Recently, one of cousins reached out to ask me if I wanted some knitting needles that had been her grandmother's--yes, I have a reputation! Remember when my chiropractor in MA gave me some that had been his mother's? My policy is I'll take them, because they don't take up much room, and you never know what you might need. So she sent them along, and it prompted me to rethink how I had been organizing the needles.
I had them all sorted by size, which makes sense until you realize that I don't use the straight single-points very often, and they were kind of blocking my view of the ones I do use more often. My mother found me a nice big glass vase, and I put all the long straights into it. Voila, decor!
Overhead shot:
I have some of the shorter ones, too, if not as many, so I put them into another vase.
And while I don't own a ton of crochet hooks, I wouldn't want them to feel left out. I had this to put them in, so.
(It's meant to hold dish-washing implements by the sink, but it can flex.)
After that was cleared out of the way, it was time to sort and size what was left. I put a towel on the coffee table to minimize rolling, and brought a needle sizer and post-it notes over.
Once they were all sorted, I put them back into the organizers I had been using for everything before.
And although it isn't lovely, I stuck the post-its in each one, so I can see at a glance which size is where.
All together now:
Pretty! To my eyes, anyway, which is what counts.
Of course, the knitters among you may have said, "All? What about circulars?" And yes, I have plenty of those. They are in this hanging case, by size.
A not-small amount. And it doesn't include the interchangeable set, but those are mostly in use anyway, the cords, at least.
But I sorted out and added in a bunch of my grandmother's that I hadn't unpacked before. Which led to this:
And I think you can see the difference!
One funny one I noticed as I was going through them. She had plenty that were just in repurposed bags (hello, Wegmans pharmacy), but some of them were in the original packaging, and this one caught my eye:
Circular knitting 'pin'? Never heard it called that before! Have you?
If you're a knitter, how are your needles organized?
Poorly. They are organized poorly.
ReplyDeleteOkay, that's not really true. My interchangeables are in the zipper pouch they came in, sorted by needle size. The cables are in little baggies inside a plastic box. My fixed circulars are all in labeled baggies, in a plastic tub. And the double-pointed are either in a fabric roll or in a tube with a needle-gauge in the top, so they're easily sorted by size. Crochet hooks are at the bottom of the interchangeable pouch. I don't seem to own any straight needles anymore.