Magic Loop & me
A post in which I learn I have been knitting Magic Loop all along…
Oh, this is funny. I spotted a video link to Knittinghelp.com’s Magic Loop tutorial, and decided to watch it. After all, I’m inching ever-sockwards, and should probably know how it works, right?
I’ve been doing this all along!
My dislike of DPNs is probably the only thing that has kept me from becoming a Sock Person — you know the type — so I’ve avoided them even for recommended uses, including the very top portion of hats and the wrist area of sleeves. Instead, I do almost exactly what the knitter does in the video — yank out the extra length of needle cable between a stitch pair and keep knitting. Works wonders for me, although it might drive some more orthodox knitters crazy.
You know? I just had this same realization about knitting on 2 circs (my own answer to hating dpns). My very first knitting project was knit on two long circs — it was a felted bag. It even began with a figure 8 cast on, the key to knitting socks from the toe-up. But it was my first project, so I was just following my teacher blindly, and nothing but the basics of the knit stitch stuck with me. Now, over three years later, I “just” learned to knit on 2 circs, and it changed my life. Go figure!
yeah, i do the quick and dirty yank on the circular too — and when that gets too cumbersome, i grab a second circular of some approximately close gauge and finish up that way.
call it what you will… i don’t actually fear dpn’s it’s more that if i had them in all the sizes i needed that’d be like a pile of pick up sticks and i’d never find a matched set. unlike many knitters, i guess, i don’t own a lot of needles. for a suprisingly long time, i owned an 8 and a 5 circular needle and that was it. but i designed my own stuff, so matching gauge wasn’t an issue.