Comparing sizes of spoolknitters
March 17, 2007 by Noreen Crone-Findlay
Filed under cords and cordmaking, spool knitter & spoolknitter, spool knitting and spoolknitting
A hot tip for spoolknitters: Size matters 
Why and how? Spoolknitters are like knitting needles:
The larger the spoolie, the larger the stitch, so the thicker the yarn, fabric strip, thread, cord or string you can work with.
Smaller spoolie? Smaller cord.
In the picture above, all three cords are made with the same yarn. It’s Caron’s One Pound in Cape Cod Blue.
The first spoolie on the left is a 5 peg ‘Small Wonders’ spoolie. The cord is very dense and quite firm.
The spoolie in the middle is a 7 peg ‘Seventh Heaven’ (our newest spoolie that we are just launching- so I don’t have pics of them up yet). The cord is also made with 1 strand of the same yarn. It’s a softer, more flexible cord.
The spoolie on the right is one of our Mighty Mamma’s – a great big 7 peg spoolie. 2 strands of the yarn were used, and it’s a very soft, drapeable cord.
3, 4 or 5 strands of yarn could easily have been held together to make a denser, thicker cord.
Notice how the stitch size gets larger as the spoolie size increases. As the stitch size increases, the cord gets softer.
Does it matter? Yes… depending on your project! When you are working with a larger spoolie, working 10 rows will make a much longer cord, than 10 rows on a small spoolie. This means that you may need to adjust a pattern or design to accomodate the difference in size of the stitches made on different size spoolies.
Is it good to have more than one spoolie, in a variety of sizes?
If you want to have a broad range of creative possibilities, it is!
Happy spooling!
hugs all round,
Noreen
