Knitting Needles

Not having any knitting progress to share (sorry. I did knit my sock flap but that's about all)... I wanted to get on my needle soapbox for a bit.

As you can see, I own a fair number of needle gauges. I love them. They let me keep my needles logical, despite all of the manufacturers' apparent efforts to befuddle me.

I trained as a scientist, which generally pursues accuracy.

Thus, two needles that claim to be the same size but are in reality .25 or even .5 mm off-- well.

How can a manufacturer claim to have an accurate tool, that can vary so widely? (Example: US size 6 can be 4mm or 4.25mm) Can you see a scientist accepting a .25mm variation in his calipers?

I know that for manufacturers to be super accurate they'd need to really hike their prices into the ozone. But couldn't they at least agree on which mm size to aim for?

Better yet, can the whacko size systems, and just use millimeter sizes exclusively. They are utterly logical.

Don't get me wrong, I never want to give up my Old English System of feet, inches, yards, miles, etc for daily life (and yes, I am serious)(and don't tell me the metric system is logical; I know that already: remember the scientist part. I just like the old English system for daily life. Makes me feel a link with my ancient past: Beowulf, and others. I know. You think I'm kooky. I'm OK with that.)

So I pay no attention to manufacturer sizes, and store my needles by their mm size, according to my gauges. And measure each one before I start to use it.

I highly recommend it.

....Just watch out for the fact that different gauges are slightly different from one another.

(You knew there had to be a catch.)