First DPN Experience

When reading posts and articles online about knitting with double pointed needles, those who teach about DPN's always stress how easy it is and that it should not be feared. The truth is, the principle of it is incredibly simple and I am sure that with practice it only gets easier and the awkwardness will diminish over time just like the first time I picked up two needles. I stopped by the craft store and picked up a ball of Kroy Sock yarn to try it out today so I can eventually knit the bf some socks. Wowee, is it awkward!

I knew I should've made the detour to the LYS to get a proper DPN set that comes with 5 needles but The Susan Bates set was only $3.94. For some foolish reason I thought my Denis Interchangeables had size 3 tips which would work well enough as the 5th needle, but...no I was mistaken. Now the loops on one side are ever so slightly bigger than the others. Maybe blocking the final product will fix that in the end. *fingers crossed*

Why would anyone make a 4-pk DPN set anyways? It really boggles my mind. Anyways, I decided to learn how to do the magic cast-on featured in a past Knitty article. Using it on DPN's makes the first round of knitting very difficult since the stitches on the bottom needle (needle #2) are so tight against the stitches on the top (needle #1), it's really hard to pry them apart in order to get your 3rd needle in to knit. The pictures where they show knitting the first round uses the magic loop method with a long cable needle. With that method, since the bottom row of stitches are moved to the cable, they become more flexible, thus "prying" the bottom row apart to knit the top is easier. I ended up using the Denise 5" cable as needle #2 during the cast on, then switched in the size 5 tip (3.75mm) during the first round. Yea...that's wrong in the picture, actually 2 size difference! I was hoping...

I think more experimentation is needed to get this to work with what I already have without buying a lot of new tools.