Do you do stuff like this? When Lauren (aka @suskandbanoo) sent me this photo for her Our Tools, Ourselves feature last winter, I laughed out loud. This is so me. Anytime I’m knitting with DPNs or a cable needle, I inevitably stick whatever I’m not using in my bun. The other night I was knitting with my hair down (this apparently never happens) and I was at a total loss as to what to do with my cable needle when it was not in use. It’s a handy trick; the problem is I often forget I’ve done it and go wandering out into the world. Like when knitting in airports, or the other morning in a busy waiting room. I had a double-point in my hair all day on Tuesday without realizing it.
Likewise, I used to keep one of those white rubber stitch markers on my ring finger at all times. You never know when you’re going to need a stitch marker, right? But while it was invisible to me (unless I needed it and was happy to have it), I got asked about it so often I had to stop doing it.
So here’s my Q for You: Do you have weird fibersmithy habits like this? Do you leave a trail of yarn wherever you go. Have your houseguests found skeins hanging in your shower, or a pair of embroidery scissors on every surface? You’re safe here, you can tell us.
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Photo © Lauren of Süsk and Banoo, used with permission
I have put a circular needle around my neck for just a moment for example when I’ve finished the ribbing and am on to the body….whoops HOURS later, I find it still there.
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Yep, have definitely left the house with a circular around my neck before.
This made me smile – I haven’t wandered outside wearing knitting needles…. but I have been known to walk around shops with a row of pins neatly spread along the leg of my jeans. or also a few threaded needles stuck through my lapel!
I wear my tiny scissors around my neck on a lanyard. I’ve worn them many a place including my big kid accounting job
I am new to knitting, so this hair habit seemed totally useful to me! I used to keep a crochet hook in my wallet all the time. I don’t know why, but it ended up being useful on a few occasions when I had a loose end to weave in or something. But it was also embarrassing when I went to pay for something and my hook would fall out and clang and roll all over the place.
I also stick DPNs in my bun, which always seems like a good idea until I inevitably need that extra DPN and tear the room apart looking for it… only to remember that it’s still in my hair.
I have scissors in every bag and in every room in the house as they seem to just disappear! I even have a thread cutter for flying and some mini snips for when I need to travel light!
I don’t wear my hair up very often, so I usually tuck my cable needle behind one ear. Works great until you forget where you put it :)
I have this horrible habit of using my wedding ring as a stitch marker. It’s too lose in the winter that it spins around my finger when I knit so I will often take it off when I’m knitting. Then I grab it when I need a stitch marker. There have been times when my husband is taking me out and I’m frantically knitting to get my wedding ring off a project. I have other stitch markers, but this one is just always there!
That is hilarious.
Ha! I used to do this with my engagement ring – the wedding band doesn’t bother me to have on all the time, but the one with stones on it kept my place on many a hat and cowl. It used to bother my husband to no end. And now I find that if I use the really big stitch markers, they often wind up on my fingers as rings.
No idea why I had a cable needle in my handbag but it was very useful for starting our broken down car! DPNS tend to go behind my ear.
I stick my cable needle under my watch band, always. Then it is ready for pick up the next twist. While riding in my husband’s car I use the door handle as a stitch marker repository. If I am short on stitch markers I can usually find a few in there!
I kept a bunch in a little ledge on our dashboard when we were making the drive cross country this summer. It made sense to me to leave some there permanently.
Tell me I’m not the only one who stashes emergency knitting in my car “just in case.”
You are not alone. A dishcloth project in a cotton drawstring bag lives in the pocket of the driver’s door since I cross a drawbridge to and from work so I’ve got something to do if a ship’s coming up or down the river. It’s good for waiting room knitting too. When I finish one, I start another one right away.
I have a bag with a sock in it on my desk at work. I never know when I might need to knit a few rounds to take the edge off !
I find stitch markers and point protectors all over the place: car, inside the couch, house, purses, etc. When using a cable needle, I stick it under my left arm when not in use. Also, I’ve found the car cup holders to be really useful as yarn bowls. :-)
I’m pretty much a knitting needles in the hair kind of girl. I also pin tapestry needles through my shirt so I won’t lose them. I don’t lose them, but I do forget about them and wear them for the rest of the day. These things are especially ridiculous looking when I’m at work, as I am a firefighter.
I store point protectors, stitch markers, and even cable needles in my cleavage for safe keeping while knitting. Being well-endowed, I sometimes forget they are there until bed time.
I’m loving these answers, you guys. So good.
I tuck my cable needle in the front strap of my bra when I’m not using it, I’m not sure where it will go when I am wearing a sweater this winter and it won’t be easily accessible .
Two-sized crochet hook for accidental dropped stitches lives on my keychain. I have stitch markers of various sorts tucked into all sorts of purses and pouches, just in case. My SIM card for when I go to America lives in my pared down must-bring-on-travels knitting accessories pouch (in a sub-pouch of stitch markers, of course), you know, so I don’t forget it… That last one is probably the oddest.
Me too with the DPN in the hair, and a couple of others.
I sometimes hold a circular needle in my bun, one end in each side. The cable looks like a halo, which I always thought could be part of an angel Halloween costume.
I usually knit in my office, but sometimes in my living room or bedroom. I was tired of not having minor supplies at-the-ready, so I got a bunch of cigar boxes from my brother and put the exact same thing in each of them–stitch markers, crochet hook, cable needle, safety pin, 6″ ruler, nail clippers (slanted ones are the best, but hard to find), emory board, scissors, pens, pencils, paper, etc. These boxes are all over my house, and I even keep one in my car.
I spin, and I am now notorius for tracking long strands of wild roving across rooms…and for wearing the fuzzy bits of fiber on my butt (unseen by me, of course) to the grocery store…
I have at least a half dozen pairs of embroidery scissors: a pair in each knitting kit (a la atexasgirlknits) for on-the-fly knitting, one at the sewing table, one downstairs near the knitting chair, and a couple stockpiled for when I can’t find the others. I’m the same about darning needles. Also a glass ramekin near the knitting chair for bits of thread, waste yarn, an occasional stitch marker, etc.
Wish my hair were long enough to put my needle accessories in a bun. I just lose them in the chair, on the floor, to the cat . . .
I’m rather well endowed and while I’m knitting I always keep my cable needle in my cleavage or hooked onto my shirt or bra. I haven’t decided if I’m setting myself up for a pretty gnarly accident someday or if I’m just making the most of my assets…
I always put my cable needle between clenched teeth and at least half the time I’m pulling up the sofa cushions looking for the stupid thing. Friends, this is what “over-50” looks like.
Doesn’t everyone hold their cable needle in their teeth?
When I get really down I never quite feel like knitting, but I DO just want to dump out my stash and let it roll all over and overtake our bedroom floor, so I can admire and squish everything. My 9 month old son loves it as well, and will join me in squishing. It usually gets left that way for the day, and the funny part is my husband has learned to take it as a sign… ;)
Hannah, I can totally relate! My problem is that I also work from home, so sometimes I find myself sitting in the middle of the room, surrounded by my stash, when I realize that I have an appointment coming to the house in 30 minutes! I’ve spent many an afternoon frantically gathering up my piles of yarn and stuffing them into the tiny closet so I can look “professional” again, and not like a crazy yarn lady.
I’m definitely one of the “stick the extra DPN/cable needle in the hair” people, but if my hair’s down I also stick them between the arm of my glasses and my ear/face (but not actually behind the ear, for some reason that feels uncomfortable).
I also like to take the tiny little remnants of yarn that you get when you’re finishing a garment/project and then I braid them together before I throw them out. No idea why I do that.
I always have an embroidery needle, or three, and some paperclips in the coin pocket of my wallet. Otherwise I’d always lose them & this way I always have stitch markers (and because they’re bendy, they’ll hold a few stitches, or layers while seaming, as well).
I also keep finding tufts of yarn in the bathroom. Apparently I shed yarn tails when I take a break!
How funny, now I’d like long hair just to be able to hold my needles!!
Here’s my little knitter’s habit: I seem to leave my gauge swatches lying around in the house, in my purse… anywhere they land, really. Kids seem to be particularly intrigued by those swatches and I find myself often explaining what they are. As I try to explain, I get puzzled but interested looks – the same looks I get from kids when I knit in the park. Sparking interest in knitting, maybe?
So here, it felt good to share since we’re “between us”. Thanks Karen!
Thanks for the laughs! Will have to think about any knitting quirks that I might have. Will have to ask my husband later & will let you know.
I just sort of fling everything everywhere, like some sort of yarn tornado. Snipped off yarn bits, notions, extra needles. I do try to clean them up once I’m totally done for the day because I don’t want our dogs eating any of it… but if it weren’t for them I’d probably be sitting in a nest of yarn ends.
Guilty of many of the quirks already listed here, and loving reading about the other ones, but possibly I am the only idiot who actually impaled herself with a knitting needle. I hurriedly brushed aside knitting I’d left in a chair and plunked down quickly. Well, I had not pushed it aside enough and one of the points (metal circulars) stuck into me hard enough that it was hanging from my butt when I jumped back up. Not dire, but it drew blood. Still cracks my husband up. He loves to tell this story along with the one where I sewed through the tip of my finger with the sewing machine. Heh … ;-)
More of a quirky consequence than a habit, really. But all this talk of sharp points sticking out of heads brought it to mind. Great photo of Susk…
I have a large stock pot that I use so often for blocking and hand washing that it pretty much lives next to the bathtub. I don’t think it’s odd (of course!) but every one who comes over asks why we have a giant pot in our bathroom!
Vanessa, this comment made me laugh so hard, since I’ve been in your bathroom. Always seems perfectly normal to me!
The only knitting related quirk I can think of is that I’m compulsive about composting the tiny bits and pieces of yarn that I have left over from projects- basically anything under a foot long gets composted. I often look through the window at our compost heap to see birds carrying the bits off…
I’ve scared fellow passengers on public transit with circulars around my neck before. I’ve also had DPNs in my hair. The most odd (and most dangerous) habit I had was putting a tapestry needle in my hair. I had a huge afro and it was great for holding it in place. However….when it came time to go to sleep, I remembered I’d put it in my hair, but it took me a solid 10 minutes to get it. I couldn’t lie down without getting it out!
If I’m using a cable needle (which I mostly don’t anymore; I cable without a needle wherever possible), I like the uneven u-shaped kind and I hook it through the sweater I’m wearing (the lapel of a cardigan, the hem of a pullover) while I’m knitting whenever it’s not actually in use. Of course when I get up from the couch half the time I’ve forgotten it’s there, so it falls and clatters on the floor to remind me.
Reading all of these comments made my day! I quit sticking my threaded needles thru my jeans at the front of my thighs. Forgot they were there, sat down, crossed my left leg over my right leg……. let out a howl that I’m pretty sure was heard four states away as I launched myself back OUT of the chair I’d just sat down in. Cat and dog both hid from me for the rest of the day! Never did get the blood stains out of those jeans. And, since I chopped all of my hair off, I’m at a loss as to where to put my hook and pencil!
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Whenever I wind a skein of yarn, I tuck the ties and tags in a basket on a nearby bookshelf. I think I have about two years’ worth of accumulated ends in there, with vague ideas of leaving them out for the birds at some point? Not sure. All I know is that there’s a trash can two feet away, and yet. . .
I did leave them for the birds and had bits of colorful yarn blown all over the front yard. I did wonder what the neighbors thought. The birds wouldn’t take the red pieces for some reason. Maybe it looks like whatever they eat?
I keep all of my ends as well! Still have no clue what I’ll do with them…
I often get separated from my working yarn. I have been known for having the ball remain in my car, and proceeding on foot across a bank parking lot and a busy Chicago street with the attached project in my bag. I might not realize that I’ve done it until someone else alerts me.
I had a horrible habit of using the arm of our couch as a pin cushion for my sewing needles. It’s so handy when I’m sitting on the couch sewing but I had to stop or risk my poor pin pricked husband divorcing me!
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