DK yarn is one of the most common yarn weights, often seen as the standard weight that sits halfway between fine and bulky. Needles of 3.75 - 4.5 mm will usually give you a good result with DK yarn. What size crochet hook should I use for chunky wool?

Susan Webster concludes in a noteworthy post that “then, somehow, magically, around the time of World War II, needle and gauge markers united around the “Standard American” size”. She argues that it could be a result of wartime restrictions. Decades of confusion among knitters might have elevated that demand. So in some parts, this chart is only an approximation. Still, you can easily see that a 4 mm knitting needle converts to a U.S. size 6. And knitting needles sold as 5 mm in Europe can be found as size 8 on the other side of the Atlantic. Knitting needle sizes explained To help you decipher the world of knitting needle sizes, refer to the charts below! Knitting Needle Sizes Chart for US and UK A pattern typically only provides you with a size, aka the diameter of the needle. The rest is up to your own preference. Your knitting needles need to be long enough to accommodate all stitches without them being squeezed together so tightly that they fall off whenever you relax. In Japan, knitting needles use different standard metric sizes, starting at 2.1 mm and going up to 25 mm. What is My Knitting Needle Size?Using the needle sizes in our table will generally give you a knitted fabric that is neither very tight nor very loose. It will not have visible gaps between the stitches, but the finished fabric will not be particularly rigid, either. The yarn label of the most commercially produced yarns should provide you with a size range. It has to be noted that these kinds of recommendations are only a first step. The right needle size for you will largely depend on two factors: There's one final thing to take into account when you choose needle sizes: gauge. In the knitting world, gauge refers to the number of stitches and rows per centimetre. When you follow a pattern, it should tell you what the gauge is. If your knitting matches the pattern's gauge, then your project should turn out well. Unlike Swiss cheese, these holes are precisely sized for measuring knitting needles! This is a standard plastic gauge for measuring knitting needle sizes.

Knitting is the perfect way to relax and enjoy the hours spent in airport terminals and airplane seats. Not only does it help pass the time in a productive w... These days, I see an increasing switch among U.S. pattern designers to the metric system for similar reasons. Since the Imperial and the U.S. knitting needle size system still exist side by side, recommending size 6 needles can be very confusing as knitters from both sides of the pond are likely to buy a given pattern.

Your personal tension: Are you a tight or loose knitter? Your knitting style and even the needle material (wood vs metal) will have a huge influence on your gauge.

This knitting needle size conversion chart compares knitting needles in the US and UK, with crochet hook sizes thrown in for good measure! Metric (mm)For circular knitting needles, the distinction is mainly a matter of preference. The longer the needle body, the more you can use the needles as leverage but the heavier they are. And of course, whenever you are knitting in the round, the stiff length of the needle itself defines the minimum diameter you can knit with these comfortably – except you are using the magic loop technique (e.g. you cannot knit a 10-inch circle with needles that are 4 in long each). How are knitting needles sized – a short history In some projects, gauge doesn't really matter. For example, if you're making a blanket or a scarf, you might not care if the finished result is a few centimetres bigger or smaller than the pattern indicates. However, if you're making a fitted garment, like a jumper or cardigan, getting gauge right is essential. Of course, new materials (like celluloid) might also explain the departure from the SWG (as they required different machines and thus resulted in different sized needles). One also has to keep in mind that around 1910, commercial flights across the Atlantic were not available, and neither were telephone calls possible. Unlike today, knitters around the world were much less connected internationally and the world moved much slower and still a bit in isolation. It's not generally a good idea to try to change the size of a pattern by sizing up or down your needles. For example, you might want to make a jumper pattern oversized, by using larger needles than the pattern suggests. However, you'll probably end up with extremely large arm holes and a bad fit - not the chic style you were going for! What is gauge and how does it affect needle sizes? Choose to use larger needles if you'd like an airy fabric with visible holes between the stitches. For example, you could make a loose, drapey jumper by using finer yarn with bigger needles. The finish result would be somewhat see-through, and would have a relaxed feel to it.

That, of course, does not explain the conundrum of the US needle sizes. Why don’t they follow the Imperial system? To be quite honest, nobody really knows! It remains a fact, however, that from around 1900 US manufacturers started selling their own needle gauges – following no system at all. Or rather, the actual sizes followed (more or less) the Imperial system but the numbers were rising, much like the metric system popular in mainland Europe. Plastic needles: they are very lightweight, which makes them great if you need extra large needles. They're a budget-friendly option and useful for getting started. However, they can warp over time, and may not last as long as other materials. In the US, needle sizes start at 0 and increase to 50. However, in the UK, sizes start at 14 and go up to 000.The weight of your yarn is the most important factor when it comes to choosing the right size knitting needle or crochet hook. In general, a basic rule of thumb is: the finer the yarn, the smaller the needle. If you have knitting needles from all over the world or of unknown origins, your best bet for identifying their size is by using a knitting gauge. Explaining U.S. knitting needle sizes is a complicated topic and we have to delve a bit into history: With the popularization of knitting in the UK in the 18th century and the industrialization, the shift from handmade tools to mass-produced steel needles occurred. Needles were often also called wires because, by then, most dpns were indeed made out of durable steel wire. And thus they were measured in accordance with the standard wire gauge (SWG). Given the many immigrants (but also the rising economic power) from Germany, this mixture cannot be seen as all that surprising from a certain point of view – especially as it feels a little bit more intuitive that a larger number constitutes a larger size. It would be very limited to assume the U.S. only imported haberdashery from the UK. After all, companies like addi have been selling fine knitting needles since 1829!