How to measure your knitting needles without a gauge

Seriously, I need a room for my yarn. My knitting projects, yarn stash and assorted implements are starting to take over. Today I officially decided that my knitting needle gauge is thoroughly lost. I have sort of thought that it might be lost for a few months now, but I’ve been in denial and as a substitute have just been measuring one needle against another. However, after tossing my bedroom tonight I’m convinced that it’s missing in action.

The reason this is a problem is because I’ve got a random set of vintage needles that cannot be categorized. They defy logic. They say they are one size, but many moons ago when I needed them for a project I discovered that they didn’t work because they were too fat. But they also don’t quite appear to be the next size up. They may, in fact, be something in between. I thought I could solve this problem by heading over to The Fiber Gypsy, which has a great comparison chart of all of the knitting needle sizes, past and present, but that didn’t work because the old, vintage size is supposedly the same as the new size. Ha.

So here I am, without a handy knitting gauge, and with a pair of needles that don’t match any damn thing. What’s a girl to do? Well, get back to basics, that’s what a girl does.

It occurred to me that every knitting needle has both random numbers assigned to it as a “size” as well as the actual millimeter size. Now, here in the U.S. we don’t pay much attention to millimeters, and even when we do, it might not occur to to us to actually think of those in terms of a physical ruler. But that little mm does have a connection!

Ok, here’s the deal. Knitting needles are measured by their diameter – that’s the width of a circle, or, to put it in more mathy terms, the diameter is the line segment that goes through the center of a circle, like so:

Parts of a Circle

So, to measure your knitting needles all you need is a ruler that has the metric system on one side of it and this handy dandy chart below. Simply measure the diameter of your needle by placing it between the hash marks on your ruler. Count how many lines it falls between. Remember that the metric system works in 10s. So one centimeter is equal to ten millimeters. Remember, this isn’t an exact science, especially once you get down to those pesky quarter millimeters, but it’ll do in a jiffy.

Craft Yarn Council, Yarn Standards Needle Chart

For me, those pesky needles measured 5 millimeters, meaning they are size 8s, or something darn close to it. Without my needle gauge it’ll be hard to tell if that’s correct, but for the moment I’m content with that assessment. Off to go cast on!