Disclosure: I have a wholesale account with a supplier for Addi needles and I took a set from the stock I bought to try them before writing this review. I have not received any payment or sweetener for this review but I’m totally open to offers.
I started knitting again with the express purpose of knitting socks. I love hand knitted socks, there is nothing like using beautiful yarn to create such a luxurious footglove. I started with Silver’s sock class, a set of double pointed needles (DPNs) and some yarn from Lidl.
I made many mistakes, but I made the socks. I should have used better yarn because I immediately shrunk and felted the sock but they were not bad (for a first attempt)!
I like using DPNs because they make the whole experience of sock knitting very neat and contained. However, wooden DPNs have a habit of being sat on and are thin enough to break, bamboo needles are a little bit grippy and splitty for me, metal is strong but slippery.
I cannot remember how many times I dropped a needle into the hardest to reach places between the seats in the car, or onto the floor on a train so that I had to either lose the needle or let everyone else off before climbing under the seat to retrieve the lost pin.
So, I turned to magic loop. I like using circular needles because you can’t lose the end, you don’t drop and lose the needle with no stitches on. Your stitches push off the end of the needle less often because you can shuffle them along the cable and stuff them back in the bag.
I really didn’t enjoy feeding the cable through every time I finished half a row. I felt as if I was feeding the cable more than I was knitting the stitches.
I tried the CraSy Trio – I was so looking forward to it! But horrors! They were a bit like knitting with an octopus to start with. The cable between the two needles is quite springy and flexible – a feature that I now love about them. It had been a few years since I had used DPNs so I was out of practice.
A short while after wrestling with them, my hands got to understand how it felt and how to hold the needle with the stiches on, the bending cable means you can cup the stitches in your hand and they won’t push off or slide off while you’re not looking. Also, the set I am using has a super smooth join between cable and tip. No snagging at all!
The trio of needles means you have two with stitches and one working at any time. It also took me a few attempts to remember not to drop the needle after I had finished knitting off it – magic loop lets you do that. Now that I’ve remembered each time, I am really enjoying them as a set.
The last brilliant thing took me about 2 months to remember. Each needle has a blunt end (like normal Addis) and a pointy end (like Addi lace). You can choose which way round to use the needle.
I like to knit with lace tips usually so that’s great for me! The tip slips easily under the yarn but doesn’t destroy it if you miss and go through. But I also like to push the end of the needle I’m knitting from with my thumb, so the rounder tip makes for a much less stabbed finger.
Price-wise, the trio comes in more expensive than straight DPN sets but in line with the circulars for magic looping the same circumference. Overall, the trio is cheaper then DPNs if, like me, you keep on losing one or two per set.
All things considered, Addi CraSy Trios are a wholly comfortable and secure knit. If you are wedded to magic loop then I might not be able to persuade you but if you love your DPNs then get a Trio set to try. Really comfortable, contained knitting with great tips and flexible little cables.
Addi even do them with Novel tips… More on those another time.
You can buy Addi CraSy Trios to try for your self on our Twisted Sheep site here
Next I used some wood stain on some star shapes cut from the spaces on the sheets of wood we use. I attached the stars to the tree with a glue gun but any water based glue such as PVA would work as well – it just needs the drying time. Our larger trees can be sent with some of these small shapes or can be decorated with a string of battery operated LED lights for some extra twinkle.
