Tuesday, August 08, 2006

DIY double point holders

Don't need 100 black caps? Now you can buy fancy beaded ones at my Etsy store

It's hard to believe it from my stash, but sometimes I like to be frugal.


These little critters are StitchKeepers by Rollie

It's two caps with elastic holding them together so they hold your stitches on your DPNS and keep you from stabbing yourself. Genius.


When I saw these for sale for $6 each (plus shipping) I thought I could do better, especially since I wanted them in multiples.

Project Cost: About $8 to make 50 pairs! (Great for secret pal friends)

Project Time: About 5 minutes for each pair

Skill: You need to be able to not harpoon yourself with the needle.

Supplies:
Vinyl Caps: (1" tall inside, 3/8" diameter fits sets of 5 DPNs to US 3)
I ordered from The MSC Industrial Supply catalog for $2.95 for a package of 100 (part number 31992183). Hardware stores would have them too. To avoid funny looks while looking for them, tell the hardware store employee they are commonly used to protect people from protruding screws or metal rods.



Elastic cord: I used clear beading elastic or any other strong, thin stretch cord.
(Photos are taken with colored yarn so you can see. Hard to take photos of clear elastic, ya know).

Super glue, if desired.

Tools:
Sharp pointed, heavy duty large eyed sewing needle that you can thread your elastic through.
Scissors to trim the elastic


1) Thread cord through needle. Squeeze the cap in half with your fingers, or squish it flat on a cutting board. Carefully Poke through the cap about 1/4" away from the opened end, keeping the cord close to the top of the cap. Draw cord through.



2) Secure the ends of the cord in a double knot. You can use a dab of super glue on the knot to really secure it, but I haven't found it necessary.

3) For the other end, repeat Step #1, threading the other end of the elastic through another cap. Don't secure or trim the cord yet!


4) Place both endcaps on your favorite DPNs. Determine how much cord *under tension* you will need to hold your caps on. I do this by gently pulling on the elastic cord, taking up the slack until I think it looks good. It doesn't take much tension to hold the caps on well. When your satisfied, tie the other end of cord. Remove the caps from your DPNs if you want to glue as in Step 2.

5) All done!

15 Comments:

At 9:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

thank you thank you thank you! this tutorial is something that I can do before I head south, and anything that'll keep my yarn from falling off the needles (and from stabbing through my bag) is well worth it!

 
At 8:23 AM, Blogger Stephanie said...

Excellent idea! Thanks so much for sharing.

 
At 9:21 AM, Blogger Bezzie said...

Too weird, I just found one of those cappy things floating around my house--if I find its mate I'll know what do to with it!!!

 
At 10:02 AM, Blogger Lisa said...

Happy Birthday!!!! We missed you last night at knitting circle.

 
At 9:54 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice! It's funny that you should post this - just yesterday we were marvelling at those things in our LYS and complaining that they were too expensive. Go DIY knitter!

 
At 1:45 PM, Blogger Penny Karma, aka the F-Bomb Mom said...

Wicked Clever!!

 
At 10:33 AM, Blogger Miss Lime said...

This might be one of the most ingenius things I've seen in a while! I love it! I was just having problems with loosing some stitches on an in-progress sock that I was transporting yesterday. I was thinking I would need to get something to keep the stitches from slipping. Now I don't have to! I can just make them! Thank you for posting this.

Miss Lime

 
At 9:22 PM, Blogger Persnickety Knitter said...

I love this idea. I'll have to try and find some of those caps so I can make these.

 
At 10:54 AM, Blogger AR said...

Awesome! I knew there was a way to do those. Sometimes being lazy and waiting for somebody smarter to figure it out pays off. Thank you!!

 
At 9:06 PM, Blogger peaknits said...

Damn, these are awesome! Thank you for sharing your idea.

 
At 1:41 PM, Blogger Mariss said...

I love mine! Thank you very much!

 
At 2:33 PM, Blogger Ann-Marie MacKay said...

okay, i went to that site that supplies the caps, and when i read it they are 2.51 EACH, with no description of them being a package of 100, am i doing something wrong?

 
At 12:44 AM, Blogger Sherry W said...

Ann-Marie:
If you click on the link to see the catalog page you see it's for 1 bag of 100 caps.

 
At 2:58 PM, Blogger knitsandroses said...

I spent the better part of 2 days attempting to revisit your tutorial on DIY double point holders~ (couldn't find it in history). You are a genius; I'm going to make these this week.
THANKS SO MUCH.

 
At 7:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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