Magic Loop or 2 needles

Thank you Tamar ,, so to quote that famous character from Molliere according to you , i Made the Magic loop all my life and didn`t know it ,, of course one pulls up a loop to advance in knitting on the circulars if they aren`t full with stitches ,,, You have to understand that many years [and even now with certain items] , we don`t have all the lengthes , sizes of all knitting things , we are used to make do with what we have ,,, thus if we had one circular , it would never have occured to us that one could get shorter or longer ones ,,, ps , since i wasn`t happy with having only 4 needles i usually buy 2 sets of 4. this became an advantage when knitting mittens and sleeves at times i knit on both together, mirjam

Hello Dennis and All, I only make single socks, lose interest after one. I knit with five bamboo or wood DPs, will mix and match on sizes when I cannot find enough of same size. I, too, have neuropathies and RA, so my hands are often too stiff and painful to manipulate small needles. But the yarns always tempt me to try one more time, and off we go. Another single sock is born!

It's near freez> I was just interested.

Cece,

I sounds like you have it all figured out.

Thanks for your reply.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

After some sweet person sent me some I cherish them also and purchased some more.

I do use them the same as you Wooly.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Great Aaron,

I get the sheath out at least one day a week and test with different yarns. I am still learning. I never thought of socks.

Thanks for the info on gage, I saved it.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Sorry Mirjam :(

BB, Some people like them better and some don't.

They are worth trying.

Hugs & God bless, Denis & Gail

Jules,

I think you are doing the right thing while you are learning socks, you will understand socks better.

Jan,

I love to experiment. After hearing Aaron I will have to get my sheath out and try it.

I have dozens on DPNs, time to experiment. :)

Hugs & God bless, Dennis

LauraJ,

No it does not!

If it does it makes me too.

When I am using 2 circs, I am usually knitting 2.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Hugs & God bless, Dennis and Gail

Katherine,

It is great to hear from my friend!

I still use 5 needles when doing socks with patterns as some have already stated. The one I want to try out is the knitting sheath with shorter needles.

Did you ever get a sheath Katherine.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Tamar,

I believe I have a set of every type of knitting needle make, Gail claims I am surely spoiled. :)

I just love to knit and want to try it all.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Christine,

I agree, I love the bamboo and rosewood needles I have. The crochet woods slow me down also. I am a fairly fast crocheter for a guy and noticed the woods also.

I just made some leg warmers for Gail with the "Magic Loop", it worked great. I love the for sleeves in sweater and such.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Hugs & God bless

Sue,

I guess I am not so strange then. I did not think I would get this many responses about the magic loop and so many people that use or use it and love it.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Thank you BonnieBlue!

You said it better than me, "I want to be versatile."

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Die,

Yes,I have neuropathies and RA also. "My RA is so bad it shows up in my spinal cord fluid I found out. The nurse told me how bad it was and them informed me that it is "very, very paingul". I said "OH!" and smiled real big.

What do you do for pain management Die, especially after knitting so long.

Keep up trying.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

Please don`t be sorry I do enjoy reading YOU here , and that is fun ,,,, mirjam

Dennis and Wooly,

For the gansey needles, try a heavy leather belt worn very low on the hips. Tuck the sheath into the belt over the right buttock. Before you start knitting, the right needle is just in front of your right arm pit, and the tip is just below chin level. Then, push the working needle forward and you rest your right forearm on it. Thus, the working needle is flexed 60 or 70 degrees! You push it down with your forearm and it springs back to finish the stitch motion. This spring action is the difference between a knitting sheath and a knitting pouch. A leather knitting pouch will not stand up to the force of a steel needle being flexed against it.

The needle holding the stitches is held almost vertical. You push down with your right arm, release, and the needle springs into the stitch. The right hand flips yarn over the needle point (this is really all the right hand does) then the right forearm pushes the needle down, out of the old stitch as the right hand moves back (This also pushes stitches down the right needle.) Then spring of the needle, lifts the knitting up, pulling the old stitch off of the left needle. The process actually gets faster, when there is some weight of completed fabric hanging off to your right to pull the knitting foreword. Until then, you may need to move stitches down the right needle with the fingers of the right hand. The knitting speed provides the yarn tension, and when you are going good, you must make sure that there is loose yarn available, because the tension of pulling yarn off a ball or out of center pull skein will stop the process. This is how you knit tight all (day, week, month, year) without damaging your wrists,

Spring action gansey needles are such a perfect knitting tool, that I try knitting every new yarn on them, and ask myself if I can live with the fabric. It is fast, so the standard size for my swatches now is cast-on 60 stitches and do 50 rows. The swatch on my desk right now is 9" by 10" and weighs 54 gm. (Compare that to the 2" squares that I knit 3 years ago for my first thermodynamic tests, and the time to knit those and these is about the same : D ) Remember, I do not have any SPN these days, so I do my back and forths on 2 gansey needles. Swatches knit in the round get knit on sock needles as previously discussed. Mostly, I get something between 6 & 10 stitches per inch, but even the lighter fabrics knit from baby and lace weight yarns have excellent body and drape, even if they are loosely enough knit that they are not particularly warm. It is one of those things that when you try it, you realize that those old timers really knew what they were doing.

Half way through the first gansey, the needles will no longer be quite straight, but then they seem to work harden a bit and stabilize. Used gansey needles are bent and ugly. No wonder we do not see them around.

While I like the goose wing sheaths for socks and small objects, (knitting sheaths do tame DPN) I have moved to a Cornish Fish design that clips onto a heavy leather belt for serious gansey knitting. If you like, I will send you one at no charge. (Part of my warranty service!) If so, send me an email.

Aaron

One circular, Magic Loop, two socks same time! (No second sock syndrome!!!)

JJMolvik