Choosing Your Knitting Needle: Circular vs. Straight

Hi, Jill Wright here from the Knitting Circle. Today I'm going to help you choose which knitting needle. Now, you need to choose this time between a circular or straights. What's it gonna be? So, circular knitting needles versus straight knitting needles. Let's give you a little bit of background here. Circular needles, they have a tip on each end, and any kind of length in the center, which is usually a form of plastic, in the center. They are ideal for continental knitting. You don't have the length of the needles to be flapping around, so you can pick real easy. Now, these can be either fixed like this one or adjustable. You can buy sets, which come with the tips and the cord separate, and then you would just, some of them twist and pop. Some of them screw in. Depends which set you get. Those are quite useful for especially the larger pieces of work that you might be doing. You can get an extra large number of stitches on there, because of the length of the cord in the center. Now, usually the tips come around four or five inches. You can get them longer in some sets, in some cases, towards six inches. And the longer tips are easier to use with the longer cords. Now, circular needles are ideal for anything that you want to do in the round, because of course, you can just keep knitting around and around, using a stitch marker to mark the ends of your rows. So you can work seamlessly, which is awesome for some people who really don't like seaming. I don't mind too much myself. And they're great also for doing sleeves, the neck lines. And you can also do the body in the round depending on which size needles that you choose. Which length needles rather. They work from about 16 inches to around 32 inches in the cords themselves. So you have a lot of different options there. Let's check out the straight needles. Now, obviously the straight needles come in fixed lengths: 14 inches, 10 inches, and then double points, which come in anything from about four inches up to about eight inches. You can also get longer double points, which are used with a knitting belt, which I don't have. You can get up to a real fast speed with those. Now the straight needles are best for those who knit English or Scottish style. The Scottish style knitter would probably want the 14 inches, since the one needle goes under the arm. 10 inches, you don't have to put those into the arm. They're a little more convenient for smaller spaces. And the double points. You can actually work in the round on double points also. Some people don't like to juggle with those. So, it takes a little bit of getting used to, and I used to end up with holes in my shirt, in the front of my shirt, because I used to rest needles against myself. There is obviously a maximum stitch count that you can get on to these needles. Obviously it depends on the thickness of the yarn that you're using, and also the thickness of the needle that you're using. On the straight needles, you can only knit flat with those that have an end on them. You can work in the round on the double points. Obviously seams are sometimes the right way to go, depending on what kind of product you're working on: sweaters, cardigans, that kind of thing. So, circulars versus straights. They really, it's a personal preference, but sometimes the circular is better since if you don't want a seam. And if you don't mind seaming, then go for those straights, but try them out. See what you like. The choice is yours. Hopefully now you'll have an easier time choosing between the circulars or straight needles. And for more information, don't forget to check out our other videos on the website.