I’ve been knitting for roughly seven years now, and over those years, I’ve not only acquired quite a yarn stash–I’ve acquired many pairs of needles as well. I love my Knit Picks Options sets, but I also have many fixed circular needles. Until now, I’ve kept them all shoved into a tote bag, like this:
That’s all well and good, but it’s not very helpful. I tend to have several projects going at once, so it’s difficult to know which needles are available and which have a WIP on them. I have to dig around in my bag, which can be slightly annoying. It gets even worse when you take all the needles out of their packages…behold:
That’s a lot of needles. And a big mess, too. I’ve seen circular needle organizers, like the kind that you can sew yourself and thread the needles through the loops and hang the whole thing on a door, but I just can’t be bothered to sew something like that right now! (read: I am lazy.) Actually, I don’t like the look of those–the cords are various lengths, so everything looks really flippy-floppity and kind of messy, in my opinion. I figured there had to be a more streamlined solution.
It occurred to me that binders are not just for holding paper 
I’m rather fond of sheet protectors, especially for holding knitting patterns so that they don’t get all dog-eared. But they can also hold other things–like knitting needles!
Like so! I found this pretty binder at Office Depot, and bought a 25-pack of sheet protectors. The needles slip right into the sheets–no more mess, no more digging in a tote bag to find the size I need.
I already had a Dymo labelmaker, so I got it out and started making labels to correspond with the needle sizes and lengths. I know this is probably a very OCD thing to do, but that’s kind of my personality anyway. Even though it took a while to go through all the sizes and lengths, it was worth it!
Now I can flip through and easily find the size and length I need.
Everything even fit into one binder! This is a 1.5″ binder–I had bought an extra one just in case, but I didn’t need it. Everything fits in here.
It helps if you have a labelmaker, but obviously it’s not necessary–you could easily put in index dividers with tabs and hand-write the sizes, or just write them directly on the sheet protectors. But I like the look of labels.
After I had my brilliant idea, I googled it to see if anyone else had done this–and found that others have. So I can’t really take credit for inventing the idea–but I figured I’d pass it along anyway, since it’s such a great way to get organized.
Wow…what a great idea! It’s nice to be organised
Thanks! Yes, it is
Very nifty! And I love the flowers on the binder. Now you might want to look into “Knitminder” for your new iPhone so you have a database of your needles (and patterns, and yarn, etc.) in your pocket at ALL TIMES!
Thanks Kara! I looked at Knitminder, but wasn’t sure about it–I’m kind of holding out for a full-fledged Ravelry app, but in the meantime Knitminder does look really interesting!
You’re so organized. I can’t imagine how much work that took considering not all of those needle were still in the packages.
Organization with style, how cool.
It took a little longer than I expected, but it was worth it!
I need to figure out some way to organize all of my needles. I have the Knit Picks Options so they come with a binder, but it isn’t conducive to knowing the size quickly and easily. Maybe I’ll do something like this…
that’s awesome! my needles are a mess too. good idea!