A year ago I blogged about the knitting needle gauges I have in my collection that are shaped like bells. This week I was asked a question about why a size 9 hole in an old UK gauge looks as though it measures 5 or 6 mm when all the gauge conversion charts say size …
Category: Knitting Tools
More Needle Gauges (4)
This is my last board of gauges. They tend to be oddments that didn’t quite fit with anything else. Most are plastic. Many were given away with various magazines. Inox Calculator + Counting FrameThis is quite complex. The holes are metric sizes from 1.5 mm to 10 mm. In the photo all the smaller sizes …
More Needle Gauges (3)
Many of these gauges are relatively modern. The organisation is not always completely logical as there are so many different ways the gauges could be grouped together. This board has my two favourite gauges. I love them because they are so wrong. Can you spot them? Part of the reason I originally started collecting gauges …
More Needle Gauges (2)
Another board full of gauges. Again the order is not always logical. There are gauges on other boards that have close links to some of these. (Click knitting tools in the tags, or categories, to see posts about other gauges.) Left-hand ColumnThe gauges are all the same size and shape with a one-inch measuring slot …
More Needle Gauges (1)
The rest of my gauges are pinned to cork boards. I have tried to group similar items together but the overall order is fairly random. This shape was fairly common. The lettering, and placement of holes, on the metal gauges, are so similar they look as though they could have been stamped on the same …
Knitting Needle Boxes with Gauges
I have 14 knitting needle boxes with holes, or slots, for measuring needles. The six above are the oldest. Four of them are definitely bakelite; the others could be slightly later and made of a different plastic. Underneath they say Bex Made in England. The sizes are from 00 to 16. There is a 12″ …
More Wool-holder Gauges
I don’t know how many wool-holders, with gauges, there ever were. I have four more types (in addition to beehives). Above These are hard plastic. On the bottom they say BEX Made in England. The needle slits are for sizes 7 to 14. There is no other information. I don’t know how many colours were …
Beehives
Prior to 1920, J. and J. Baldwin’s Wool and Paton’s Yarn’s, were separate companies both manufacturing wool for commercial purposes. They merged and went into producing wool for home knitters. They published patterns under Paton’s Rose and Baldwin’s Beehive trademarks then quickly became Paton’s & Baldwin’s (or P & B) and used only the Beehive …
Viyella Gauges
I have four Viyella knitting needle gauges. They are basically the same but are all different. Some differences are more obvious than others. The same picture is on the back of three of the drums. It is of two children, in the style of Mabel Lucie Attwell but I cannot confirm that she was the …
The Bells
I used to collect knitting needle gauges – for a rather perverse reason. Our first knitting book (Woolly Thoughts) was about modular knitting using any needles and any yarn to make a garment of the right size without ever having to knit a tension square (known as a gauge square, or swatch, in US). Many …