Measuring for a Willie

So although my plan for the Willie cardigan was to buy some lovely chunky yarn from Texere, when Mr B brought home the splendid bag of American yarn and it contained two plain-coloured skeins of Lamb’s Pride Bulky, I decided to see if it would work. I am getting stitch tension perfectly, but too few rows to the inch which isn’t that much of a problem. However, I still have to buy some brown and another contrasting colour, so it’s swings and roundabouts. It’ll cost almost as much to buy two more skeins of Lamb’s Pride as it would to buy all the Texere yarn. And I did sort of have my heart set on the turquoise. I think I’ll leave this one to ferment for a while until I’ve made up my mind.

But before I could even start a swatch and have a Willie colour crisis, I needed to buy needles, which is rare enough that it warrants a blog post. I have a ridiculous number of circular needles in various lengths, but nothing between 4.5mm and 6mm. I just don’t knit with needles that size as I rarely use any yarn above DK weight and as a loose knitter, I generally need smaller needles anyway.

So I had to bite the bullet and buy some needles in a couple of sizes because I had no idea what my tension would be. I would have probably bought some Inox/Prym metal circs as they’re my favourite cheap and cheerful needle. Until I found these on eBay:

Bamboo circs for £1.99 a set. Now initially I was pretty sceptical that they’d be any good, but the miser in me won the day and I ordered a couple of sizes. And you know, they’re not bad at all. The join between the needle and cord is smooth and the needles don’t have any rough bits. Will be interesting to see how they fare over time compared to the Addi bamboo circs I have. I will keep you updated. In the meantime, purple or turquoise Willie?