Looking for metric needles

Hi all, Jenny here, feeling muuuuch better now . I have a lot of circular needles, but I don't know what size they are. not in a wrapper,and not on the needles, if someone here can tell me how to tell the sizes ?and if I have what you are looking for I can send them to you. I think at one time I had a "card" with different size holes that was for needle sizing, lost in my stash now, is there another way to know the size? Jenny

7.5mm would be close to 5/16 of an inch. But trying to measure knitting needles with a flat ruler is pretty hopeless. You'd have to poke a hole in a piece of paper and trim it so that it fit the needle exactly and then measure precisely across the center with a metric ruler (most new rulers have the metric measurements on one edge). It might be easier to find your needle gauge.

Also, it's a size that doesn't even appear on my conversion card, which lists metric sizes 7mm (US 10 1/2) and 8mm (US 10 3/4) but not 7.5mm.

=Tamar

I have a needle gauge that has US/metric on one side and US/Imperial(UK) on the other side with measurements in inches and centimeters along the edges. It has 10.5 as 6.5mm which I think is standard. Very handy gadget

- discovered that some of my really old needles are almost the next size up from what they're labelled.

And Jenny, you could take some that you think might be close to 7.5mm with you to a store and `try out' their needle gauge to see which is what. ;)

sue

You can buy metric needles from us

a needle guage

is a funky one at the top of the page, or scroll down for a low cost one.

Roger.

I was at this page last night, but don't see any 7.5mm except in the set.

sue

You're right, I misread my card. US 10 1/2 is 6.5mm, US 10 3/4 is 7mm. US 11 is 8mm. But still no 7.5mm on the card.

I once tried to correlate several different conversion lists and there were some big differences. Of course, the size changes in the mid-20th century didn't help, but the variations go back further than that. I have a bunch of antique knitting needles and they are all sizes in between the official ones even on the old gauges.

What a good idea!

=Tamar

Mine aren't exactly antiques, they're younger than I am! They're about

40 years old though.

I did that with a couple when I started up knitting again last year. I wasn't sure what sizes they were.

sue

In getting a particular gauge, texture matters. The texture of the needle and the texture of the yarn affect the actual size of the stitch, which produces a particular fabric. So needle size and yarn are selected to produce a fabric with a texture that you like, and then enough stitches are knitted to produce the required amount of fabric. Standard needle sizes are close enough together, that is to necessary to go to intermediate needle sizes to produce a particular type of fabric or fabric with a particular hand.

You can "rough up" smaller needles so that they will produce larger stitches and you can polish/ varnish/lubricate larger needles so they knit tighter. How the yarn is held and the amount of hand lotion or spinning oils on the yarn affects the tension and gauge. The strength of the hand and how tired the hand is also affects the gauge. With an elastic yarn, the needles with long points can produce tighter stitches as the stitches are formed on the needle points to produce very tight knitting for that nominal needle size. So factors other than needle size are important to gauge, the texture of the fabric, and knitting to fit.

Remember that when using such large needles, the resulting fabric will have some elasticity and so size need not be calculated on a millimeter scale. This stretch and elasticity is the virtue of knitting.

My suggestion is to knit swatches with widely available US 10.5 /6.5 mm and US 11/8 mm needles and decide which fabric you like better, and then adjust the stitch count to make the garment fit as required. The effort to find

7.5 mm needles is not like to worth while considering the number of modern patterns calling for 7.5 mm needles.

Then see

for 7.5mm circular knitting needles.Aaron

US/Imperial(UK)

I'm already changing the stitch count as I'm using a thinner yarn than in the pattern and so went to larger needles. I've already tried it on the 11/8mm; it was too loose. As soon as I finish what's on the 7mm's I'll try them out, knitting a little looser. But this pattern requires a lot of stitches to be picked up and they have blunter tips - maybe I can use another needle for that part of the process. I'd always wanted a size between US 10.5 and 11 and then I found two in metrics last year. I do have a 7.5mm, it's just that it's way too short for this sweater.

sue

I often use smaller needles to pick up stitches - particularly when I do socks. Sometimes in desperation, when I have knit rather tight, I even resort to a crochet hook. I make tiny wooden ones with a hook at one end and a knitting point at the other end. But, then I am a poor knitter that must resort to subterfuge to compensate for my lack of knitting skills.

Aaron

let me know if you want me to see if I can find what size I have ,and if it is something you need I can send it to you. Jenny

Thanks, check your email.

sue

I'm sure we all use some sort of compensation, just to make things easier. I often knit the last row with a needle about 2 size larger so I can use a crochet hook to bind off with.

The smaller needle is so blunt tipped that I often have trouble just using it for an increase; I'd really like a pointy one for picking up these stitches.

sue

There are 7.5 mm circulars in bamboo.

Yep, I finally found them too, had overlooked them before because I was looking for the Aero needles. Thanks.

sue

Sue, sent you email, Jenny :)

Got it, thanks.

sue