Designer's note: What's your size? Knitting needle sizes

So how did you spend your morning? One of the things I did was knit three samples. Why? Well, for today's post of course. Today we will find your size. Don't panic this has nothing to do with your body type. Believe me I don't want to go there either. No, instead it will address what size of knitting needle suits you.

First, you will need to obtain one of these useful pieces of metal: needle guage. Do you see the holes? Well you stick your needle through the hole to determine the needle size. If it barely fits through, that is the size of the needle. Of course you can simply look at the round end of your needle. There you will find a number (unless of course you are working with bamboo or wooden needles or circular needles or double-pointed needles). This number is the size of your needle.

Here are my three samples. What I did was this, I cast on 36 stitches with a small pair of needles and worked in garter stitch for 26 rows. I repeated this procedure with a pair of medium size needles and a pair of very large needles.

Results for the small needles: 2" wide x 6"long. How did I feel while I was knitting on these needles? Like a giant. I felt like I was knitting with my finger tips. This size of needle requires good eye sight, patience and lots of yarn. These needles work best with fingering or baby weight yarn.
More about small needle users:
Favourite pass-time: cloud watching
Favourite saying: "Relax! I'll get it done."

Results for the medium size needle: 3 1/2" wide x 9 1/2" long. How did I feel while I was knitting with these needles? At home. This is the size of needle to which I am naturally drawn. In fact, most of my patterns are designed for this size of needle. These needles work best with worsted weight yarn.

More about medium size needle users:

Favourite pass-time: jogging

Favourite saying: "Just one more row."

Results for the large needle size: 10" wide x 24" long. How did I feel when I was working with these needles? Like I did when I was eight at my Grandma's knee: awkward...all thumbs. I was surprised at how out of control I felt. Knitting didn't flow as it usually does. I usually knit in front of the TV. You have to put your back into knitting with these monsters: a whole arm movement. These big fellows are most commonly used with bulky or gigantic yarn.