=22s
Two Circs Method of Knitting in the Round // Technique Tuesday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzPwruk2-CY&t=194s
That’s great - you don’t seem grumpy at all! Thankyou.