Howdy! I hope you all are having a nice Sunday. It’s quiet around here, which is excellent because I’m feeling a little under the weather, like something’s going after my throat. So I’m doing zinc throat spray and resting. Well, trying to rest. I’m super bored. Which is why I’m blogging right now.

I was on Pinterest and again saw the pin I’ve seen many times about cabling without a cable needle, so I clicked over and read Glenna’s blog post about it. I decided to pull out some leftover Madison Worsted (in Deep O’Tealy, of course) and play around the technique using my new Knitter’s Pride interchangeable tips and the pair of ChiaoGoo Red Lace interchangeable tips I got yesterday at a LYS near me, The Naked Sheep.

So since I bought the Knitter’s Pride first, I figured I’d give them a try first. As I mentioned when I got them, they’re Nova, their nickel line, and they’re Cubics, which I’d never tried before. I cast on 14 stitches and worked two rows of 1×1 ribbing. I barely made it through the two rows. It’s not the tips themselves, but the cable length, which is supposed to be 16″. But the tips are too long, so I had to fight the cable with every stitch. Now that I think about it, I realize I should have gotten the Special tips, which are 3.5″ long instead of the once I got, which are the regular 5″ tips.

I had heard that Knitter’s Pride tips and Knit Picks tips could use each other’s cables, so I gave it a try with a 24″ Knit Picks cable… voila! all better. I knitted a few more rows and then tried the cabling without a cable needle technique. I love it! It’s so easy, and you don’t have to juggle at all. I did both front and back cables in the swatch. Here’s an in-progress photo…

I’m also really enjoying the feel of the Cubics tips. I can grip them better, which I’d heard was true. The ends aren’t as sharp as I’m used to with Knit Picks, but I didn’t have nearly as much trouble as I did with the Addi Clicks tips I tried one time. So I think these are keepers, especially since I can use the big assortment of Knit Picks cables I already have.

Now, moving on to the ChiaoGoo. I got their 4″ tips, which are actually 3.5″ until you screw them into the cables. Then the total length of the metal parts is 4″. And I got an 8″ cable, so they really are 16″.

I think these are my favorites. They’re nice and sharp like my Knit Picks tips, which I’ve knitted with exclusively for years until now (except for the one time I tried Addi’s, as I mentioned a minute ago). I think I like these better than Knit Picks, though, for a couple other reasons. First, the nickel isn’t as slippery, but it’s just as easy to knit fast. Second, the cables don’t go wild like the Knit Picks cables do.

I decided to take a photo to compare all three brands of nickel tips — Knit Picks, Knitter’s Pride, and ChiaoGoo…

top is Knit Picks / middle is Knitter’s Pride / bottom is ChiaoGoo

Now I’m going to work some more on my cabled swatch so I can master this new technique! :)