Monday, February 5, 2007

Deslicking Knitting Needles

This is probably the lowest-tech tip of the decade.

I got desperate this morning as I was knitting a row of the Black Window Spider Queen. Those KnitPicks needles are just too slippery for the Gentle yarn and I was simply hating the entire experience.

I grabbed a piece of medium-coarse sandpaper and gave those needles a good rub-down. Amazing. They are now quite pleasant to knit with--a bit of grip but still enough slidiness to move the stitches along without effort.

If you want to try this yourself, start with a fine grit (maybe 400) and work your way up (down?) to coarser paper if necessary. Needless to say, you should do some test knitting as you go. Eventually, you'll find a texture that works best for you.


I'll just plop another 24" size 2 needle in my KnitPicks shopping basket so I will have an unprocessed needle at hand if I need one.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're a brave woman!!

Lacefreak said...

Ahhh Yes. The sacfificial knitting needle. No greater love hath a lace knitter for her craft than to ruthlessly customize her needles in the quest for good knitting! If my Inox don't work for Spider Queen, I will be a copy cat in a heartbeat! Thank you for being the first to walk out into the mine-field!