Circular Knitting Needles

The newcomer to the hand knitting world is circular needles.  They were first used as a part of knitting machines in the 19th century focusing on the production of seamless socks.   However, their usefulness for hand knitters prompted an introduction as individual needles in the early 20th century to make particularly large items like afghans.


There are three sets of circular needles here with their characteristic coils/cords 

Circular needles are great for large and/or heavy projects because as you can see from the photo above, the needle points are really short which means the bulk of the weight of the project is held on the coils/cords that attach the two needle points.  These coils are much more flexible than straight needles and allow the weight of the project to sit in the lap of the knitter.  But just because the needles are circular doesn't mean projects knit on them have be done in the round.  The back and forward, right side, wrong side approach I described with straight needles can be accomplished using circular needles, the knitter simply does not join the work.

To join or not to join, that is the question

Circular needles can be bought in a fixed format where the needles are permanently fixed to the cord (like in the first photo above), or they can be purchased as part of an interchangeable system.  This means the tips can be taken off the cord and exchanged for larger or smaller needles.  It also means the length of the cord can be changed to meet the size of the project   Here a photo of my interchanged set of needles.

The missing pair of needles currently found in a WIP

Both the permanent and interchangeable cords circular needles have advantages and disadvantages.  The permanent circular needles work best if the right size cords is purchased/available, however; some knitters use the Magic Loop technique to make a long cord shorter.  (Just watch the first 30 seconds of the video to figure out this technique.  I have to admit I don't really use it as you can see the cord needs to be particularly long for it to work.)  The interchangeable cords have two major problems; first, the joints can be thick where the needle point intersects with the coil.  This can create a large bump which slows down knitting because smaller stitches get caught on them.  Second, sometimes the joints, which are screwed together, come apart during knitting; a real pain because the two parts need to be twisted together again.  So in the end each knitter has to make a decision about what style of cord/coil works better for their needs.

The process of casting on is the same with circular needles as it is with straight needles. If you’re knitting a round project, the pattern will say “join stitches in round, being careful not to twist stitches.”   See the second photo, it is ready to join because the stitches are lined up appropriately.

If  you do decide to join the project, there are different methods to do this so the first row isn't tiered.  Some people simply knit the first stitch very tightly, so that there won’t be a gap between the first stitch and the last stitch in the round.  Another approach is to cast on an extra stitch, slip that stitch onto the left-hand needle, and then knit the first stitch and the last stitch together before starting the pattern.  Or one can slip the last stitch (that is the first one cast on) from the left-hand needle to the right-hand needle, and then lift what’s now the second stitch on the right needle (the last one cast on) over the first stitch and onto the left needle. Then pull tight and start knitting with the stitches that are on the left-hand part of the needle.  Any one of these techniques will insure the cast-on row remains even.

Finally everything I've written about SPNs and/or DPNs can apply here to circular needles depending up how you use them.  Feel free to refer to either of those posts if you wish.  And oh, I found my missing set of circular needles:

Daisy Sweater