Big Needles

I love shiny metal neeldes.  I love the slip of them, I love the sheen of them - pretty pretty.  I love the tiny little clicks as you work.  But not in bigger sizes.  I don't like the feel of big needles in my hands.  It feels awkward and strange and...gosh darn it, I deeply dislike it.  I don't have very much yarn requiring anything more than a 6 mm needle because of how much I dislike great huge needles.  

And yet, I have to say, I did not mind yesterdays adventures in 8 mm needles so much at all.

I have been working off and on, on a mohair stole I started last year.    

 I was using the 8 mm needles from my Addi lace kit, and knit about half the stole on them.  

After that initial spurt of knitting, whenever I picked it up to work on it, it crossed my mind how much I hated the whole thing.  I liked the yarn and the fabric but could not make myself work on it.  I looked at it several times through summer knowing that what I needed most was simplicity but I just could not force myself to work on those needles.  

I pulled the bag with the stole in it, out about a month ago and kept it by my side.  I thought I could do a row or two at a time, as a knitting break from whatever the big project of the day was and I did, but I hated every single row.  Yesterday morning, needing a break from the fine green project, I picked it up, grit my teeth and started knitting it.  

I had enough.  It was the needles and nobody should hate the knitting just because of the needles.  This is supposed to be fun.

I went back into the study and dug around.  I thought surely there must be a pair of Susan Bates straights that would work.  Nope. 6 mm is as high as those nice short scarf needles go.  I sorted through books for a while because I could not get past my little bit grumpy at my knitting thing.

I had to move a jug full of needles to get to a stack of books.  It was filled with needles that did not have a home elsewhere, needles that I don't use often, specialty needles, needles with a surface I dislike.  My old Aero needles were there among the rest.  

I don't like these needles.  The points are stubby.  The yarn clings and drags and sticks.  They are the old fashioned straights.  But wait a minute. There was a really big set in there.  I grabbed a gauge to check the size and sure enough 8 mm, just what I had the stole on.  

It couldn't hurt to try these because nothing could have been less pleasure than working with the big metal needles.  I moved the stole over to the big plastic needles and you know what?  The next thing I knew it was 6 p.m. and there was very little left on the balls on the floor and I knew that I would be finishing the project shortly.   

Whumpffff.  Done.  

Two terrible pictures of a rather nice shawl.  I will get better pictures today with a helper and daylight.

I met my goal of using it all up.  

Just the smallest bit left.  Enough of the small ball for 1 row but not two.  I like it.  I like it a lot.  

The moral of this story is never toss out the old needles without knowing everything you can do on them.  Sticky needles are good for slippy yarns and that is that.