Chapter 3 Materials Required Since this book is basically for hand knitting, and for beginners, I will list

t down the basic material that is required; you can add on to the list your own creative materials. I will not confuse you by giving a long list, although if you go to the market, and do a survey on yarns, you will get a most comprehensive list for yourself. Basically you only require two things 1. Yarn 2. A pair of Needles YARNS When we talk about yarn, there is a vast variety available in the market. Yarns could be cotton, wool, viscose, nylon, acrylic or blends of these or other fibres. To learn knitting we can take any bulky woollen yarn or an acrylic yarn as the knitting happens really quickly if you use a bulky yarn. Each of these yarns have their special characteristics and you need to read up textile science books to gain more information.

Figure 1 Yarn for knitting

When you look at the details on the yarn labels they do talk about the needle sizes to be used with these yarns. The thinner the yarn, the thinner the needle should be. If you use thinner yarn and thicker needle you will get a very loose structure, more like a lace, and with thick yarn if you use thin needles, the effect will not be too good. So do look at the label and

Chapter -3 Materials required for Knitting by Toolika Gupta

decide. For knitting most of the samples in this book, you can choose a bulky yarn and 5mm needles, or a 4ply, double knit yarn with 4 mm needles. NEEDLES Knitting needles come in various sizes based on the either the metric system (where the sizes come in millimetres) which is now mostly used across the world, the old UK system, in this the needle size decreases as the mm increases. The other system is US system, which has its own measurement. I have put down a chart for your benefit. In India we mostly use the old UK sizes till date. For convenience, I will use the metric system, as it is more precise. Take a look at the two pictures that follow:

Figure 2 Various knitting needles

The above picture contains 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Two cable needles on top right, these are needed to create cables One set of 4 mm needles One set of 5 mm needles One set of 6 mm needles One set of 4 double pointed needles (5 mm) these are needed to create seamless products like socks and caps.
Chapter -3 Materials required for Knitting by Toolika Gupta

Figure 3 circular needle and wool embroidery needles

If you look at the above picture, you see a circular needle (5mm), these are used to create seamless caps, sweaters etc. You also see a set of darning needles, these are used to sew up the woollen articles, or to embroider them. The following chart has been made by taking a look at various sites and in various books. Metric Sizes OLD UK Sizes US Sizes 2.0 mm 2.25 mm 2.75 mm 3.0 mm 3.25 mm 3.5 mm 3.75 mm 4.0 mm 4.5 mm 5.0 mm 5.5 mm 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Metric Sizes OLD UK Sizes US Sizes 6.0 mm 6.5 mm 7.0 mm 7.5 mm 8.0 mm 9.0 mm 10.0 mm 12.0 mm 16.0 mm 19.0 mm 25.0 mm 4 3 2 1 0 00 000 10 10 1/2 11 13 15 17 19 35 50

Chapter -3 Materials required for Knitting by Toolika Gupta

Needles can be made from various materials, like wood or bamboo, steel and plastic. One must choose the material that one is most comfortable working with. After you have mastered the learning of Chapter 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 and you start working on your own projects, you must first knit a swatch of about 10 cm by 10 cm, and see the tension or gauge of the yarn with the required needle number., it will tell you the number of stitches (wales and courses) per inch, so that you can plan accordingly. Other than the yarn and needles, you might need circular plastic rings as separators or markers, sometimes they are very helpful when you are dealing with lengthy patterns, to keep a count, sometimes, row counters are also used but you can do very well without these. You just need to be a little alert.

Figure 4 Markers

These markers are helpful when you know that you have to repeat an action after 5 stitches or 6 stitches, so it helps in saving time, you do not need to count. In the picture below, you can see the use of markers. This is a circular cap in progress, and it has reached a point, where you need to decrease the stitches so as to form the top of the cap. Here, I had to do this evenly, so I put markers after every 8th Stitch, so that I can decrease on stitch every time I come next to the marker, so first there are 8 stitches between two markers, then 7 then 6 and so on till one remains, this gives regular decreases, and you do not need to count. So markers are helpful in this way. In circular knitting, it helps to tell you the beginning of the round if you put a marker there. So markers are very helpful. You also need a pair of Sharp scissors to cut the yarn when required.

Chapter -3 Materials required for Knitting by Toolika Gupta

To sum up the materials required very simply we can say that we need the following to start knitting: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Yarns A pair of suitable Knitting needles Circular needle for seamless garments and accessories Double pointed needles for seamless socks and smaller articles Cable needles for knitting cables Darning needles for stitching up the ends, or for embroidery Stitch Markers Scissors A positive attitude

Chapter -3 Materials required for Knitting by Toolika Gupta