Knit Lite - Bright Idea?

As everybody's favorite Miss Coween mentioned the other day, she and I spent a good bit of time last Saturday playing with the new light up knitting needles, the Knit Lites. It was all for a knitting/charity event at the AC Moore where I teach, so I was there for work and she was there as my entertainment.

And entertain she did.

You see there the beauty that she created, when forced to play with Red Heart (don't believe her. She begged and pleaded for those colors. Held her breath till she turned blue. Jumped up and down screaming. It wasn't pretty.)

I've heard a lot of skepticism about these needles. Heck, I've uttered a lot of skepticism about them. As one who can (and does) knit in the dark, I couldn't see how they'd be useful. They looked heavy, cumbersome, and I couldn't imagine the tips would be pleasant at all.

I was wrong. (Somewhere, my husband is twitching furiously that I actually put those words down for all to see.)

First off, the joins are really quite smooth. The needles are long, so that's a little cumbersome if you aren't used to long straights, but they aren't nearly as heavy as you'd expect (they light up using three watch batteries). The tips aren't terribly pointy, but they do feel good. As you saw, Coleen played around with what we'll loosely call "colorwork" (tee hee) and did very well (seriously, mock her if you must, but the thingy she made was much cuter in person). I was able to get up enough speed to knit 77 of the 81 inch scarf you see there on the needles.

What I was most surprised by is how much easier the dark yarns were to work with (pardon the dangling participle). After just a few minutes of working with the dark blue yarn and the lighted tips, I was so impressed with the help it gave for those tricky darker yarns I made sure they brought out other colors of yarn to test with. As you can see in the bad photo there, the lights are directly behind the stitches you're working.

The light did fade drastically in the four hours of solid knitting time. But I think it was just tired, because it seems to be back just as strong now, several days later. So I can't speak for the length of battery life. And they do only come in the long length at this time, with size 6US being the smallest size, but going up to 15.

But all in all, I was pretty impressed. The needles are expensive (about $15 a pair), but most of the craft shops that sell them also offer coupons, so you can get them at a reasonable price. And if I had to knit a flat project on dark yarn, I think these would be needles I'd consider reaching for!

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In other non-news, I've been knitting furiously on a shawl for a friend. She's getting married next Saturday, so that's what that gorgeous Ceyeber Fiber superwash/tencel that I spun up last week is for. Right now I've finished knitting one cat length.


Ahem.

Actually, I've knit 25 inches (pre-blocking) and I expect the whole thing to be about 40 - 45 inches pre-blocking.

Not that you can see, but it's a simple lace pattern, knit side to side, with a cabled border. There will be one tassel at each end, with a large bead that can serve as a button closure to hold the shawl shut. I think it will be really lovely, assuming I can get it done.

Which means no more bloggy update tonight - back to the knitting!