{"id":1856,"date":"2011-06-01T15:43:11","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T22:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2011-06-01T15:43:11","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T22:43:11","slug":"interchangeable-circulars-contd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/?p=1856","title":{"rendered":"Interchangeable Circulars cont’d …"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, It’s June 1st, and only three weeks to summer. Will Spring ever get here? I don’t know, but there have been a few spring like days lately, so maybe it’s here. It’s ironic that the planet as a whole is experiencing global warming and yet it seems colder than ever! I just wish this cold would go back to the poles where it’s needed to keep the ice caps intact! Wait, this is a knitting blog, right? So I guess I’d better get back to knitting and stop whining about the temperatures, huh?<\/p>\n

So we were talking about interchangeable circular needles (ICN) and I had posted a review of the Webs ICNs. At least I had started one. Well, today is the rest of it, and if you need the beginning of it just go back a few posts to May 16th. So having looked at the critical necessities of ICNs – the join, the tips, and the tip material – it’s time to take a look at the extras and one other essential – the cable. The Webs ICNs come with two different cable thicknesses. There is a thinner cable for needles 4mm and smaller, and a thicker one for the larger needles. This makes perfect sense as usually as you get in the larger needle sizes, the yarn you’re using also gets larger. Of course, as you get thicker in your cable, you also lose a bit of flexibility as well. With the Webs ICNs, this isn’t a real issue at all. The flexibility of the thicker needle is still more than adequate for knitting, and the testers didn’t find any noticeable difference when using it.<\/p>\n

So now for the extras. With ICNs, there are a few extras that to me aren’t really extras – they should be included in every kit. The first is end stoppers. The Webs kit comes with 4, two for each thickness of cable, and I like the style of them. They resemble large buttons with a small pole coming out of the middle – this is to join them on the cable. The stoppers serve two functions. The first is that you can attach them to one end of the cable, and then attach the other end of the cable to a needle tip. Now instead of having circular needles you have what is often referred to as swing needles. It’s like using straight needles except the straight part is VERY flexible. I actually kinda like using swing needles and with these i would have a set without going out to buy them specifically. The second use of the end stoppers is a stitch holder. You can put an end stopper at each end of your work and voila! You now have a very flexible stitch holder, allowing you to measure or test fit your work as you go along.<\/p>\n

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\"\"\"\"Another extra that is a necessity is an extender. The great thing about circular needles is that they come in different lengths. As I discussed earlier, I’m not a big fan of the shorter ones (16″ or less) and have shown that with today’s techniques, they’re entirely unnecessary. Yes, the longer the better, and for that you need an extender. The Webs ICNs comes with two, one for each thickness of cable. Again, these serve two functions. The first and most obvious is to extend the length of your cables. The Webs set comes with a total of 12 cables – 2 per length, per thickness – 16″, 24″, and 32″. So this means that using an extender you can also get lengths of 40″, 56″, and 64″ to work with. This is great, but I say they should include another 2 in each thickness so that you could make even longer cables, seeing as you have the cables anyway! Luckily, you can buy extra extenders if you wish to. The other purpose of the extenders is the same as the end caps – a stitch holder. If you need your needles for another project, you can join your work into a circle by removing the tips and attaching an extender at each end of the cable. Hey, if you were making a project in the round you could also use this to test fit it as well!<\/p>\n

The last “extra” that comes with the Webs ICNs is the needle gauge with cutter. Yes, almost all needles start out with the size printed on the tip. Yes, almost all needles have the size erased off after about three sweaters worth of use. It’s a pain trying to figure out the size of needles and switching from US, to British, sizing. For these reasons, a needle gauge is ESSENTIAL! The one in this kit is great because it has all three sizing standards, a ruler (metric and imperial), a nifty little cutting tool cleverly designed into one corner, and a cutout for measuring your gauge swatch. All in all, it’s 4 tools in one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So what’s my overall impression or rating of these needles? I’ll tell you after I post the review of the Denise ICNs! Oh, I will be drawing the contest winners at my knitting group on Sunday. Good luck everybody!<\/p>\n

Hugzzz \ud83d\ude0e<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, It’s June 1st, and only three weeks to summer. Will Spring ever get here? I don’t know, but there have been a few spring like days lately, so maybe it’s here. It’s ironic that the planet as a whole is experiencing global warming and yet it seems colder than ever! I just wish this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,29,584],"tags":[1013,521,138,649,637,275,969,265,648,31,384],"class_list":{"0":"post-1856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-just-knitting","7":"category-needles","8":"category-product-review","9":"tag-cable","10":"tag-circular","11":"tag-contest","12":"tag-end-stopper","13":"tag-interchangeable-knitting-needles","14":"tag-knit","15":"tag-knitting","16":"tag-nylon","17":"tag-product-review-2","18":"tag-purl","19":"tag-stitch-holder","20":"pmpro-has-access","21":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pNDS0-tW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1856"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1861,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions\/1861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}