Stitches

What is the best way to store knitting needles, both circular and straight?

I am cleaning out an old filing cabinet where I want to store my knitting needles, and patterns. But I do not wish to have them rolling all the cabinet. I want them to stay put.

Public Comments

1. Hmmmmm. Interesting dilemma. A filing cabinet would be a great place to load patterns, and maybe even your yarn stash. But needles need to be corralled. I would suggest investing in or stitching up a roll-up bag that you could then drop down into a hanging file folder. Currently, I have my straights in a felted wine cozy that I knitted--first felted project, quite cute!! Weighted it down with smooth stones in bottom.
2. I have been struggeling with this for a while now. I have so many patterns I have printed, however not nearly enough to even begin to fill a file cabinet. I have denise circulars so those are pretty much self organized. I also have some crystal palace bamboo circulars and some addie turbos, I keep those in those zip up pencil cases that you can put in a three ring binder, and just write the size on it with sharpie. I have a big old binder with those and my yarn info pages, and patterns. It works well. For my straights (which I don't use often) I have a roll up pattern. However I got a really good idea from another knitter who has some really nice needles, she puts her straights in a vase with marbles at the bottom, like knitting decor!
3. I organized my needles by size, then used rubber bands to keep them together. I have used a variety of containers to hold the needles, Quaker Oatmeal boxes are nice, pringle containers, beautifully decorated by my nephew, and some intersting tins that contained cookies, all worked well. I finally just threw them into a plastic bin, lying down so the points don't get dulled. the circular needles i store in ziploc bags with labels for the sizes of the needles marking them. I use page protectors for my patterns, the ones cut from magazines, or copied, or downloaded. they serve 3 purposes, i can mark the page protector rather than the pattern to keep my place, and they stay in good shape when I carry them around, and then I put them in binders, as the sheet protectors are already pre-holed. I doubt there is any perfect solution, and i keep reinventing my storage. good luck to you!
4. I use a rubbermaid container that is like a large size shoe box. I keep all the straight needles with a rubberband according to size. I keep two pencil boxes in the container--one with the double pointed needles (rubberbanded according to size) and the other pencil box with the circulars, rubberbanded according to size. When I buy circulars or double pointed needles, I try to keep the little container they came in because that has the size written on it. Good luck!
5. get something meant to hold paintbrushes that rolls up. its just a canvas piece with another on top. with lines sewn parallel to each other to make little pockets for each brush. making one would b easy enough if u have a sewing machine, or if u enjoy sewing by hand. for the circular ones, maybe make use of an expanding or accordion paper holder with lots of dividers, and store them like they came in the package, curled up.
6. Take some heavy duty zipper bags, punch holes in the bottom to match the rings of a two or three ring binder. Put the bags in the binder, use a permanent marker to put the needle sizes on each bag and use that to hold your circs. Best part is that you can take the entire binder with you if needed. Straight needles may be too long to store in a file drawer, since most are 12 or 14" long, but a magazine storage box will work to hold them. Rubber band the sizes together. Oatmeal cartons will work, and so will a large,recycled cereal box--cut the box diagonally about 2" from the top to about 2" above the bottom. Tape the top shut securely. Put your needles in the bottom section and fit the top section inside to corral them in the file drawer. This way the needles will possibly fit better since they'll be on the diagonal. A cutlery tray might work, but I think it would be too short. Patterns should be grouped by type (children's wear, afghans, adult sweaters, scarves, shawls, socks, slippers) and then filed in individual folders and hanging files with labels for easy retrieval. However, you can also put these into clear plastic page protectors and put them into binders as well to keep them from curling or wrinkling. Again, you can sort them by type and take an entire binder with you if necessary.
7. Go to the nearest place selling mailing materials and buy a mailing tube. There are several cloth keepers on the market as well that will store straight and circular needles.