All Needles are NOT the same and Who the Hell Thought up P2tog tbl!!

I know that the title may be a little misleading. I really like the Shedir pattern. It was a great knit that kept me entranced for a week straight, but this pattern was a Bitch at times.


Needles


Now I KNOW all needles are not created equal. Eunny spells it out in her Majoring in Lace Part II but when in need I tend to pick the best of what choices I have when a project arises. But this project has taught me a big lesson that you really have to pay attention to your knitting tools.


First mistake was buying the Addi Naturals. These looked great at first sight - bamboo material, fairly sharp point, good joint - but when I began knitting on them I kept getting stuck. On closer inspection I noticed this:



(click image for larger view of gigantic chasm in needles)


What the hell is this? Why would you need an enormous ridge in your needles? Could this be for lace or for people who can't keep the stitches on the needles? My carpal tunnel and irritated wrist were cursing me for not looking closer. This made knitting slower and more wrist work as I would forget and wonder why my stitches were becoming harder to move so I would have to tug the stitches over the great divide to continue.


Next I needed Double Points. So I rushed to my LYS to buy needles and all they had was the Brittany's. So in my desperation I bought them. Well the damn things are blunt. You can see the difference between the Addi's and the Brittany's in the picture.



(left side Brittany, right side Addi Natural)


I might as well tried to stick my finger between the stitches because it was as effective as trying to P2tog TBL with those damn Brittany's. I HATE BRITTANY NEEDLES!! It basically resulted in the mess below in which I am trying to pick up the stitches with my sharper Addi's.





P2TOG TBL


This little acrobatic move was made the ending of this pattern massively laborious. I had to look it up to find out what the hell I was supposed to do. For those of us who still need the tutorial it can be found here. With my hella blunt needles I had to twist and bend nearly my entire body to get this to work. Was it worth it? I have no clue. The funny part is there are only two rows that call for this and that is all I can remember now. I will definitely be on the look out for this maneuver in other patterns and then decide if I really want to knit it.

So these were my troubles with knitting the Shedir. I am finished now and will post pictures soon.