Interchangeable Knitting Needles

Through the years, I’ve done several posts about interchangeable knitting needles. People have a love/not love relationship with them. I don’t like the “hate” word, except when talking about scorpions.

This will be a long post. Hopefully you can skim down to any brand you’re interested in buying and skip over the rest.

Top row, left to right: Denise, ChiaoGoo, HiyaHiya large.
Bottom row, left to right: KnitPicks, HiyaHiya small.

As far as I know, different brands of tips/cables are not interchangeable with each other.

These are my opinions, and only my opinions! A lot of this is copied from a previous post but there’s new info inserted and new needles reviewed. Right off the bat, I will tell you that my favorite cables are ChiaoGoo and my favorite tips are Hiya Hiya. If I could have just one set, it would be Addi Click, or Knitter’s Pride Karbonz or Zing. Having said that, I will mention below the sets I dislike. Because a set isn’t listed as my favorite, doesn’t mean it isn’t my favorite.

Another right off the bat bit of info: I do not love wooden needles because I’ careless and because I like the slickness of metal, unless I’m using a fiber that just refuses to stay on the needle (silk, linen, etc.).

I put my project in my chair when I get up and then when I go to sit back down, I’ll scoot the project over but will still end up sitting on a needle, or a bag with a project in it will be sitting by my chair, get bumped, someone steps on the bag and a needle breaks. They aren’t terribly fragile but they’re too fragile for me.

Love:

• A set comes with almost every size tip and cable you would ever need
• Additional tips/cables are fairly inexpensive (replacement or extend your collection)
• When traveling, grab a full set and chances are, you’ll have every size you could need without having to do a lot of packing different needle sizes
• When knitting, if you need the size tips that are in another project, you can remove the tips add a stopper, put the tips on a different cable and start the new project
• When knitting, you may start off using a 16″ cable but as the project grows, you may need a 32″ cable. Instead of having to find a new needle, simply change the cable size.

Not Love:

• Cables sometimes come unscrewed!
• Joins can be rough and snag the yarn.

Let’s talk about the “Not Love” first. There are Addi Clicks and you push and twist for the to snap into place. These needles are never going to come unscrewed! For other brands, they all come with some kind of tightening mechanism – usually a t-pin will suffice. On almost all of the needles I’ve used, if I tighten them sufficiently and periodically (depends on how much twisting I’m doing and that usually depends on the pattern), they can be re-tightened and I don’t have a problem with them coming unscrewed.

As far as the joins, some are worse than others. Chiaogoo, at least in my experience, have perfect joins and they stay perfect. Hiya Hiya have the least perfect joins. (Down farther, I’ll tell you about a fix!)

I’ve heard some complain about the cables. Some cables are kinky and have a memory. Some cables are not very flexible but I’ve found that if one brand has an interchangeable cable I don’t like, that same brand is going to have the same, or almost the same cable with their fixed circular needles.

Top row, left to right: Denise, ChiaoGoo, HiyaHiya large.
Bottom row, left to right: KnitPicks, HiyaHiya small.

Knit Picks:

The first set I will review is the Knit Picks set, which was the first set I purchased . . a long, long time ago.

My KP needles are older and their quality may have improved since my set was new. While I don’t dislike them, I don’t love them.  It seems like with each size, one of the needles isn’t a perfect join and if I’m knitting tightly, which I have a tendency to do, the yarn snags and hangs up at the join.  A couple of the tips aren’t real smooth on the end and that sometimes causes a snag.  I find that I’m using those only when I don’t have the right size fixed circular needle.

Again, mine are older. At one point, the individual tips were not labeled as to size. I believe the newer ones are. The cases that came with mine were pretty worthless and didn’t hold up at all. The cases also may be better now.

The cost is extremely reasonable for a set of interchangeable needles of this quality.

ChiaoGoo:

I have the Twist Red Lace Complete Set.

It comes with a really nice zipper case.  Inside are all the needles and cables.

The red things are the cables to which the various needle tips attach.

Inside the little outside zipper pouch are the following:

• Stitch markers
• End caps – these are for use when I’m knitting something . . say I’m using my size 4 mm tips on my 24″ cables and for some reason I stop that project and then my next project needs 4 mm tips on 32″ cables.  I can unscrew the tips from the 24″ cables and then screw the end caps onto the ends of my cables and that keeps the stitches from all slipping off.  Then I can screw the 4 mm tips onto the 32″ cables and begin a new project.
• T-pins for tightening the connections.
• Needle gauge – even though the the tips have a size stamped on each needle, it’s nice to have a gauge to check the size, if I need it. (Like sometimes when my eyes are too tired to read the small print).

The tips are nice and sharp, the way I like them. The tips are smooth and the connections are smooth. I have never had a problem with a Hiya Hiya cable.

Hiya Hiya:

I have several Hiya Hiya sets. There’s a set (red shown below) for smaller needles and the purple is for larger sizes. I rarely use anything over a 7 mm but when I do need a larger needle size, I have it. I also have a set of Hiya Hiya sharps and when I say sharp, I mean . . they will draw blood til I get a bit of a callous built up if I haven’t used the for a while.

I do have problems with Hiya Hiya cables. Others don’t seem to have problems. The cables will form a permanent “crease” if bent sharply, which we should not do but accidents happen. Also, fairly often, I have then cables come loose from the connection. Vince is able to cut the cable from the connection, remove the bad part, stick it back up in the connecting piece and glue it and that is usually a better join than from the factory.

Denise:

These were inexpensive but I did not like the at all.

Signature:

In my opinion, these are outrageously expensive. The needles are lightweight and the cables, for the most part, are nice. I have sent back a set of fixed Signature circular needles due to a horribly kinky cable. I have another one that I need to send back. In my interchangeable set, one size, I think it’s the 3.25 mm, the “screw end” of the tip is so short that no matter how much tightening I do, it will not stay screwed together, rendering that size useless to me. Also, their cables are specific to the tip. If I order a 4 mm tap with a 32″ cable and a 5 mm tip with a 60″ cable, I cannot switch the cables. While I do love using the Signature needles that work as intended, due to the high cost and the issues I’ve had with them, I don’t recommend them.

Lykke Driftwood:

The needles are beautiful. The cables are great. I don’t use the often because I’m not that much of a fan of wooden needles.

Knitter’s Pride:

Shown above are the Zings. I just got a nice set of these from Overstock for $52 for 9 tips and 4 cables. I recently got a set of Nova Platina for about $45 for 7 tips and 2 cables. The cables for Knitter’s Pride needles are fairly inexpensive. I ordered a set of 5 cables, varying sizes, from Amazon for less than $12. A ChiaoGoo cable is upwards of $6 each.

Actually, I love Knitter’s Pride needles. Their Karbonz, which are a bit more expensive, are a favorite and I like their Zings and their Nova Platina. They also have Dreamz, which are wooden and I don’t have those.

Depending on what you want to spend, how pointed of a tip you want, how flexible you want your cable to be, there is a set out there.

Left to right:  Denise, ChiaoGoo, Knitpicks, HiyaHiya.

I’m not sure how much you can glean from the photo but I was hoping to give you an idea of the sharpness or bluntness of the tips.

These are the Zing tips and they aren’t terribly sharp. If I’m making twisted stitches (knit through the back), I would not use these but for mostly straight stockinette, I like these just fine. I like how the Zing needles feel in my hands.

Purely my opinion but almost all of these needles have a place in my knitting and I would buy them all over again. If I were buying today and price were no object, this is the order in which I would choose.

Addie Click
Knitter’s Pride Karbonz
ChiaoGoo
Hiya Hiya
Knitter’s Pride Nova Platina
Knitter’s Pride Zings
Lykke (nothing against these but they’re wooden and that’s not my fav)
Knit Picks
Signature
Denise