Can You Knit With Chopsticks | Unique Creations in Yarn

Knitting is a form of craft that employs the production of fabric by the use of continuous yarn or a set of yarns to form a series of interlocking loops. After you are done knitting, you can stretch your fabric to a greater degree than woven types. On a happy note, it is possible to knit with chopsticks. While you will be using chopsticks, you have to remember that they don’t work the same way as your knitting needles. You can compare the size of chopsticks to the size of a knitting needle.

Chopsticks can work as an alternative to your knitting needles. Make sure, you know the differences before you start using them. Knitting with chopsticks is a fun and unique way to show people your craft when you feel bored with traditional knitting materials. When you will be knitting with chopsticks, you will find that it is easier to use rounder ones because they have tapered points. Because of these tapered tips, chopsticks will give you variable gauges.

Key Takeaways

• In this article, we have discussed, what is chopsticks and several ways to knit with chopsticks.
• We have also learned about the differences between knitting needles and chopsticks.
• We have also gone through the process of making our chopstick knitting needles and we have discussed which chopstick is the best to knit, too.

How to Knit With Chopsticks?

It is very easy to knit with chopsticks, although before you start with the process, you need to go through a few steps. Here is what you need to do:

1. Sharpen Your Chopsticks: Take apart your chopsticks, then use a pencil sharpener to sharpen the tips to get the groove of the tips to match the knitting needles.
2. Sand Them: Chopsticks have rough surfaces which will hold your knitting threads. If you want to remove residues or fragments, use coarse sandpaper. After sanding them with coarse sandpaper, you can use fine sandpaper to make them smooth. Run your fingers up and down through your chopsticks to know if you need to sand them more. You can keep smoothening your chopsticks for a fine finish and make sure, there are no rough spots left. Make sure to keep their tips blunt, so they do not split your yarn.
3. Apply Varnish: If you want higher–quality knitting with chopsticks, you might want to take extra measures. After sanding, if there are any holes in the woods, this varnish will help to fill them.
4. Start Knitting: When you start knitting, your stitches will slide off the bottom of the chopsticks. If you want to prevent this dropping, use small rubber bands around the non-pointy ends and tie them. This will keep your stitches in the chopsticks.

There are times when you might need chopsticks for knitting, this is because you are working with inexpensive knitting tools or maybe you don’t have any knitting tools in your hands, you can also experiment with your knitting practice.

Differences Between Knitting Needles And Chopsticks

Since we are talking about knitting needles and chopsticks, you should know that there are many differences between knitting needles and chopsticks, so chopsticks are not the ideal choice of replacement for knitting needles.

Specifically made

Before you put away your knitting needles, you should consider a few things. Knitting needles are specifically designed for knitting, while chopsticks are not. So, it is not ideal to use chopsticks for your knitting project.

Shape and size

Knitting with chopsticks is challenging. The bodies of the knitting needles are the same, they have the same diameter throughout the body. This will ensure an even knit across the whole needle. Chopsticks do not have the same diameter and they get bigger as you go to give you a good hold for your hands while you will be eating. So, you will get different sizes of your knit as you go, which may lead to big holes, so, you should use chopsticks if your project does not require consistency.

Smoothness

The knitting needles manufacturers smooth out needles, so you can work with them smoothly without snagging or catching yarn. But chopsticks have rough surfaces with splinters. So, you can use polished ceramic or ones that have smooth surfaces so that your knitting does not get snagged.

If your project does not need consistency throughout your knitting, you can knit with chopsticks. Although, you will not get the same precision and uniformity that others demand from needles. You can read more about knitting with chopsticks.

How to Make Your Own Knitting Needles?

It is very easy and it is also possible to make your knitting needles. After you are done making your first set of knitting needles, it might take you longer if you start to get the feel but after that, once you grasp the grip, you will have an easy time making them quickly. Here is how you will be doing it:

1. Selecting the wood dowel: You need a wood appropriate for the dowel. A wood like birch is much better than oak since it is less porous and is able to move the yarn. The wood does not have to be straight since you can fix that in the following steps but ensure that the wood does not have bumps or grooves on it since that will affect the quality of knitting.
2. Sanding them down: once you have the dowels ready, it is time to sand them down with the help of 220-grit sandpaper to get that fine smoothness knitting needles usually have. So keep sanding the dowel down until you get an even width of wood that is smooth all over.
3. Cutting the length: It is now time to start cutting down the dowel to your preferred knitting needle length. Make sure to mark the areas carefully and cut them accordingly and smoothen them with 2000-grit sandpaper to make the surface as smooth as possible so the yarn won’t snag on it.
4. Shaping the ends: for this, you need a chisel or a knife to be able to get the shape of the cut dowel to match the shape of the knitting needle so that you are able to work on the yarn.
5. Applying varnish: Finally, you need to finish off the wood with a bit of varnish. This will protect the dowel and ensure that you are able to use it for a longer time without splintering the wood so as to prevent kinks on the needles.

8 Other Alternatives to Use for Knitting

Chopsticks might be great but there are in fact many other household objects that you can use to be able to knit with as well! Here are some other alternatives you can use for knitting instead of chopsticks:

1. Long nails: These were popular back in the 70s where the long nails were filed down and the tips smoothened to use as knitting needles. Since they have a uniform shape and the screw heads acting as a stopper, they were an effective knitting needle alternative.
2. Match sticks and toothpicks: Though not as sturdy as nails, match sticks were a cheap alternative for those who didn’t have access to knitting needles.
3. Pencils: Probably something that everyone has tried at some point is using pencils to knit with. Their uniform shape makes them a very easy alternative to use for knitting needles.
4. Drumsticks: drumsticks might be a bit too long to use as knitting needles but cutting them down to size can make them appropriate for knitting needles. The wood used for drumsticks are sturdy and smooth which makes them a perfect alternative.
5. Paintbrushes: If you take out the tip of the paintbrush, you are left with a good alternative to knitting needles! They are sturdy and are smooth enough to spin yarn around with ease.
6. BBQ skewers: they might not be perfect, but the smoothness of BBQ skewers can help with knitting.
7. Hard plastic straws: while not sturdy, they have the necessary shape of a knitting needle which can allow them to be used as an alternative.
8. PVC pipes: If you can get the right shape and diameter, a PVC pipe will be a good knitting needle once you have it cut and sanded down to the proper shape.

FAQs

Final Thoughts

So far, we have discussed in this article that chopsticks and knitting needles have many similarities in their appearance. When you prepare your chopsticks incredibly well, you will be able to use them as knitting needles. Before you start your knitting, make sure the surface of your chopsticks is smooth. You can put your knitting skills to the test and see if you can knit with different types of needles. As a beginner, you should stick with some simple projects. You can start your knitting with a baby blanket or a scarf, after that, you can try some harder techniques.