Needle Inventory Part II: The process.

In my last post, I referred to  my Ravelry needle inventory. It still rather frightens me just how many sets of needles it indicates I own. Ravelry, being the wonderful resource that it is, happily provides you with a little chart of your needle inventory (and a way to print out a copy that you can carry with you to stop you from duplicating things).

My chart looks like this:

Since I know that this chart is not accurate, my inventory process will include rounding up all of the needles that are not in current projects (most of them are actually in the Binders where I store them, but some are in various knitting bags that have come upstairs full of things to be put away in the Yarn Closet, and some are in chair side needle caddies, and some are still in the project bags that housed a project that has been finished.

Once I've rounded up all the needles, I have to count, sort, identify, and then update the data for all the needles I own.  As I mentioned in my last post, I have circular needles, a few straight needles, and scads of double pointed needles. 

Since I started my needle collection, I have also acquired a couple of interchangeable needle sets.  Interchangeable needles have "points" in a variety of sizes, and cables in a variety of lengths.  Using a handy little tool, I can affix the points I need to the appropriate length cable, and create the needle size/length I need for a given project.  In theory, these mean that you don't actually need as many needles (one set of points can be used for a variety of cable lengths).  The Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth is trying to tempt me into acquiring another one of these sets.  'Cause clearly, I don't have enough needles.

Here's a more detailed view of a section of the circular inventory, that also reveals a bit of what I'm doing now:

 

You'll note that I appear to have far too many 4.5 mm(US Size 7) circular needles. I tend to agree. BUT, you'll also note that I have at least five DIFFERENT brands of 4.5mm needles, and that I have them in at least four lengths (there are more size 7's in the list, but you didn't REALLY want to see the whole thing, did you?).

You may also note that some entries say "in Binder" and some don't. That means that I've physically located, and put in the binder where I keep my circular needles, some of those needles. Interchangeable needles have their own binders or rolls.  I have not begun the interchangeable inventory yet. Here's what my inventoried collection of stand alone US 7's look like. (This points out another issue -- circular needle storage around here needs a new plan). 

Alas, this does not really mean that I have all the US 7s in the binder. The chart claims that there's one in a shawl (Pc of Vt), but those may well be the same ones I now list as being in the Binder, since that shawl is no longer on the needles. (sigh).

Even so, I'm pretending the main circular inventory is 90% done. I have to go through and take and input the inventory for the needles that are currently in projects. And I'll have to delete needles I can no longer locate.  Otherwise, until I start in on the interchangeable needles, I'm done with circs.

So I started in on what we in the knitting world call dpns or dps (double pointed needles).

These are more fun.  When you have a set (or three, or twelve) that hare not in little wee cases, the only way to tell what size you've got is often by using a needle gauge to check.  I've gathered a bunch of needles, and sorted them by size.  Here are the smaller ones:

 See that lovley pile over on the left?  Yeah.  That's a bunch of random needles that were in a lump with a bunch of other random needles.  I measured each of them with the needle gauge (the pile on the far left are all 2.25 mm needles), and now have to sort them into sets.  DPNs come in sets of four or five, depending on the manufacturer.  Some, however, come with spares, so there's a set of six.

Once I've sorted these, I'll open the binder and, taking them one size at a time,  get all the needles out of the "sleeve" for each size, confirm that each is actually in the right sleeve (again with the needle gauge) and sort the needles there into sets.  As you can see, the binder sleeves are a bit jumbled:

Once I've confirmed the sets in a given binder sleeve (one sleeve for each needle size), I'll update the Ravelry inventory, showing which ones I actually have in the Binder.  I'm going to update the Ravelry inventory for each sleeve before I begin the sorting for the next.

Next up:  How that actually works in practice (i.e. the insanity).

Comments

[The Divine (though blogless) Elizabeth]

Just looking at this makes me tired. ;)

[Luseea]

Thank you for the information. I didn't know Ravelry had this chart.

By the way, I wanted to comment about your pocket sweater, but the comment box seemed to be turn off. What a marvelous job you've done. I want to place a pocket in a sweater I'm in the process of knitting. I got hold of a 1959 book that has a chapter on it. Your photos just made the steps so much clearer. Thank you for that, too.