Stitch Marker Hacks

Have you ever been in a situation where you don't have a stitch marker, but you really need one? I know that I have been in that situation too many times to count. So I wanna show you a few little hacks, things that you can use if you don't have a stitch marker. So I have a little bit of knitting here, and then we'll talk about different things that we can put on our needles to mark our place. So let's say I'm knitting along and I realize I either lost my beginning of the round stitch marker, or I just realize I'm at a point in a pattern where I need one. What you can do is grab something like a paperclip. Paperclip actually makes a great stitch marker. And when I had a job where I was working in an office, if I was knitting on my lunch break or something and I needed a stitch marker, I would very often just use a paperclip to mark my place. You just wanna be a little careful that you're not getting this caught on your knitting. That's the one disadvantage to using a paperclip. But in a pinch, it's definitely gonna work for you. So another thing that you can use if you need to mark a particular stitch, so you're knitting along, maybe you're doing a shawl and you need to know this is my center stitch or something like that, even a bobby pin will work really great for something like that. So if I need to just mark a single stitch, I just take the bobby pin and put it right through the stitch. And now I have marked that stitch and I can keep on going. Same thing. I also have been known to take a binder clip and use it as a stitch marker. So this one, I would just take it just like this right on there. And this is something I would not personally do all the time. I find that most of these are a little bit bulky. But again, we're looking at what to do when you need a stitch marker and you don't have one. So another stitch marker hack I really like is using a straw. And here I have a disposable straw. Or if you were given a disposable straw when you ran through the local fast food restaurant but you don't wanna just throw it away, you could wash it out, let it dry, and then make stitch markers out of it. So all you're gonna do with the straw is just take the end and just cut it. And you can cut it as thick or as thin as you like. I usually make 'em about this wide, so probably a centimeter or little bit less. And then you can just stick it on your knitting needle. And you can see here, this just fits on this knitting needle. These knitting needles are a US size seven, so you do have to keep that in mind. If you're using just a regular old straw and you have thick yarn with big needles, it's not gonna work. But if you have a disposable straw that's bigger, you could use that obviously on a larger knitting needle. But this one's one of my favorites that if you find yourself with disposable straws that you don't wanna throw away, use 'em as stitch markers first. Reuse 'em. The other thing you can do is just use regular old yarn for a stitch marker. So there's a couple things that you can do. So the first one is when you're marking a beginning of a round, so let's say we're gonna come to the beginning of our round here, you could just take a length of yarn, I would suggest if you have a different color in your bag, use it, but if not, even the same color or your yarn tail will work in a pinch. I'm just going to bring it in between the needles and keep knitting. And you would work all the way around until you got to the point of the yarn again. I'm just gonna slip some stitches back over just so you don't have to watch me knit all the way around. So then let's say you're knitting along, you're on your next round here. Now, we're like, "Okay, here's the beginning of our round." I'm gonna take my spare yarn, and now bring it in front, and then keep on knitting. And so every time you came around to that spot, you would just move the yarn back and then front and then back and then front. It kind of weaves it in. And then when you're done, you can just pull it right out. It's a really great little tip if, again, you don't have a stitch marker. That one's really great for when you're working the beginning of a round. So what about if you wanna mark a stitch right in between, like we did here with our straw and our binder clip, but you just only have yarn, that'll work too. You can just simply tie a little loop of yarn, just like that. And now you have a stitch marker. You can just stick that on the needle, and keep on knitting. One tip I actually got from a knitter in a class that I taught a few years ago was that if you make stitch markers like this, you can actually take a length of yarn and tie some loops in it and tie multiple loops. And now you have two stitch markers that are actually attached to each other, which can be really nice, so if you just need to do a few stitches. And now you wanna place another marker, you can just take your next loop, stick it right on, and keep knitting. And so now actually all your stitch markers are attached to each other. So there's lots of different things that you can use as a stitch marker if you don't have one. And I would love it if you would let us know what you've used as a stitch marker before.