3. Knitting needles

Gründl Knitting School

Learning to Knit: Which Knitting Needles for Beginners?

Learning to knit: Which knitting needles for beginners?

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What types of knitting needles are there?

After choosing the right yarn, select the most suitable knitting needle. Are you ready to dive into the diverse world of knitting needles? We'll tell you everything about knitting tools.
First, let's start with the material. We distinguish between knitting needles made of wood, plastic, and metal. Essentially, the choice of knitting needles is entirely up to you. It's a visual and tactile question of which material meets your aesthetic demands. In principle, any knitting project can be knitted with any type of material.

Characteristics of Knitting Needles

This is where your intuition comes into play. Which material feels best to you? Metal needles are characterized by being very cool and having a particularly smooth surface. Experienced knitters especially love metal knitting needles because stitches glide easily, allowing for fast knitting. However, the clicking sound when knitting with metal needles can take some getting used to. Some find it annoying, others enjoy the unique rhythm.
Wooden knitting needles, such as bamboo needles, have a rougher texture – making them easier to grip. The natural material also feels warm. Of course, the sustainability component also plays an important role with wooden needles.
The third group of needle materials are plastic knitting needles. They are particularly lightweight, making them especially suitable for heavier projects that require larger needles.

What types of needles are there?

Double-pointed needles (DPNs)

A set of double-pointed needles consists of 5 identical needles, all characterized by their double, tapered ends, similar to a sharpened pencil. This type of needle is particularly suitable for knitting round projects with a small diameter, such as sleeves, cuffs, or hats.

Single-point needles

Single-point needles are always sold in pairs and are particularly long. Unlike double-pointed needles, single-point needles have a stopper at one end to prevent stitches from slipping off. This type of needle is especially suitable for straight projects with not too many stitches, such as scarves or cowls.

Circular Knitting Needles

Contrary to what the name might suggest, circular knitting needles are not only for knitting round projects – you can also knit back and forth with them, and even knit your first scarf. They are available with different cable lengths. The lengths can vary between 40 cm and 200 cm (for example, for blankets).

Auxiliary Needles

There are also individual needles that can assist you with many knitting projects or patterns in addition to your regular knitting needles – that's why they are called auxiliary needles. These include, for example, cable needles or even yarn needles. Cable needles are ideal for cable patterns: The indentation in the middle of the needles, a curved wedge, allows individual stitches to be put on hold during cabling and picked up again in later rows – without them slipping off.

Which needle size for which yarn?

Regardless of the needle type, knitting needles are available from 1 mm to 25 mm. This number indicates the diameter of the needles. So, size 7 needles are 7 mm wide.
Which needle size is suitable for my project? The required needle size depends entirely on the yarn. The more voluminous or coarser your yarn is, the larger needles you will need. The exact needle size is indicated on the yarn band. If you are wondering why it's not an exact value but a range, such as 7 - 8, it's because the needle size depends on your knitting style.
If you knit loosely, it is usually more sensible to use the smaller needle size, and vice versa. So, if you knit tightly, we recommend knitting with needles that correspond to the larger size indicated on the yarn band.

Which knitting needles for beginners?

Now the only question left is which knitting needles are best for beginners or which ones we should use for our scarf. In principle, it would be sensible to use a thicker needle size. This is because larger needles fit wonderfully in the hand and at the same time ensure quick knitting success.
For our shared scarf, we recommend a circular knitting needle with a cable length of 80 cm (in any material you prefer). In our videos, we use long single-point needles so you can see the stitches better. The important thing is that you feel comfortable and the needles fit well in your hands.

Download knitting pattern and order yarn online

You can download the free pattern here and simultaneously order the matching yarn in the colors of your choice.