Things would be so much easier if it was.

I have several pairs of INOX circular needles. Most of mine are nickel-plated, but I also have a couple plain aluminum, and one . . . nylon? I like them. They are nice needles, especially the nickel-plates. The cables are smooth and flexible, and the joins are pretty smooth, too. The problem I have discovered just lately is that in the larger sizes (I think the problem starts at size 8, for me at least), the points are too blunt. For the most part, this isn’t a problem for me. I’m not a speed knitter, although I’m not pokey, either (ha!). But I tried doing a cable cast-on for the Two Summer Sundress, and it was a bitch-and-a-half to get the yarn pulled through because the tip of the needle is really wide. I thought about switching to my interchangables, but they might have given a different gauge because they’re just aluminum (not that this stops me from using them as the second set of circs if I’m doing something in the round with one set of nickel-plated, I just like to complain and if you haven’t figured this out about me yet, you’ve obviously never encountered me before), and I didn’t want to have to do another gauge swatch. I finally managed it, but the cast-on edge is maybe a little looser than I would have liked.

I really like the way cabled cast-on looks, though.

I don’t have anywhere near a “complete” set of needles (as if there could ever be such a thing), but I’m wondering what sort I should get next time I buy needles. I know I like Addi Turbos, although I seem to have lost the few sets I had of those. I have one set of KnitPicks circs, which I haven’t really used because it turns out I’m knitting kind of loose again, even with wrapping the yarn around my pinky (I’m thinking of doing something like the woman in the remake of The Ladykillers, where she wraps it around each of her fingers, but I don’t know if I’ll like that), and I had to go up three sizes to get the right gauge for that project (and I think I could honestly have gone up another, but maybe some of it’s the yarn and not my knitting). I have one set of bamboo DPNs that I got to make the Shawl from Niflheim (which, Spricey, is still not blocked), and those are really nice to work with. My interchangable set is a Boye Needlemaster. I have several Susan Bates circs, too.

So, if anyone has any favorite needles they’d like to recommend — interchangables, straights, circs, DPNs, those really long ones they stick in their belts in the Shetlands, whatever — feel free to let me know!

Amigurumi seems to have really caught on in the western world. There is some really cute stuff out there. Triskellian has found quite a bit that she’s put on her favorites list over on Ravelry, including a couple of Cthulhus (this one and the one from Creepy Cute Crochet).

They really are cute.

I just have one problem with this. There are a few things in this world (or out of it) that are really never supposed to be cute. Cthulhu is one of them. Trolls are another (I have never liked those Norfin things). I think nuclear warheads would fit well on that list, also. (Oh, but now I have a great urge to write a pattern for one.)

I suppose you could try to argue that Knithulhu is cute, too, but it’s just not the same.

I do think I need a copy of Creepy Cute Crochet, though. And I added needlenoodle’s ‘blog to my Google Reader. And then I spent way too much time toodling around in Ravelry, finding neat things like a pattern for a cuttlefish, which I feel it is a moral imperative I make.

ETA: Oh my . . . I’m sure someone else has come up with this, and I’m not actually coining a term but . . . are the amigurumi Cthulhus . . . cutehulhus? I think I’ve just turned my own stomach.

I almost forgot! I saw in the latest Interweave Knits (I think) that Addi Turbo is making an interchangable set, Addi Turbo Click!!! Have some more exclamation points!!! It’s all Turbos, but the little blurb said they’ll add needle and cable sizes eventually, so maybe they’ll add the Naturas, too! Oooh!!! Oooooh!!!

It sounded, from the blurb, like the connections might be similar to those on Denise needles. It said you don’t need tools to change needles, which is nice. (I have a slight overtightening problem, so a couple of the points on my aluminum interchangables have slightly flanged connecting ends. Not enough to cause a problem while knitting, but I still wince when I think how bad it could have been.) I’ve only ever heard one bad thing about the Denise set. Of course, it’s a bit of a doozy. I’m pretty sure it was Spricey who said she was making something and using her Denise needles, and one of the needles came off in the middle of a row. At least my overtightened screw-on points aren’t likely to come off (until I’ve overtightened them so often that they don’t screw on at all).

But, if Addi does add (heh) the Naturas line to their interchangable set . . . I might have to start saving pennies. A lot of pennies.

I don’t know if my KnitPicks order came yet because I had to leave for work before the window at the Post Office opened this morning! It’s not fair!

I’m trying to decide if I should rip out the blue stripe on the second sock for Thing Two. I’m not sure if the stitches are tight enough, and I don’t know if I can get them pulled tighter. Now that I’ve done five rows, it looks like it might be okay, but I’d hate to change my mind after I’ve turned the heel.

I went a little crazy with my Ravelry queue yesterday. I really, really like Giselle, but it looks like it’s huge swathes of stockinette stitch (a suspicion confirmed by some of the comments I saw about it on Ravelry), and I’m afraid that I’d get bored with it. It’s gorgeous to look at, though. Maybe, if I ever actually make it, I’ll make something more involved alongside it.