First thing first, after I read the comment on the last post from Jo IÂ smugly thought, “Hah! I’ve not broken a needle in a long time!”
Oh yes. I snapped one of my five US1/2.25mm that I brought — a Lantern Moon Rosewood — within an hour of reading that comment.
Bayerische is one of those patterns that really needs stitches divided on four needles. There are 90 stitches total, and it works out nicely to have the nasty 7 stitch cable cross at the beginning of each needle.
I did bring the itty bitty circular that I’d bought and not yet tried — one of those 9 inch total length circulars with little 2″ needles on the ends. I worked a round, getting everything onto that needle, then worked several more rounds, actually getting a bit used to holding and manipulating the needles (I must hold my dpns and regular circs lower on the needle, because initially I kept missing the needle and grabbing the cable). I even got to the point that I was enjoying the little circs. They’re nice & compact, no floppy dangly bits (2 circs at once) and no dangly poke-y bits (dpns).
Then I got to the dreaded cable cross.
People, this is one of those physically painful stitches. It’s all good for the rounds of ribbing but when you have to do that 3 over 4 cross…..well, it’s a LOT of tension. Especially if you’re stubborn, like me, and insist on trying to do it without a cable needle. (Um, yes, I do think this is where I snapped the rosewood.)
To further jinx myself, I’d earlier confidently stated that these little circs couldn’t snap, they were too short and anyway they’re bamboo — flexible, right?
Yep, it snapped, right at the base where the bamboo sticks into the cap for the join.
Luckily I didn’t lose any stitches.
So I’m now using 4×2.25 and one 2.0 until tomorrow (they are closed today) when I can buy some Lantern Moon sox stix I found on sale at Tutto Santa Fe yesterday. (I didn’t buy them yesterday because at that time I didn’t need them. I had 5 perfectly fine dpns and one itty bitty circ as a back up.)
By the way Tutto is a very nice yarn store; I would be happy to have it as a LYS. They had a ton of Jamieson’s & Rowan (including the rare breed line, neat!) — good stuff for the type of things I’m liking to knit. Nothing I was tempted to buy, though, at this point in time.