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I’ve spent the past few weeks playing with my new knitting needles from Knit Picks.

Ahem.

I’ve spent the past few weeks diligently testing my new knitting needles from Knit Picks so I could report back to you. It was exhausting work but I stuck with it. The buying of new knitting is serious business, perhaps even more serious than the buying of yarn. Yarn comes and goes but those knitting needles will be in your needle stash until you’re worm food. (Oh yes they will. Go and try to throw away your least favorite knit needle or crochet hook. See? It can’t be done.)

The Try It Needle Set from Knit Picks

As part of my last order from Knit Picks, I got a Try It Needle Set.

This set includes:

• US size 6 (4 mm) Majestic wood tips
• US size 7 (4.5 mm) nickel plated tips
• 40 inch (102 cm) long cable*
• 24 inch (61 cm) long cable*
• 4 end caps
• and a tightening key

* That is the length you get when the tips are attached not of the cable itself.

 

Now I’ve read tons of product reviews and typically the author makes you wade through the whole article to find their conclusion. Well I hate that. Also, I’m not very good at writing conclusions. So I’ll just tell you what I think right here and you can go wading through the rest if you like:

• I like these needles.

• The tips are as good as some and better than most of the other needles in my stash.

• The cables are the best I’ve ever tried. Love these cables. I wish I could pass them through the screen so you could try them for yourself.

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All The Details

The Try It Set is a mini set of interchangeable needles. Its a nice way to start building a set if you’re just starting, to find out if you like nickel plated or wooden tips best, and to get a feel for the quality of Knit Picks needles before you commit and buy a big set. Those big sets are a commitment. The Try It Set let’s you dip your toes into the water and that’s nice.

A Few Options

When you get a Try It Set you get to choose the colorway of the wooden tips. Knit Picks offers 3 multi-color wooden needles.

I got the Majestic tips. Its the newest color and I hadn’t seen them in person. But they are all pretty and I don’t think I could pick a favorite.

The Joins

Knit Picks uses a screw together join to connect the tips to the cables.

When I first got this needle set, I took them to weekly sit-n-stitch group and passed them around. There was a lively discussion (you can rely on sit-n-stitch groups to get excited about your new needles when no one else will) and I listened. One lady said “oh those will unscrew as you knit” and another said “not if you use the tightening key”.

So I conducted a little test as I knit up my Chromotism. I tightened the joins but only by hand and started knitting. After a dozen rows the needles began to unscrew. I tightened up, again by hand, and kept going. Again they began to unscrew. So I used the tightening key. The tips never came loose again.

You have to use that tightening key when you screw on the needle tips. If you do, you won’t have any trouble.

The Points

These tips are light weight, very smooth, and about 4.75 inches (12 cm) long. That makes them long enough to fit most knitters’ hands. I mention the length of the tips because I own a set of Addi Lace Short Tips and they don’t. The Addi Shorts fit my hands okay (I have small hands) but other knitters have tried them and didn’t like them at all. I’ve had two put those Addi’s down with a firm “no, those won’t work at all”. So I’ve recently become more aware of the length on interchangeable tips and the ones from Knit Picks are long enough for nearly everyone.

The nickel plated points are sharp enough for lace. In fact as soon as I started working with them I thought “these seem to be just like my Addi Lace tips”.

That’s because they are. The points on the Knit Picks nickel plated tips are virtually identical to my highest quality lace tips. And that surprised me because those Addi Lace tips are kind of pricey (but more on cost comparison later).

The Knit Picks wooden tips are virtually the same as my tips from Knitters Pride and a definite improvement over my Clover tips.

 

The Knit Picks wooden tips have a lacquer coating and a high gloss. That is certainly needed when it comes to wooden tips. The finish on Clover tips is much less, much thinner and when it wears off, as it has in my set here, the wood starts to wear and the tip gets rough. So the thicker that lacquer coating is, the longer your wooden tips will last. (But no I’m not throwing my Clover tips out. Didn’t you read the opening part of this post? Worm food. I’ll have those rough, practically un-usable Clover tips until I’m worm food.)

The Cables

Ahh these cables are great. They are nice and flexible, which is what every knitter wants. They meet up with the metal at each end seamlessly so they don’t snag your active stitches. But best of all, they don’t have that dratted coil in them.

What I’m trying to show here is that the Knit Picks cables don’t loop; they don’t try to form a circle. They have the smallest amount of curve and spring in them of all my circular knitting needles. You know how all too often you feel like you are fighting the spring in your circular needle? Well I don’t feel any of that with these Knit Picks. They may not look as pretty as the clear gel-like cables that some of my other needles have but they are easier to knit with.

I wish you could feel them for yourself and see how they bend and flex and then straighten. So nice.

Cost Comparison

The Try It Set, the mini set that I’m showing here, is $14.99. With two sets of tips and two cables that effectively gives you four different circular needles which is a very good deal.

But if you’re thinking about this mini-set then you are most likely really thinking about getting a full set. So let’s do some comparison there. (Here is where Knit Picks blows the competition out of the water.)

Metal Tip Sets

The Knit Picks Options Interchangeable Nickel Plated Circular Knitting Needle Set

• 9 tip sizes (US 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.5 &11)
• 2 24-inch cables & 2 40-inch cables
• 8 end caps
• 2 tightening keys
• vinyl case for it all
• PRICE = $49.99

 

Skacel addi Lace Click Long Tips Set

• 8 tip sizes (US 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10 &11)
• 3 cables (that you can thread a lifeline into) 24-inch, 32-inch, 40-inch
• 1 cable connector
• leather case with a gold Addi heart pin
• PRICE = $179.95

 

Hiya Hiya Interchangeable Knitting Needle Kit Small Size (these are not nickel plated but stainless steel and therefore not a smooth as the first two sets)

• 7 tip sizes (US 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7 & 8)
• 4 cables (and they swivel) (16-inch, 24-inch, 32-inch, 40-inch)
• fabric case
• PRICE = $84.95

 

Wood Tip Sets

Options Interchangeable Majestic Circular Knitting Needle Set

• 9 tip sizes (US 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.5 &11)
• 2 24-inch cables a& 2 40-inch cables
• 8 end caps
• 2 tightening keys
• vinyl case for it all
• PRICE = $59.99

 

Knitter’s Pride Dreamz Special Interchangeable Circular Set

• 7 tip sizes (US 4,5,6,7,8,9, & 10)
• 2 16-inch cables
• 4 end caps
• 2 tightening keys
• plastic case for it all
• PRICE = $66.19

 

Takumi Bamboo Interchangeable Circular Knitting Needle Set

• 12 tip sizes (US 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.5, 11, 13, & 15)
• 5 cables (16-inc, 24-inch, 29-inc, 36-inc, 48-inch)
• synthetic leather case for it all
• PRICE = $127.49

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In conclusion (which I hate writing) Knit Picks makes very nice interchangeable sets. The quality is good, right up there with name brands that get lots of respect. I think any knitter would be well pleased with either the nickel plated or wooden set. When you compare the prices of a Knit Picks set to others of similar quality, you’ll find Knit Picks offers knitters a better deal. Hands down a Knit Picks needle set is the smart buy and I happily recommend it to anyone in that market.

Now I’m going to go back to knitting up my Crown of Glory lace shawlette thingy on my Knit Picks Majestic needles. I feel I have to keep testing these babies out for you. I’m a total professional like that.