Row Counters (or Random Blog Filler)

One astute reader asked me, "Would knitting needles with some sort of counter in them be useful? Seems like you have to count up shit a lot."

Actually, there is an abundance of many kinds of row counters. See this link: http://www.yarn-store.com/row-counters.html

As you can see, there are "kacha kacha" row counters (called that because of the pleasant clicking noise they make when you push the button down), electronic row counters, and little cylinder row counters that fit on to your knitting needles so you just change the count when you reach the counter on your needle.

Recently, someone even wrote an iphone row counter application.

I have the cylinder ones but normally just use the kacha-kacha one (I have the red one). For most things, I don't have to count or perhaps the pattern of the knitting stitches (like some of the socks I've done) marks where I'm at well enough. Or sometimes I just jot it down on paper.

For situations in which you need to know where in the row to do a decrease, increase or special pattern stitch, you just place a marker on your needles - a store-bought marker made for that purpose, a loop of contrasting yarn, or a safety pin will do. Pretty low tech. I have some plastic stitch markers that clasp and unclasp so you can move them around, but safety pins work just as well.

Maybe I've told you guys this story before, but one time I was knitting something that required careful row counting, and I was using my red Clover "kacha-kacha" row counter. I left off for the evening, slept, went to work, came home, resumed knitting, checked my counter and saw that I was on row 57. This was odd, because I remembered specifically that I'd clicked it to row 8 the night before, and I was pretty sure I hadn't done an additional 49 rows of knitting without my knowledge. I turned to Dug and asked, "Did you click my row counter?" "Yes!" he said triumphantly. "I wanted to play with it!" So a word of advice to female knitters - if there are men in your house, maybe stick with the cylinder row-counters or notebook paper.