Finding a Needle in a Haystack



I bought these ID tags for my circs at the MDSW. I had seen them once before at Knitty City and have been trying to find them since. I have amassed quite a collection of Addi Turbos bought for numerous projects and raiding Going Out of Business Sales at LYS's. For the most part I keep them altogether in a beautiful lavender silk Lantern Moon case. However, I never know which is what size. Many of the needles aren't labeled with the size at all and the size on most of the others is written very faintly on the cord. I have a needle sizer specifically for the Addi Turbos but it is always a bit of a pain to have to size each needle when I'm anxious with new project anticipation.



As you can see above the tags are made of yellow plastic with a cutout on the back that be clipped onto the cord. The size is written in permanent lettering in a computery font with the US size followed by the metric equivalent. I bought one package that is for small needles up to size 6 and the larger set that goes up to size 35. The manufacturer makes an effort to give more tags for commonly used sizes so there are many more tags for size 2 needles than size 10.5's.



Here is my lovely knitting needle collection once I was done tagging them all. The tags are not intended to be kept on while there's a project OTN's. The manufacturer suggests you remove the tag and tie it to the hanging tail of your WIP so it doesn't get lost and you can clip it right back on the needles once you've cast off. The only downfall I can see so far is that the tags don't specify the length of the needle so I need to get out my measuring tape or just eyeball it.




I then arranged them neatly back in the case. It seemed a bit pointless as they only stay that way until the next time I go looking for a needle and end up pulling them all out. But maybe this will help that problem as I can just look at the tag and not have to take each needle out to size it. When I was last up at WEBS I bought a hanging case with labeled pockets for each needle size but have not set it up yet. I hope these attempts at organization will make my knitting life run more smoothly. If not, I'll just go back to the jumbled mess of Addi's I've come to know and love!