Circular knitting

or knitting in the round

We love circular knitting (knitting in the round) - no seams to sew once you’ve finished knitting.....

Both the terms above cover a wide range of interesting ideas techniques and tools - here are a few:

circular needles - dpns - french dollies - spools -knitting looms

Circular knitting needles

Circular knitting needles - used for hats, purses or large items such as afgans or Scandinavian sweaters - are readily available, reasonably priced, extremely popular and easy to use.

We frequently use this type of knitting needle when designing and knitting our hat and beanie patterns, particularly those with stranded or fair isle designs - avoiding a ton of cut ends to sew in later.

We're also keen to knit in the round when using eyelash or particularly hairy yarns. Seams can often be bulky when using those yarns.

We find circular needles almost indispensable when making bags and purses especially those we knit to felt

Because of a bag's giant pre-felted size your arms can become tired using straight needles you constantly have to turn.

Use a circular needle and your work lies easily in your lap.

And because of the lack of side seams there is often no need to line your felted bags.....easy...

dpns or double pointed needles

Dpns are wonderfully useful (no - not just for garden stakes or flicking things out from behind the fridge....)

We find sox with back seams uncomfortable so use dpns when designing and knitting our sock knitting patterns.

A 60cm circular needle is perfect for the body of a hat - but once you're working the crown decrease section you'll find you have too much needle and too few stitches....
When you reach this point simply knit off the next round onto your dpns and you'll find decreasing a breeze.....

Depending on the number of stitches required (usually between 4 and 8) we often use dpns to work i-cord bag handles.

This leads me to another couple of methods to knit in the round.

French knitting

French knitting using French knitting dollies or jennies or cotton reels(depending where you hail from and perhaps your age group !)

These little gadgets are excellent if you're out-and-about and spend a lot of time "just waiting" - they are small and readily transportable.

Spool knitting

Spool knitting is similar to french knitting only more so.... Crone-findlay is a great site to learn about spool knitting (page opens in a new window - close it to return here)

And last but not least...the circular knitting gadgets even those who can't or don't like to knit have fun with...