Crazy Stuff

Here's my recipe for knitting 20 stitches per inch: size 70 Oren Bayan tatting cotton, one pair of Havel's #6-0 tatting needles (0.85 mm), near-sighted eyes or a good magnifier. (This is one of the times when I am extremely grateful to be so near-sighted. It's like wearing Mag-Eyes all the time.)

My mind boggles at the thought of the 2600+ stitches at this gauge in the Dutch petticoat!

I bought two of the sets of six tatting needles in order to get pairs to knit with, and the larger sizes match pretty well: #3-0, 1.6 mm. #4-0, 1.3 mm. #5-0, 1.08 mm. #6-0, 0.85 mm.

But the smaller sizes (#7 and #8) were all over the map: 0.60 mm, 0.53 mm, 0.46 mm and 0.45 mm.

I also bought a pair of their 7" doll needles (two for $1.75), and those are 1.21 mm, so just a bit thinner than a 4-0 knitting needle. (I didn't buy the 9" because those are much thicker.)

If I start trying to knit with the #8 tatting needles, somebody please thump me!

If you are trying to gauge needles like this, which don't fit in any needle gauge in the world, and you don't have a micrometer, you can use the quick-and-dirty newspaper needle gauge. It won't tell you what size the needles are, but it lets you sort them by relative size, from smaller to bigger.

That is, take a piece of fairly soft paper, and jab one needle through it to make a hole. (Hint: put the piece of paper on a styrofoam cup or foam meat tray, NOT your thigh. Owie.)

Now take the next needle and see how it fits through that hole: if it is loose, it is bigger than needle #1. If it fits exactly, they are the same. If it forces the hole bigger, it is larger. That's how I sorted these out by size before I had anything to measure them.