An Easy Way to Make Your Own Knitting Needles

I’ve always wanted to try making knitting needles out of dowels. I actually bought some little dowels for the purpose. Then my daughter broke one and I was reluctant to try making needles with the dowel if it was so easy to break a 5-year-old could do it.

I’ll probably still try it sometime.

If you’re interested in making your own needles, a trip to the craft store will get you everything you need for this design from Try it Like It. The dowels are whittled down to a point, then wooden beads are glued to one end to make a needle stop.

You could make these in different sizes so long as you have a bead that will comfortably fit on the end of the dowel. The ones shown are both pretty large and pretty short, but you’re making them, so you can make them however you want.

Have you ever made knitting needles? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Try It Like It.]

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

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