What I said about the Lantern Moon “sox stix” in ebony – they sort of blow. I have ONE needle left out of the five and I’m only done with the foot and a couple inches of the ankle.
Some background: I am a hardcore DPN user. I learned to knit in the round on DPNS because circulars annoyed and frightened me. I started out on those annoying Lion Brand plastic DPNs which were sticky but useable and then moved on the Boye Baleen needles because they were nice and bendy. Unfortunately the tips were easy to snap off and I was easily annoyed and disheartened. The ladies at Quarter Stitch in New Orleans introduced me to the awesomeness of bamboo, but I still held out skepticism that I couldn’t take those frail wooden needles anywhere without having to stop knitting on account of a broken needle. But the little Crystal Palace needles proved to be very durable (and are currently tied up holding place on the unfinished Alpaca socks…) and I was instantly converted to a wood-only DPN user. A lot of people give me looks and ask “Do you know you can do that with two circulars?” and I give them Withering Look and mutter something about not changing a perfectly good system for something new fangledy with a lot of potential for tangles.
I’ve had problems with 2.00 needles made out of regular wood before I just couldn’t keep the Brittany Birch needles from shattering for various reasons (although in those needles defense when a pal accidentally sits on your bag o-knitting they didn’t have much of a chance at all). That and the Brittany needles were annoyingly short – the free end hit me right about the heel of the hand on both sides as I knit and I discovered I was developing an entirely new knitting callous!
Its possible that I have some serious tension issues when it comes to holding my DPNs, in fact I can’t knit with metal DPNs as I intensely dislike the way the evil little metal sticks bite into my hands when I’ve knit more than 3 rows. I don’t have this problem with knitting with metal needles in bigger sizes Most of my sock needles inevitably turn from nice upright little lines to wonky curves in the course of one sock. Chigoo type bamboo needles, while affordable and nice to knit on, always develop at least one central stress crack while I’m knitting with them, which means I knit on three instead of four and keep the last as an inevitable backup.
When I first embarked on knitting socks as a constant thing I bought myself some incentive goodies – a frail pair of blonde wood sock needles (by Lantern Moon) and enough skeins of black and colored yarn to knit the rose stockings of my dreams in Ethnic Socks and Stockings. I was instantly charmed at the notion of knitting on “toothpicks” but because of the high cost of the needles I absolutely do NOT take them out of the house. Which sort of defeats the portable and awesome part of knitting socks.
I thought about consigning the Ebony sock sticks to the “house only” needle collection but said “Sod it, I want to get these 54 inches of eventual sock done some time before the cold goes away,” and cast on at Dadzillas. I just throw my knitting into my ginormous purse, I’ve yet to get up off my arse and make them a little special sack or cube or something to hold all the sock stuff so that stitch holders do not mingle freely with lipstick and Ipods, so perhaps my needles are at a higher risk than others. But still, every time a Sox Stix broke…it was in my hand.
And they don’t just break folks – these things shatter. I got a couple harsh splinters off of them, which only made the feeling that I’d just broken a 4 dollar stick that much worse. The Sox Stix weren’t horrible to knit on, they chugged along nicely but it was hard to maintain nice tension for all the fiddly lace bits on the socks when you fear a shattered needle or find it hard to scoot the yarn along. But the Sox Stix weren’t so awesome that they could justify the 20 something dollar price tag they carry at the LYS. They are incredibly gorgeous, but they aren’t phenomenal.
Maybe it’s because I’m spoiled by my precious, precious Addi bamboo DPNs. These things are pretty much unbreakable, slick but not frustratingly so, and I can breeze along any row no sweat. Also they are long enough that stitches don’t just vanish off the needles. Addi still comes through as the only knitting needle worthy of having its own religion.
If you need to know anything else about the Lantern Moon “Sox Stix” you can check out the Knitters Review site also.
