My tendency isn’t one of tidy order. My desk is often chaos and the contents of my knitting bag is often just as cluttered. That’s why I make a regular self-appointment to clean up my needles and hooks. While they should either be in a specific project bag or put away, that isn’t often the case. Sometimes I make a needle change and I didn’t record that in my notebook and the old needles go into the project bag. At other times I think they sprout feet and go off to find a more interesting knit. While I wish that these wayward needles would either return on their own or magically finish the neglected project! Here are three tips I use to help keep my needles and hooks organized.
Tip one – catch all
If I were of an organized nature, I would immediately put away what I used when I was done with it. I try, but what I’ve found is I am more likely to toss things into a “to organize” bin and sort it out at regular intervals. When I’m swatching it’s more likely that I’ll have extra needles laying about. After years of sitting on knitting tools, I bought a small box that lives under the coffee table. Each night, if the hooks or needles I’ve been using aren’t in active use, they go into the box. This helps reduce the number of places where I’m looking for misplaced things and the lid helps keeps curious felines from taste testing. (Time will tell how cat proof it is.)
Tip two – regular sweeps
Yes. Regular review. These are not as in-depth as my seasonal cleaning sessions! When I work on my weekly project review I empty the box and put away everything. It takes less than five minutes to carry the box to my studio and put things where they belong.
Tip three – standardize
This is my biggest secret to not stressing about where a needle or hook is. I prefer to work with 2.0 and 3.75mm for the majority of my projects. I also really love interchangeable knitting needles for this reason too. This means that I have multiples of my favourite sizes. At worse I write a note and affix it to the project and take the needle tips, or the crochet hook. This isn’t always true, but it helps me get working on the task at hand.
I hope these tips help you to keep your knitting needles and hooks organized!
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