Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee Read Free Book Online Page A

materials, and types and if you’re like me, you’ll no doubt decide you need them all. There could be a therapy group for knitters driven over the edge by a circular needle with a sloppy join that snags their lace weight, and an entire evening could be spent berating a needle that lacks a tip pointy enough to do a “knit three together through the back loops.” How, then, to choose among the hundreds of needles currently littering your home?
SIZES
    Knitting needles come in sizes that indicate their diameter. These sizes are measured mainly by three systems (four, if you count my personal system of losing all my needle gauges and having to roll needles between my fingers and make a guess). There is the metric “mm” system, the most common in the world and, to my way of thinking, thebest. Each needle size is actually its diameter in millimeters, a concept brilliant in its simplicity. There is the U.S. system, in which each needle is measured and then assigned a number. In this system, the smallest number is the smallest size and so forth. It’s still a good system, though used only in the United States, so if you’re a knitter from another country, or a knitter who likes patterns from another country, you’re going to have to get down with the metric system. The third system is the old United Kingdom one. This is like the U.S. one, except the smallest numbers are the biggest needles.
    One of the beautiful things about knitting, and oh, there are so many, is that it can be done with very little. An equally good time can be had by the knitter with a pair of old aluminum straights or a collection of gold-plated circulars. It’s all about doing it your way. Admittedly, you’re still going to want to run yourself through with whatever needle you’ve chosen when you can’t find the needle gauge for the 14th time, but that’s universal, and unrelated to needle type.
    It pays to think outside of your own country. Once upon a time I had a nifty Irish sweater pattern. It called for chunky wool, and I had fished the appropriate yarn out of the stash. Glancing at the pattern, I saw that it called for size 4 needles. It seemed odd, but I grabbed my size 4s and attempted to get gauge. An hour later, when I had just about broken my wrists and produced a piece of knitting so dense that I thought about marketing it as a bulletproof vest, I thought about the conversion chart. I, naturally, being Canadian, had thought the pattern referred to the metric size 4. Feeling quite clever, I fished out my U.S. size 4s only torealize that they were even smaller. Frustrated, I then did what any other knitter would do. I used whatever needle it took to get gauge … and complained bitterly to my knitting friends about the error in the pattern.
    Needle Sizes

Metric
U.S.
UK
10
15
000
9
13
00
8
11
0
7.5
—
1
7
—
2
6.5
10.5
3
6
10
4
5.5
9
5
5
8
6
4.5
7
7
4
6
8
3.75
5
9
3.5
4
—
3.25
3
10
3
—
11
2.75
2
12
2.25
1
13
2
0
14
1.75
00
15
    All needles don’t come in all sizes. For example, the metric system has two sizes between the U.S. size 11 and 10.5. If you get a pattern calling for something you don’t have, don’t lose your cool. One of knitting’s charms is that often, close enough is good enough. If you want to get uptight about it, though, there’s always mail order to get needles with an international flair.
    Laughing, they openly mocked me, and then showed me a chart with the UK sizes on it. Now, before I slag any pattern for being wrong, I try to remember that I don’t live in the only country in the world.
    It seems pathetic to list the conversion chart for these three types here again, since I’m confident that this is the ten-millionth time someone has written it down, but I can never find one when I need it, and until the world is run by a knitter government that standardizes this sort of thing, well, you’re going to need one. Be warned that