What's the best brand of circular needles?

I’m a crocheter, but I’m making a hat that has a knitted edge. The pattern calls for size 6 (4mm) 16" circular needles. I went to one store that only had bamboo circular needles (clover brand). But I realized I don’t know anything about knitting needles so I thought I’d ask people who do. : )

If you’re only going to be using the needle for the occasional hat trim, the clover needle should be fine, especially if you don’t have any experience with knitting. The bamboo finish will help hold the stitches on. If you’re going to be branching out into knitting larger circular projects you might want to sample other needle brands and materials.

So what other brands whould you recommend if I continue into more knitting?

That’s kind of a loaded question here. :lol: It really IS personal preference and how much you afford.

I used the Clover bamboo when I started knitting with circulars, but then moved on to interchangeable sets so I wouldn’t have to keep buying different needle sizes and different cable lengths and having a million needles. That said… the 16" clover bamboo is probably just fine for what you need now. You can think about it while you’re doing that consider if you want to continue.

These are what I’ve used and remember this is MY opinion… yours may vary.-

Denise - they aren’t bad, but I don’t care for both the needle material (resin/plastic) or the cables. Many do like them.

Clover bamboo - I don’t like cable

Addi Turbo - Wonderful metal needles, but expensive

Knitpicks Interchangeables - Love them! Affordable, thin flexible cables, nickel plated, birch laminate or acrylic. I have a couple sets of nickel plated and several of the wood. Great customer service.

Boye Needlemaster - Only tried someone elses once and didn’t care for the needle or cable. Many do like them.

These are by all means NOT all of the choices…I just named the ones I could think of off the top of my head…

Thanks for the leads on some other brand names. I appreciate your opinions!:yay:

With needles, and this includes circulars as well as others, is that there are a lot of things to consider: material the needles are made from, the flexibility, points, cost and then there is the type of yarn you are using and the type of knitting you are doing. They all combine in different ways to make some work better in one situation and another in another situation, besides all around personal preference. So even a single knitter may prefer a certain needle in one situation and a different one in another situation.

I have a 16" Clover needle for hats/etc. For myself the Clover needles are not my favorite, but I will use them sometimes. But I taught my husband to knit and he preferred the Clover needles over other things I have, so we all differ.

I don’t have many of the well known brands of needles. I have some old (probably Boye) needles in double points and a few circulars and I like them fine. I have some Inox needles that I like, they have nice pointy points and I think they are what I have been using lately (dpns) for some fine yarn working twisted-stitch work. I have a lot of old nylon needles in circulars that I use a lot. I don’t know if anyone makes these anymore, but I love them. After the LYS here went out of business I bought all of the ones she had and still have a bunch of brand new ones. :slight_smile: More than I’ll ever need but thought they would be nice to share with people I teach to knit.

I agree with Jan that the Clover will probably be fine for your edge. But my concern with that is that the needle called for in the pattern may not be the needle that you (personally) would need to get the gauge you are going to want, so you may end up needing to buy more than one size to do your project. Maybe you’ll be one of the folks who can get gauge on the needle called for. We can hope so.

:muah: Thank you so much for your input! I get the right gauge with the hook the pattern specifies in crochet, so hopefully my luck will carry over into knitting. Thanks again!

Another vote for knit picks. Great needles and cables. Affordable, excellent customer service!

I do like clover Bamboo. I use them primarily for DPN’s due to they keep a good grip on the yarn.

After Jan mentioned knitpicks, I checked out their website. They look like they have some great products. I noticed they also have interchangeable crochet hooks for tunisian crochet. I’ve been wanting to try that, so those look very interesting to me! Thanks for your vote Pearl!

WEBS has some nice needles, too: http://www.yarn.com/

I’ve tried both their Cubics and Knitter’s Pride needles and love them.

Watch out: Knitting is as addicting as crochet!

I’ve tried WEBS needles, I think they are just the same as Knit Picks (this has been discussed before on the forum). As an additional consideration, Knit Picks gave me free shipping on my order over $50 but charged me sales tax. WEBS doesn’t give free shipping but didn’t charge me sales tax. That leaves me wondering which is really less expensive in total. sigh