It's Not Fourteen. It's Only Twelve.

Maybe knitting needles don't get smarter, but they certainly do multiply. I did another doubling round on the latest Pi doily, from 144 stitches to 288, from 18 stitches on each needle to 36. Hmmm, fingers don't like 36 stitches on each needle, what to do, what to do?

Did I mention I have 14 of these US size 1 needles?

One is in the brown leaf bookmark. One is my working needle (or "flying pin"). The other twelve are now in the Pi. [Repress urge to sing "Four and Twenty Blackbirds".] 24 stitches on each of twelve needles are quite manageable, thank you.

I'm going to be a subversive knitter here and say I think I prefer having twelve needles in the work to a circular needle. A) I don't have a size 1 circ. And B) who needs stitch markers when I have all those needle junctions?

I just picked a pattern that would fit on one needle (okay, so I actually picked a pattern that had an 18-stitch repeat and made it bigger). I do one pattern repeat on each needle. If I'm at the start of the needle, I'm at the start of the pattern repeat.

Let's add C) Slip out? Knitting needles don't slip out of my knitting. Am I really that tight of a knitter? Let's give that Pi a good hard shake and see, shall we?
And now to try to shake the Pi and take a picture, simultaneously.

Nope, nobody's going nowhere. Nohow.

Elizabeth Zimmermann had a bunch of not-very-complimentary things to say about those of us who can't shake metal needles out of cotton thread. (I'd like to read her blog, wouldn't you?)

I'm actually a very relaxed knitter in everything except the tightness of the stitches. I knitted for hours instead of picking up Legos that I didn't even play with quite a while yesterday, and hey look! Hands don't hurt, shoulders and back don't hurt.

No, I lie: my right hand does hurt, but that's from using the sheep shears to trim the grass around my lilies and Siberian iris. But I can't blame that on the knitting, and neither can EZ.