Easy Knitting Needles Tutorial

Pin It Now!
Ok, I know knitting needles aren't terribly expensive in the first place, but here is an uber cheap way of making your own for under 50 cents a set. Last year, the 8-year old girls at church begged me to teach them how to knit. Supplying needles for ten girls was a difference between $50 for 10 sets of store-bought needles, or only $5 (plus one hour of my labor) to make them. Well worth it to make them in my opinion. Well, this Saturday our church is doing a knitting class for the women, so I decided to make some sets to encourage more people to give it a try (and of course they get to keep the knitting needles as a perk).

Materials:

• ♥ 12" Wooden craft dowels of desired thickness (Hobby Lobby carries these for $1.99 for a pack. The 1/4 inch thickness comes in a pack of 12 dowels)
• ♥ dowel caps for your chosen size of dowel or polymer clay to make your own caps

You'll also need the following for this project:

• ♥ pencil sharpener
• ♥ fine grain sandpaper
• ♥ soft dry cloth
• ♥ wax (I used a tea light)
• ♥ wood glue
• ♥ acrylic paint (optional)

For this tutorial I used 1/4 inch dowels, which is equivalent to needle size 10 US. I think this is great size for beginners to learn on.


Step One:
Using the pencil sharpener, sharpen one end of each dowel.


Step Two:
Sand the dowels. Start by dulling the sharpened point into a nice blunt tip. Sand the entire dowel from tip to end.



Step Three:
Using a clean, dry cloth, wipe down the dowels to remove the wood dust.

Nice blunt tips and smooth dowels.

Step Four:
Wax the needles generously from tip to end. I used a cheapo tea light for convenience purposes.



Step Five:
Use a clean, dry cloth to smooth and wipe away excess wax. Rub until the cloth glides smoothly. You don't want sticky needles. The purpose of the wax is to condition the wood so it is nice and smooth.


Step Six:
Paint the dowel caps if desired.

*Note: If you can't find dowel caps to fit your dowels, then use polymer clay to form little balls. Press the balls of clay onto the flat end of the dowel to mold the dowel end. Remove clay cap from dowel and bake in oven as directed to set clay.

I wrote the needle size on the end with a fine point permanent marker.

Step Seven:
Glue the caps to the ends of the needles. Use wood glue for the wooden caps or E6000 for the polymer clay caps (just use a small dab).

Let them dry and start knitting!

I took them for a test drive to knit these hats for my 3 year old and baby girl on the way.

♥ Enjoy ♥