Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee

making I-cord; and they come in handy for picking locks, fending off other knitters at a yarn sale, and retrieving things (like stitch markers) from small spaces (like heating grates).
    If you’re having a really good time with a needle someone else (or maybe everyone else) says is crap, ignore the warnings. You can like crap if it works for you.
WHAT ARE YOUR NEEDLES MADE OF?
    Knitters don’t get serious only about circular or straight; there’s also the deeply divisive matter of needle material. Needles come made of all kinds of stuff, and they all have their advantages. For the longest time I knit exclusively with cheap aluminum-colored needles. I liked how cheerful they were; the way I could match the needle color to the yarn; and how sharp, fast, and inexpensive they were. These days I’m more likely to match my needle type to my yarn type, and though I miss the thrill of putting hot pink yarn on blue needles, I must admit I’m pretty keen on the way mohair clings to the wooden ones.
    It’s possible to buy crappy needles of every sort. There are wooden needles that break or splinter, there are metal needles that aren’t smooth, and plastic ones with a point so blunt you couldn’t poke a hole in Jell-O with them. The advantages of each type refer only to needles of reasonable quality. As with yarn, buy the best quality you can afford, and don’t tar a whole group of needles until you’ve bought (or borrowed) them in their finest form.
WOOD

    Needles made of wood are available in many different flavors of tree . Common woods are birch, beech, maple, and bamboo, though for a price you may choose warm, elegant rosewood or hard, exotic ebony. Knitters who love wooden needles say they’re quiet, warm, pleasantly organic, beautiful to look at, and improve with age. Knitters say they’re smooth without being too slick, making them very, very good for really slippery yarns that don’t want to stay put on the needles and for complex lacework where control matters.

    Knitters who don’t like wooden ones say that they’re “slow ” (the grip that helps with slippery yarn can work against you if your yarn is not slippery) and that they’re quite breakable. It’s true that some kinds are stronger than others, but virtually nothing will save a wooden needle if you sit on it. (I, having sat on both fragile and sturdy needles, advocate wood for the clumsy knitter. It hurts less.) Every once in a while you hear about a knitter whose wooden needle broke during normal use, but it’s more common for either a tight knitter or a knitter experiencing an unusual amount of stress. (For the purposes of this examination, I don’t consider “normal use” to be flinging them on the floor in a fit of rage over a stitch pattern that you’ve screwed up for the fourth time since dinner. Normal use and common use are not interchangeable.)
METAL
    Metal needles range from the plain steel and aluminum ones all the way up to nickel- or gold-plated needles withthe appealing brand name Turbo. (This always makes my husband laugh; since he imagines race cars and rocket engines and knitters who need flameproof jackets to protect them from the exhaust emitted by the needles. He was disappointed to discover that they look like ordinary, if extra-shiny, knitting needles.)

    People who love metal needles say that they’re slippery, quick, and strong ; that they tend to have the sharpest points — a real boon to knitters doing a lot of cables; and that they are (with the exception of the Turbo variety) the least expensive of all. Knitters who like them say that they’re good for sticky wool but far too slick for mohair or lace and that they’re the sturdiest of all needles. I can vouch for this, having managed to snap all varieties of needles except the metal ones. (I don’t try to do this; it’s a talent.)

    Knitters who don’t care for metal