Last month I bought some lovely Brittany birch double pointed needles; I immediately changed out the WIPs off of the loooong metal needles, even though they were flat projects. I like the shorter, lighter needles incomparably better. They're comfortable, light, and they don't bump Chris if he's sitting by me (or snag a blanket or something).
That said, I immediately started seeing gaps in their utility. For instance, I tried to make a market bag, but it called for a circular needle--and for good reason. The stitches would barely fit on my 7.5" needles, and every single DPN started with a yarn over. How the hell do you do a yarn over when you've just started with the needle? I figured it out, but managed to keep dropping them anyway.
Notwithstanding the dropped yarnovers, which are a special case, I actually took to DPNs pretty fast, I think. No strange V-shaped ladders at my joins: all-in-all, I like them a lot. I haven't been poking myself. I did realize that I've been wrapping my purls backwards and all of a sudden I'm using a WIP to test out different purls, which is making the gauge fluctuate in the middle of a stinking row, since, until I realized that I had twisted every knit alternating rows (because a backwards wrapped purl makes an Eastern-oriented stitch, which, knitted through the front loop twists it). I suck at purling, all of a sudden. I may actually finish the rest of the project with the backwards wrapped purls to make the texture consistent (aside from the hesitatingly knitted half-inch I did today). ...However! I do realize why knitting was so much harder than purling to this point: I was knitting twisted stitches, as a matter of fact every single one in stockinette. The only purl I know that DOESN'T twist the stitch starts with the yarn behind the left needle and has the working needle come behind and through, grab and turn. But pulling it through is very hard. I'm back to throwing. Shit.
Then there are socks. Apparently light, convenient, addictively fun immediate gratification, I however kept seeing project pages calling for sizes 0,1,2. My current set only goes as small as size 3 (3.25mm) of which I accidentally ordered 2 sets, and although I thought I corrected that, in the final tally I received two sets but was only billed for one. Hooray for my luck with customer service, huh? However, they didn't sell smaller needles... and now I'm left wondering how much my gauge will change from 2mm to 3.25mm. A lot more than I'd rather, probably.
So I need some smaller needles: sock needles. And in general, I'd rather buy something I'm going to continue using, and although I would like a few more smaller sets of DPNs, the wood is just a bit too grabby to see myself using once I speed (back) up. So I'm looking at Knit Picks' nickel "sock set", or at least one or two sizes thereof. But they're so damn close in size that I can't be sure which size to get. If I don't get the set, I would probably end up getting all of them due to my nagging lust for completed sets. (The Harmony wood is too busy for my taste, so I would get Surina or Brittany Birch if I were planning to get wood... which I still might. The Brittanys come in 5" and the Surina comes in a darker wood, from Fabulous Yarns, and I Really Like the look of the darker wood.)
Honestly, since the plain vanilla sock is stockinette or ribbing, but in the round, where a previous row's backwards wrapped purl doesn't really affect this row's knit, I'm sorely tempted to begin a pair of socks for myself or Chris or the girls, in Sport weight or something, and just have a few twisted stitches or ktbl where the ribbing ends. What do you think?
Since I know that nobody's out there, it's mostly a question for my subconscious. I think I'll buy sport weight in a color that doesn't show mistakes, maybe black Stroll, and use my size 3 needles. I knit sort of tight anyhow.
(Next time: 5 whole fleeces and fiber prep: carding vs. combing, roving vs. top, washing vs. scouring, hand dying and spinning... all in a Northern Californian summer???)
