While I took a bunch of time off knitting, I didn't quite take enough time off to completely divest myself of all of my knitting things, which means when I decided rather abruptly that I wanted to start knitting again, I just had to run and pull a couple of boxes down off a shelf and I was off to the races. At the same time, after many years of small apartment living I didn't have a very large collection of gadgets or yarn.
While I don't really have a great interest in building a collection of knitting things, or yarn outside of material I have proximal use for, in the nearly 10 years, since I was a regular knitter, the state of the craft has evolved or at least changed a bit. While my collection of things hasn't changed much, the following objects
- knitting needles, have always been complicated. I tend to work at fairly
small sizes which makes needle flex/bend an issue, and my skin tends to
react with nickle which rules out a lot of options.
- at my mother's recommendation I got a few Dyak Craft knitting needles. The small-sized interchangeable needles are great, and the US 0s (which has been my primary needle) don't bend or flex at all, and have good cable/needle joins.
- I have a small collection of 5 inch carbon fiber, double pointed needles in some small sizes and I think they're just perfect. I'm a loose knitter, so the little bit of grip that they have is great. Somehow, metal needles and six inch needles end up hurting my hands, and I've never used a pair of wooden needles that haven't broken tragically.
- After a couple of projects where I was just breaking the yarn by hand, or using kitchen scissors, I gave in and bought a 4 inch pair of very plain Gingher embroidery scissors (for 20 bucks,) and they're brilliant for trimming threads and cutting open steeks. As a left handed human, scissors have always been something of a sore spot, and these are quite good.
- I bought a couple of boxes of those lightbulb-shaped coil-less safety pins. I think the going rate is 6 bucks for a pack of 120, and they come in a few different colors. These are great both as stitch markers for the needle, and also to mark rows while knitting.
- When I was going through my knitting things, I very quickly found a little cone of 8/2 mercerized cotton that I've had for years in lime green--a color I've never even gotten close to knitting with--that's really perfect for setting stitches aside or for provisional cast-ons. It's nice to use smooth, non-wool yarns for this purpose, and you don't use very much of it, but it's great to have around. While I've had this cone for 16 years or more, and it's conceivable that I may never finish it, it's great.
- I've also given in a started storing in-progress knitting projects in draw-string canvas bags purpose built for knitting/crafting, as opposed to the vinyl bags that bed-linens come in, which had previously been my default. It's pretty essential that I be able to keep things safe from cats or the other things in my backpack (not that I leave the house much these days,) so containment is necessary, and avoiding velcro and zippers is ideal.
And that's about it!