The Good Thing About Sick Days...

Just a little while ago I was sitting in my living room home sick from work, feeling rather miserable, and watching Anne of Green Gables, when the doorbell rings. It was the mail carrier with a package for me - my new KnitPicks Options Needle Set! Here's the quick rundown of my first impressions (Sorry for the strange photo formatting...blogger is being weird, as usual, so I had to use flickr for some of the photos):

What I love:

• The case is adorable - sleek and useful. It even has a place for a pen. Only thing is I wish it wasn't black as even 30 minutes after opening the box, there is now cat hair on it.

• The case is expandable so that you can add more pockets. Perfect so that you can carry with you all those extra knitting accessories. Plus there are interior pockets that can hold a pattern or notes as well as a zippered pocket for all those stray little doodads.

• The tips are exceptionally pointy. Perfect! I did a quick swatch using Rowan Calmer (I'm using it for my next project) and the points were terrific for the slightly splitty yarn. I cannot wait to knit some lace with these bad boys.
• The needle shafts are a great length. Very comfortable for my hands (long fingers and slightly larger hand).
• The general heft of the needles is great. I use my Denise needles for a lot of my knitting, but I never liked their lack of substance. These new KnitPicks needles have a weight to them that is very nice - not too much, but not too little.
• The join is very nice and smooth. Again, comparing this to the Denise set, I have snapped a couple Denise needles at the join before, especially during a large decrease or increase section or while using yarn with less give (cotton, hemp). Of course, they are fantastic about replacing the needle, but it's a bummer when it happens. Well the KnitPicks needles have a very smooth and secure metal join and especially I use the included tightening key I doubt I'll have any trouble with these joins snapping. The yarn also pulled very easily over the join - another big plus.
• The cords are much thinner than the Denise cords. These are more like addi turbo cords - hooray!
• I really like that I can easily order more sizes of needles and cords as I need them. I use size 4 and 5 a lot so I'm sure I'll be ordering a couple extra sets. Very convenient.

Things I don't like so much:

• You cannot create custom cord lengths like you can with the Denise set. This is a bit of a bummer as that is really handy when you want to try something on for sizing, but you don't want to move it all to waste yarn. Hopefully they will add some connector pieces to the kit soon.
• The needles are not numbered with their sizes! This is a little annoying. Luckily I ordered the number tags you can buy separately. I'm just going to keep them in the pocket with the corresponding needle. I'm a little surprise they didn't think to add a little stamp or something. Oh well, it's a small annoyance.

Overall, I'm very happy with this set. I'm about to start my first project with these needles and I'll let you know how it goes. I also got a couple sets of the double point needles (1's and 0's). I'll use them on my next pair of socks and report back. My first impression of this set is that it's a great value and I'll be using it for years to come.