I think the pattern writer assumes that because normal straight needles with knobs on the end only come in twos, and are called a pair (e.g. You will need a pair of size 9 needles) that the reader would know that needles that come in a set of four must be DPNs.
It looks like this pattern was written some time ago and was reprinted a lot of times over several decades by different companies. Maybe when it was written, this would have been obvious to the knitter of the time.
Language is fascinating – I’m an editor (or I used to be) so I love stuff like this. The copy editor’s job is to anticipate things that might be confusing to the reader. I wonder if I would have spotted this one?
Reading vintage patterns, like old recipes is more of an art than you might wish. The designer assumes that everyone knows the vocabulary in common use. But that vocabulary changes so now we need translations for these patterns.
http://rovingcrafters.com/2015/03/11/vintage-knit-terms-translated/
It’s always a challenge when some brave knitter posts a question here about these older patterns.
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There’s one person on the Ravelry page who says they have made it several times. Maybe you could message them directly with your question? But I also suspect you need circulars or DPNs, which would allow you to slide the stitches off of the holder and then knit whichever direction you need to.
Hi
Thank you for coming back to me. I’ve actually managed to knit it on 3 size 9 needles and it’s looking good. It would have helped if the pattern had actually stated ‘use 4 double ended needles’.
Thank you again for you advice and offer of help. So glad I found this website.
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Great to hear you managed a workaround.
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