In Japan, knitting needles use different standard metric sizes, starting at 2.1 mm and going up to 25 mm. What is My Knitting Needle Size?

If you look at Miss Lambert’s “ My knitting book” from 1845, you will find her marketing a “ Standard Filière” that bears a strong resemblance to the wire gauges used in the British industry at that time and follow the same systemization. Other authors, such as Hope, Mee, and Gaugain also advertised their own needle gauges. And this explains why the smallest knitting needles have the largest numbers in the UK. Source: Miss Lambert, My Knitting book; London, 1845, John Murray To help you decipher the world of knitting needle sizes, refer to the charts below! Knitting Needle Sizes Chart for US and UK So, your first step should always, I repeat, always be knitting a gauge swatch to confirm you are knitting a satisfying fabric in line with your thoughts or the requirements of your pattern. what size knitting needles for beginners In the US, needle sizes start at 0 and increase to 50. However, in the UK, sizes start at 14 and go up to 000. So in some parts, this chart is only an approximation. Still, you can easily see that a 4 mm knitting needle converts to a U.S. size 6. And knitting needles sold as 5 mm in Europe can be found as size 8 on the other side of the Atlantic. Knitting needle sizes explainedA handy little guide to knitting needle sizes including size chart for US, European, and Japanese needles. Of course, new materials (like celluloid) might also explain the departure from the SWG (as they required different machines and thus resulted in different sized needles). One also has to keep in mind that around 1910, commercial flights across the Atlantic were not available, and neither were telephone calls possible. Unlike today, knitters around the world were much less connected internationally and the world moved much slower and still a bit in isolation.

Susan Webster concludes in a noteworthy post that “then, somehow, magically, around the time of World War II, needle and gauge markers united around the “Standard American” size”. She argues that it could be a result of wartime restrictions. Decades of confusion among knitters might have elevated that demand. If the needle slides in smoothly and sits snugly in the hole, then you’ve just identified your needle size. Mystery solved! On top of that, different materials (e.g. wool, alpaca, or cotton) are also an important factor. Some of these might change their appearance drastically after the first wash.Explaining U.S. knitting needle sizes is a complicated topic and we have to delve a bit into history: With the popularization of knitting in the UK in the 18th century and the industrialization, the shift from handmade tools to mass-produced steel needles occurred. Needles were often also called wires because, by then, most dpns were indeed made out of durable steel wire. And thus they were measured in accordance with the standard wire gauge (SWG). Convert your US needles to metric sizes or vice versa. This knitting needle size chart covers the size equivalents for US, UK, European and an Older US system of needle sizing. The “Old” US needles are referenced from a Boye Needle Gauge chart noted in a 1942 publication. Because the metric measurements of UK sizes are different, it may help to know where you pattern originated. Blank entries indicate that there is no data available for that particular size and measurement. US The yarn label of the most commercially produced yarns should provide you with a size range. It has to be noted that these kinds of recommendations are only a first step. The right needle size for you will largely depend on two factors: