So, I am absolutely scandalously reusing my own work here folks. As part of the prep for the new website (which will be up in mere weeks!), I’m writing The Long Versions of answers to questions I get all the time so I can put them all in one place and point folks at them as necessary.⁠

Which is grand! But also shockingly time consuming. So time consuming that it rather cuts into the time I’d normally spend, you know, writing blog/instagram posts.⁠ So I’m cheating and using that very same content in both places. As I said, scandalous I know, but we work with what we have.⁠

So, with that in mind, I get the same two questions about needles over and over again. One has a super quick answer, the other takes a bit longer. Let’s start with the quick one today. And it is…⁠

Do I have to use DPNs?⁠

Nope! If you don’t care for DPNs, you can absolutely use one or two circular needles instead.⁠

The only thing I ever care about is that you use needles that let you knit in the round. I happen to love DPNs and have a rather complicated relationship with circular needles, but that’s just personal preference. ⁠

None of my patterns require you to do anything that needs DPNs specifically. In fact, I’m not sure I can think of anything that you would absolutely have to use DPNs for (instead of circular needles). I’m sure it exists (totally tell me about it if you’re aware of something)! But I haven’t found it yet.⁠

The only thing I’m aware of where you’d need to use circular needles (instead of DPNs) is something with a mobius cast on. Again, I’m sure other things exist (and again, totally tell me about it if you’re aware of such things)! I’m just not familiar with them.⁠

But none of my patterns require anything more than ‘needles that will let you work in the round,’ so please use whatever style of needle you like best for that.⁠

And once again, just for anyone who missed it last time, this pattern is Hoard, it spends most of its time being more needles than fabric, and it’s one of the handful of patterns that will be returning when the shiny new thing launches next month!