i got my knit on
Recently, I've picked up an assortment of cheap funky yarn from W-World. Yeah yeah, W-World. Yeah, yeah, acrylics. Yeah, yeah, weird ass colors. A couple months ago, I also picked up some short plastic knitting needles (size 13s) - they're clear orange! - and a set of bamboo DPNs (size 10.5s).
Over the last few weeks, I finished myself a plain old garter-stitch scarf from this grey-and-pink (the two together look kinda purple for some reason) fuzzy stuff using said new size 13s. Oh my, they were so much easier to work with than my long metal needles! Like my usual lazy self, I slacked on tucking in my ends until I found the crochet hook I got for just this purpose (unfortunately, I had forgotten I had one, so now I have two).
Over the last week, I made a narrow, short scarf - intended to be kid-sized - of the same grey-and-pink, again on the new size 13s. I haven't really got a lot of kids to give one to, but I figured it'd be quick and easy and doable with my currently crazy workload. Thursday, expecting to hopefully get that done, I tossed my metal needles and the bamboo needles and one of the balls of green fuzzy yarn in my bag. Of course, I did nothing with it.
Today, sitting on the couch, watching Too Much TV, I got them back out of the bag and went to knit. I decided that the 13s were too big for this (with such light, thin yarn, I'd have to run it with something else, or it's too lace-y), so I pulled out the metal 10.5s. I've decided that I hate hate hate the metal needles. They're too long and too slippery for what I am usually doing (namely scarves since they're easy and I don't have to remember where I am in a pattern over days and weeks between knitting). After some cursing and muttering, I decided to give the bamboo DPNs a whirl, since they were also size 10.5 and this was narrow enough that I wasn't worried about it falling off the other end.
I so wish I'd started on needles like these bamboo ones! They've got just enough friction to keep things from sliding (but no more) and they're blissfully short (they are DPNs, afterall)! The feel of working with them is just lovely. If you're interested, I got mine at the JoAnns on Wyoming/Menaul and they have both DPNs and single pointeds. The 10.5s are the largest DPNs.
On the other hand, this does remind me that I've got a working tray full of dowels which I really did mean to turn into knitting needles, before I got distracted. If anybody's familiar with wooden knitting needles, I'd appreciate some tips on finishing them ... just sand and have done? varnish? rub in a little linseed oil? I'm working primarily with hardwood dowels (though nothing quite so fine-grained as the bamboo), if that helps.
Just for giggles, I tried to keep some statistics today. I currently knit about 15 stitches a minute when I'm not distracted. On the 10.5s, I get about 1/4 inch per row (very approximate). So, on a 15-stitch wide scarf, I do about 15 inches long in an hour. Say a kid's scarf is about 45" long - that means about 3 hours of knitting. I'm a lousy knitter, so run me at $6/hour (because $5.15/hr is too much math right now), making it $18/scarf, not counting the cost of yarn or any overhead, etc. Good thing I'm not trying to make a living with this, eh?
Practical upshot - I'm willing to give my metal knitting needles to a local knitter. If you like using them, you can have em. I have sizes 8 and 10.5 and a size 8 circular (29") that I wish to dispose of. I do have some much smaller metal DPNs, but I'm not yet willing to give them away, since they seem to work ok for me.