The Silk Lace Series: Needle Choice
The most common question about the Silk Lace yarn I get asked is "What size needle should I use?" I am sure few find it helpful when I tell them it is a matter of personal preference and suggest swatching until they are happy with the result. But, I realize nobody wants to spend a lot of time swatching YOs and K2togs with a slippery yarn, so hopefully this will help guide your choices.
I swatched the Travelling Vine pattern, found in Barbara Walker's "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns" on page 219, using the Silk Lace in "Royal" on US 0-3 needles. All swatches are 36 stitches across and 4 pattern repeats in length. They were all wet-blocked lightly.
The US 0 needle creates a denser fabric that allows one to see the lace pattern easily. The swatch measures 4" by 4" and if I were knitting a wrap that was more for warmth than for show, this is probably the needle size I would choose.
The swatch on the US 1s measures 5" by 5" and is a bit lighter than the swatch on US 0s. The jump in size from US 0 to US 1 is big, so if you wanted to knit less and have a larger sized garment while still maintaining the integrity of the knitted fabric, US 1s make sense.
The US 2 swatch measures 6" wide and 5.75" long. It obviously is a lot lighter in feel and the knitted stitches show their openness. The lace pattern is still obvious, but it becomes less about knitted fabric versus the YO holes and more about the overall openwork of the lace.
The US 3 swatch measures 6.5" long and 6" wide, so virtually no difference in width from the US 2 swatch, yet the fabric is much more gossamer.
Looking at them next to each other makes the size difference easily obvious, not just of the knitted stitches, but in the YOs. One important thing to consider when choosing a needle size, but also when actually choosing a color of yarn, is the difference in density of the fabric and how that changes the appearance of the color of the lace in the finished garment. If you are knitting with a brightly or darkly colored yarn, the lace might show up quite easily on US 3s but not as much on US 0s; the brightness will be diffused on a larger needle size while a bright color on a smaller needle size might overwhelm the person who wears the garment.
To get a better visual idea of how the needle size affects the dimmensions, here are the swatches stacked up, from smallest to largest.
And then again, but with the orange lines delineating the edges of each swatch.
Next up: Joining yarn with as little effort as possible.
Thank you for doing all that work for us. Seeing it makes it all much clearer.
Diane
Thanks for your lace series. I especially appreciate today's suggestion to consider brightness and color when selecting needle size.
Thank you! This helps me see and understand lace much more than before—especially the info concerning color and brightness.
Now if only I could get my hands on some of your silk lace I'd be perfectly happy!
Thank you so much--that is a really big help. Your knitted samples really made a big difference in my understanding needle choices.
Oh my word! Your tutorials are absolutely THE BEST! Thank you for doing all that work for us. And since I am merely 2 days away from starting the Traveling Vine scarf in your luscious Tulip Silk Lace, all this info is especially helpful. I had thought about using US#3s, but will now use US#1s. Thank you so much!!
That's tremendously helpful. I'm going to use this information in deciding the needles to use with my Guava silk yarn.
You know I'm having a really hard time concentrating on what you're saying because I keep getting distracted by the unspeakable gorgeousness of the yarn :-)
I'm lucky enough to have received a lovely skein of Black over Pink silk lace, and have been searching for ages to find the perfect pattern for it - this has been a tremendous help. Thank you! love(1)
Great tutorial. Nice to see the swatches stacked up to see the differences. Also how 'Royal' looks like in lace. I love it! Thank you.
Thanks, that is super helpful; I can't wait to get my "Seasons" yarn.
Thanks for taking the time to do this. It helped cement in my mind that I really prefer the smaller needles and resulting denser fabric. To my eye the pattern stands out much better and the patterns are what I like about lace, not so much the 'holes'.
Hope you have time to keep doing these helpful articles - and taking the great pictures.
Thanks for knitting the squares and writing the post. Reinforces my understanding that the gossamer look is my favorite
EXTREMELY helpful for me...Interweave Knits really should hire you and pay you boatloads of cash to write this kind of stuff. Of course, that might slow down the yarn production and that would be AWFUL!
I believe this article will come in handy if I can ever bring myself to start actually knitting your yarn...instead of stroking and fondling and taking pictures of it. :o)
What a wonderful tutorial! Great job!
I was wondering if you could answer one more question regarding lace needle sizes, even though it might be a silly one. Does using a bigger needle use up more yarn? If so, would the faster consumption of yarn be justified by getting a bigger finished shawl, or do you think you might end up with a smaller shawl due to running out of yarn?
I just signed up for Seasons and I'm really excited! Thanks again for the awesome tutorial!
Holly: Yes, the yarn would be used up more quickly with larger needles, since the loops are bigger on bigger needles and smaller on smaller needles.
But, as to whether the consumption rate is justified would depend on personal preference and how you want the garment to look and if how you want it to look is worth or not worth using or not using up the yarn at a faster rate.
I can't answer the smaller shawl question because it is a question with the answer dependent on pattern choice, which again, is personal preference. Sorry, I know that isn't helpful, but with most of knitting there are too many variables to give general answers.
Very helpful tutorial! I was surprised to see how the overall color changes with the density of lace. But here's a slightly off-topic question: How did you wind that beautiful ball? (I presume you recommend knitting your lace from the outside, rather than from a center-pull?)
Hi Toni! I wound that ball by hand. It took FOREVER! I'm generally not a fan of center pull balls, although if I do use them, I always knit from the outside. Spinners have told me that knitting from the inside adds twist to the yarn, which I try to avoid. I feel the hand-wound balls add enough enjoyment to my knitting experience that I'm willing to put the time into winding them. I do use a swift to hold the yarn while I wind them.
Thank you! It's such a help to see al those swatches next to each other!