Monica Knits

The knitted hand towel was embellished with horizontal braids to frame large, lace-like loops. The photo at left shows a knitted braid at the top and a crocheted braid at the bottom. This article describes how to create the crocheted braid, which was created after the bottom trim was grafted to the towel.   Read more ....

Crochet NeedlesMy crochet needles range in size from 0.6 mm to 10.0 mm. From size 2.00 mm and larger, they are Aero (Abel Morrall Ltd., Redditch England, now Coats & Clark Canada Inc.) Sizes 2.00 mm - 5.00mm are aluminum and the larger sizes hard plastic. The smaller crochet needles are steel, mostly manufactured in Mexico (IMRA, S.A.), with a smattering of U.S., English and Canadian needles. Attached please find a cross-reference table from metric (mm) to US sizes, for the needles I use.

I use crochet needles for both crochet and knitting projects. If a knit project requires sewing seams, I will either crochet them, design them out or use a Kitchener stitch, as appropriate. The crocheted seam is faster, compact, looks professional and can be quickly "unzipped", if need be.

My knitting needles range in diameter from 1.2 mm to 12.0 mm, comprising straight needles (Aero, Redditch England) from 2.25 mm through 8 mm, double-pointed needles, DPNs (Aero, Knit Picks and Susan Bates), from 1.5 mm through 7.0 mm and circular needles from 1.2 mm up to size 8.0 mm (Knit Picks and HiyaHiya). (See related article, "My Needle Choices," if you are interested in how I select needles for specific tasks.)

NEEDLE MATERIALS
From size 6.00 mm and larger, the Aero straight needles are made of stiff plastic. Most of my circular needles are nickel-plated from Knit Picks (fixed circular for the smaller diameters and interchangeable needle tips for the larger sizes). My very small, stainless steel circular needles (<= 1.75 mm) are from HiyaHiya. I use small, anodized aluminum DPNs (1.5 mm - 2.25 mm) from Susan Bates. These are conveniently colored to make it easy to distinguish among the small needles. Other than the small diameter needles, any DPNs I have purchased recently to satisfy a project need are nickel-plated needles from Knit Picks.

I inherited a set of long, straight, plastic needles in sizes up to 6.0 mm (unknown manufacturer) that I find too flexible (hence too slow) for most knitting purposes, other than for casting on or for holding stitches. These are not included in the attached cross-reference table.