Which Knitting Needles are Right for You?

If you’re struggling with any aspect of your knitting, consider your needles

I first learned about the importance of using the right kind of knitting needles early on in my knitting life. Here’s how it happened.

I was using circular needles for the first time, to knit a baby hat. I was also using an acrylic yarn. Now, circular needles and acrylic yarn don’t have to be a mismatch. However, in this case, they were.

Here were the ways my needles and yarn did not get along:

1. My needles were unlaminated bamboo. Bamboo needles are wonderful for certain yarns. However, inflexible acrylic yarn is not one of these. The stitches did not wish to slide easily along my needles.
2. My needles were, most likely, a little too long for my stitch count. This was another reason the stitches did not slide easily along my needles.
3. Perhaps worst of all, the tips were not terribly pointy. As a result, I probably split the yarn at least half as often as I created actual stitches.

The end result? I did create a baby hat, and it was quite cute (⬅️you’ll see it here!) but I did not have fun knitting that hat. If it had been any larger, I likely would have bailed!

Don’t let this happen to you!

Let’s talk about the various kinds of needles available: the materials, the types, the special features that can make a real difference in your knitting!

1. The Materials

Needles are usually made of one of three materials: metal, wood, or plastic.

Incidentally, I’ve seen glass knitting needles too, but those seem like a bad idea to me. 😆 I feel like these are best used for decoration.

Metal

Metal may seem to be the most traditional, but metal is a relatively recent development in knitting needles. They come in many different varieties, everything from aluminum to stainless steel to nickel-plated.

Metal needles have benefits:

1. Their slick surface means that stitches glide more easily along them. If you’re using an inflexible yarn like acrylic or cotton, metal needles will play best with it.
2. You can knit far quicker with them, because of the aforementioned slick surface.
3. When they have pointy tips, those suckers can be sharp, meaning they can double as a weapon in a pinch. (No, no, I’m joking and definitely not condoning using needles as weapons!) However, sharper needles can make certain types of knitting easier. Sock and lace knitting immediately comes to mind! They can also be excellent for any knitting in which you must twist stitches, like cables.

When might metal needles not be the best choice?

1. When you have a condition that can cause hand pain. Folks with arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or any other medical condition that can compromise your hands aren’t likely to find metal needles enjoyable. That’s because they don’t have the “give” of wooden needles. Their stiff inflexibility can make knitting more difficult when your hands are compromised.
   
   (One possible exception: Kollage square needles. The flat planes of the needles can counteract the effect of the stiffness of the metal. Combined with their very pointy tips, Kollage needles can be a great choice for those with hand health issues.)
   
2. When you’re using wool yarn that’s thinner than worsted weight. While metal needles can be a boon when knitting with thicker yarn, regardless of the fiber, wool yarn has a lot of flexibility, which means that they slide a lot more easily along any needles. Combine a thinner wool yarn with metal needles, and you’re very likely to get stitches slipping off your needles at inopportune moments.
   
   (Having said that, I’ve often knitted socks on metal needles. It can be done, and it can be enjoyable. Just know that you run the risk of losing stitches if you’re not careful.)

Wood

Wood is one of the oldest materials for knitting needles that are still used today. (Stone and bone were probably the earliest materials used, but of course, those aren’t often used today!)

I will freely say that even though my earliest experiences with wood needles weren’t great, they are now my favorite needle material. Here’s what I love about wood needles.

1. They’re warm. Compare the feeling of picking up a set of metal needles to a set of wood needles at the beginning of a knitting session, and you’ll find a significant difference. Unless it’s really warm where you are, the metal needles will always feel cold at first. Wood needles, on the other hand, will always feel warm and comforting–even if the air is cold.
2. They’re lightweight. Wood needles are usually lighter than their metallic counterparts, which make them ideal for those with compromised hands.
3. They’re a much better fit for thin wool yarn. This is why all my favorite sock needles are wood–they just play much nicer. You’ll have much less chance of dropping tiny stitches from wood needles.
4. Laminated wood gives you all the advantages of the slickness of metal needles along with the benefits of wood (lightweight, warm) while still being smooth enough to use with cotton, acrylic, and other less flexible yarns.

A fun little primer on the history of knitting needles and knitting itself

Wood needles, of course, aren’t perfect, just like metal needles aren’t. Here are some of the disadvantages of using wood needles.

1. As my first experience with wood needles shows, if they’re unlaminated, they won’t be a good fit for cotton or acrylic yarn, or any yarn that’s more resistant to stretching. You’ll struggle to make new stitches, and your knitting will feel (and, usually, be) slower.
2. It’s pretty unusual to find wood tips that can be as pointy as metal tips. That means that that they might be harder or slower to knit with in applications like lace or cable knitting that really benefits from those pointy tips.
3. They’re breakable. You have to really try to break metal needles (and why would you want to do that?!). Sadly, I have broken a fair number of wood needles when I didn’t know they were buried in a sofa cushion or chair and I sat down. I’ve also had dogs chew them up (yep, that was heartbreaking!).

Plastic

Plastic needles are certainly the newest kids on the block, and they were popular for quite some time. Nowadays, you’re most likely to find plastic needles at craft stores, thrift stores, or garage sales.

That might make you think that plastic needles are a bad idea, and I can’t agree with that. They are ideal for new knitters, because they’re easily the least expensive variety you can find. While wood and metal needles tend to be pretty expensive online or in yarn shops, you’ll find inexpensive plastic needles almost anywhere you look.

Here are some of the benefits of plastic needles:

1. As I mentioned, they’re easily the least expensive. This means that they’re not only great for beginning knitters, but they also make great gifts for younger people that you’re teaching to knit.
2. The variety is incredible. You can find blunter plastic needles that mimic unlaminated wood; you can also find quite pointy plastic needles that could compare favorably to metal needles. You can even find glow-in-the-dark knitting needles! (I don’t know why you’d want needles that glow in the dark, but I can’t deny it’s a pretty cool idea.)
3. Much like unlaminated wood, plastic needles tend to allow yarn to “stick” to them a little more easily. This again makes them a great choice for beginners, as well as for slippery yarns like wool.

I wouldn’t say that plastic needles have any particular drawbacks aside from the way they feel. I think they feel less pleasant than either wood or metal needles, although that is of course a matter of personal preference.

You may outgrow plastic needles as you gain more experience in knitting–but it’s equally possible you may keep them for the remainder of your knitting journey and love them!

2. Types of Needles

Needles typically come in three types: straight, double-pointed (also called DPNs), and circular.

I’ve said a lot more about both DPNs and circular needles in blog posts about using these types of needles, so I won’t go into much detail here. I will, however, provide a brief synopsis of each of these three types of needles.

Straight Needles

These are self-explanatory–needles with just one tip, totally straight, and what most people think of when you say “knitting needles.”

Straight needles can do one thing very well: knit small, flat projects. We’re talking items like washcloths and dishcloths, coasters, afghan blocks, baby hats knitted flat and then seamed.

The benefits of straight needles:

1. They’re easy to use. Both circular needles and DPNs have a bit of a learning curve, particularly when it comes to casting on. Straight needles are far easier to pick up and start using right away.
2. They’re easy to tote and display. It’s pretty easy to stick a pair of straight needles into a ball of yarn and be on your way. With circular needles, you always have to deal with the cable, and with DPNs, you always have to deal with the fact that you have 4 or 5 to keep track of.
   And, I personally love the look of sticking a bunch of straight needles into a cup. You can’t display other kinds of needles in an attractive fashion like that.

But as simple as straight needles are to use, I never use them anymore. The following list explains why.

1. They’re easy to lose. I can’t tell you how many single straight needles I’ve misplaced over the years. Because they don’t come in a set like DPNs, and they’re not connected by a cable like circular needles, you can very easily lose track of one. And do you know what a single straight needle is good for? I’ll tell you what it’s not good for: knitting.
2. They’re easy to drop. In any situation, dropping a needle is annoying, but in some, it can be downright embarrassing and/or inconvenient. To wit:
   • A movie theater (yikes! So many glares!)
   • An airplane (double yikes, and good luck ever seeing that needle again)
   • A church (triple yikes–everyone’s going to glare at you, possibly including God)
3. They’re not at all versatile. You can easily use both DPNs and circular needles for flat knitting, did you know that? You cannot, however, use straight needles for circular knitting. So if you want to avoid seaming, you can’t go with straight needles.
4. Forget trying to knit something large with straight needles. If you’re making a large garment like a sweater, or a big blanket, straight needles will let you down. Most aren’t long enough to hold the large number of stitches you’ll need for such a project. You’ll be losing stitches constantly.
5. If you have issues with your hand health, straight needles will make you miserable. They will manage to take all the weight of your project on your hands, and that’s not fun for anyone.

There are some knitters who love their straight needles and will never bother with DPNs or circular needles. And that’s fine! Straight needles are lovely and iconic, and if you enjoy using them, there’s no reason to switch.

However, if you ever want to knit in the round, you’ll have to use DPNs and/or circular needles eventually.

When you’re ready to try circular knitting, I highly encourage my blog post guide, Practically Everything You Need to Know About Circular Knitting. Within this post, you’ll find lots of tutorials and knitting patterns to try to help you become an accomplished circular knitter.

In the meantime, let’s briefly chat pros and cons of DPNs and circular needles.

DPNs (Double-Pointed Needles)

Benefits to DPNs:

1. They’re traditional. Double-pointed needles are likely some of the earliest knitting implements known to humankind. There’s something special about feeling connected with generations of knitters past and present when you use DPNs.
2. They’re versatile. To me, DPNs are the most versatile of all knitting needles. Here are some of the many things you can do with DPNs, besides knit in the round:
   • Use them for flat knitting. Grab a couple of point protectors and put them on one end of two DPNs, and boom–you’ve got straight needles!
   • Make I-cords. I-cords are extremely skinny tubes that have a great variety of uses in knitting, everything from hanging cords to drawstrings to appliques. Nothing works better in creating these than a couple of DPNs.
   • Use them in place of cable needles. I have never actually used a cable needle, even though I inherited a few from my husband’s grandmother. I could try to find a cable needle, or I could grab a spare DPN (and I’ve got lots of those) and go to town. Better still, you can more easily fit them to suit the project. Cable needles don’t usually come in a variety of sizes the way DPNs do.
   • Use them as stitch holders. Spare DPNs make wonderful stitch holders, particularly if you need to keep, say, more than 5 or 6 stitches live.

Because DPNs have so many marvelous uses, I know I’ll never get rid of them all. Not only do I keep a stash in my craft room, but I also keep several spares in my knitting bag.

Having said that, I don’t buy new DPNs anymore. When I buy new needles, I buy circular needles. There are two reasons that DPNs aren’t my go-to knitting needle:

1. It is entirely easy to lose one of them. If you have a set of 5 and lose one, that’s not a big deal; but if you have a set of 4 and lose one, you’re out of luck. Knitting with only 3 DPNs is very tricky.
2. They share one issue with straight needles: their dropability. Before I became a devotee of circular needles, I dropped DPNs all over the place, causing me everything from inconvenience to embarrassment.

Circular Needles

Let’s chat briefly about why circular needles are my favorites.

1. They’re very nearly as versatile as DPNs. While I wouldn’t recommend knitting I-cords with them (it’s annoying to have to push a tiny knitting project from one side of a circular needle to another), you can knit anything else with them. You can knit:
   • Flat
   • In the round
   • Two at a time
   • Small projects
   • Enormous projects
2. You can’t drop or lose one half of a circular needle. Yes, you can drop a whole project on circular needles, but it won’t make much noise, and it won’t roll away. But you can’t accidentally lose half of a circular needle. (Unless you sit on a wood circular needle. I don’t recommend that.)
3. When you knit something heavy, you’ll find that cable that connects the two needle tips to be an absolute godsend. The weight of the project falls on the cable and in your lap (or table, if you’re knitting at one), rather than on your hands or wrists. That makes knitting far more comfortable, particularly for those with compromised hands.
4. You can get a set of circular needles called Interchangeable Needle Sets and have nearly every size of needles at your fingertips. (That’s more a benefit of interchangeable needle sets than circular needles, but since only circular needles can be interchangeable, I’m including it here.)

I’d say there are really only two disadvantages to circular needles.

1. They do have a learning curve. Using a circular needle isn’t quite as intuitive as straight needles. However, I don’t consider its learning curve steep. It takes a little time, but it’s worth it.
2. I-cords. I’ve mentioned this a few times now, but unless you have absolutely no choice, please do not try to knit an I-cord on a circular needle. You’ll be swearing in no time, or at least muttering under your breath a lot.

3. Special Features

Square Needles

In my opinion, the advent of square needles is one of the most exciting innovations in knitting needles in a long time. Square needles are invaluable for folks with compromised hands. They allow for less pressure on the hands and wrists, meaning you can knit longer without pain.

You can learn more about square needles in my post about knitting without pain.

Pointy Tips

Obviously, all knitting needles have pointy tips, to an extent. However, certain types of knitting needles make their tips extra-pointy, making them ideal for lace knitting. (In fact, they’re frequently advertised as “lace knitting needles.”)

To my knowledge, three needle brands offer pointier-than-usual needles that they call lace needles:

Addi

Chiaogoo

Knit Pro (formerly Knitters Pride)

Have I left anything out in this guide to knitting needles? Let me know in the comments. What do you most enjoy knitting with?