addi Classic Circular Knitting Needles 80cm 4.50mm

Product Information

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 picture shows the seam of the raglan after the front and the sleeve is sewn up. If you are new to joining a raglan sleeve, this video will be helpful. Please take note: because this pattern has 2 knit stitches before/after the ssk/k2tog on the raglan slope, hence the raglan seam appeared to be 4 diagonal lines after seaming up, whilst the video only has 2 diagonal lines, but the method is the same. If you’re beginning a project and you’re not sure which needle size you should be using, there are a few easy ways to find out.

Smaller needles are great if you want a piece that's going to be a bit stiffer; for instance, if you are crocheting a basket or hat, you might want a tight, rigid fabric. Smaller needles can also be a good idea for certain knitting designs, such as Fair Isle colourwork or cables.

Knitting Needle Sizes Chart for US and UK

A large crochet hook, at least 6.5 mm, should be used with chunky wool. The larger the hook, the more space you will see between stitches. What size crochet hook should I use for DK wool? Americans use their own numbering system, which you will often see if you're using patterns from the USA. In this system, 2mm needles are a size 0, and the numbers go up as the needles get bigger. Confusingly, there's also an old British system where the numbers go down as the needles get bigger, so 2mm needles are a 14. This isn't used very much anymore, but you may still see it on vintage patterns.

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. Gauge can be affected by a number of things. Different fibres might behave differently. So if you are knitting with a DK yarn made of cotton and the pattern is written for a DK yarn made of wool, your gauge could be off. Also, every knitter is different. Some of us naturally knit more tightly, while others have looser stitches. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's important to be aware of it. A handy little guide to knitting needle sizes including size chart for US, European, and Japanese needles. Think of how Apple forced unique chargers and cables on their customers for two decades. Miss Lambert probably called her needle gauge “ Standard Filière” for very similar reasons – distinction. The Singer Corporation famously heralded this change towards international marketing around that time with their sewing machines ( source) with a kind of success that would dominate the industry for the whole century to come. 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).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. 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!

This type of yarn is the most commonly-used amongst all types of projects. If you’re using medium-weight, Aran, or worsted yarn, you’ll probably require knitting needles sized between 3mm and 5.5mm. Medium-weight worsted yarn usually requires 3-5.5mm needles.

Metric sizes are the easiest to convert to, and are most commonly found in patterns originating in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. US and Japanese sizes are almost identical, and UK sizes are also used in Canada. In this section, we’ll go through each needle size and explain the types of yarn they’re typically used for. Chunky, Super Chunky, and Bulky Yarn

The length of a pair of circular needles is measured from the tip of each needle. It includes the length of each needle and the length of the cord between them. The most common lengths are 40cm (16 inches), 60cm (24 inches), and 80cm (32 inches). To help you decipher the world of knitting needle sizes, refer to the charts below! Knitting Needle Sizes Chart for US and UK If you look at Miss Lambert’s “ My knitting book” from 1845, you will find her marketing a “ Standard Filière” that bears a strong resemblance to the wire gauges used in the British industry at that time and follow the same systemization. Other authors, such as Hope, Mee, and Gaugain also advertised their own needle gauges. And this explains why the smallest knitting needles have the largest numbers in the UK. Source: Miss Lambert, My Knitting book; London, 1845, John Murray Older knitting needles and patterns usually came in smaller sizes. It’s often difficult to convert these measurements to metric sizes or the new US system, and trying to translate entire knitting projects can become a nightmare.

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. Though the main needles are written as 36" circular needles, they can be replaced by straight needles to replace the long circular needle (except 8″ circular needle). Circular needles are recommended because they are lighter and more flexible, great for knitting bigger project like sweater and pullover. If you don’t have a yarn label, you can calculate the yarn’s weight using wraps per inch (WPI), then choose your needle size from there. In the following, you can see the knitting needle conversion chart for Japanese knitting needle sizes. Japan (JPN) also uses the metric system for measurement so you’ll find the sizes in millimeters (mm).