Every Girl Needs a Boye

When my aunt gave me a whole bunch of old McCall's knitting magazines from the 60s and 70s, this slogan was everywhere. Boye knitting needles and accessories everywhere with bright eye-popping yarn.

I'm glad to see that things have calmed down.

And Boye is still around. While I don't find their aluminum needles have that certain finesse and quality that wood or bamboo possess, they are still good utilitarian needles. And they are "cheap" in price. There are plenty of Boye accessories around as well.

This weekend I decided to look for something to try and review. I almost picked up the Knifty Knitter Straw Weaver. Almost. But, for about $6, I just couldn't do it. It looked fairly cheesy and I had this vibe that I was going to regret the purchase as soon as I got it home.

So, instead, my eyes fell on a nice little package of Boye stitch markers. I needed some more anyway, why not try them? So, for just under $4 (about $3.96) I got one pack of Boye plastic stitch markers.

Don't ask me how many are in the package. I threw away the wrapper already and the plastic box they give you to store them in doesn't say. But, it is a nice little box. I has a little spot on it to hook it to something, too. I'm thinking of how I am going to use this feature.

The stitch holders are plastic and in cute colors. Pastel blue, yellow and pink. You can leave them open or snap them shut. They feel pretty sturdy and they stay shut but they open pretty easy. So far, so good.

But, they are a bit thick in diameter. I decided to try them on my current project: a baby sweater made with Red Heart Baby Yarn (Soft Baby). I am using size 0 and 1 needles. I needed to mark a certain row. It was hard to slide the stitch marker in because of its diameter. I am still not sure that I didn't stretch the stitches a little.

I'm not sure if these things come in different sizes. I will mostly stick to my old earrings that I use for stitch markers already, especially for projects using baby, sport or fingering yarn and small diameter needles. But, once again, Boye proves itself as a maker of fine utilitarian items. These stitch markers will do just fine for day-to-day knitting and they're quite sturdy.

I give them 1 nose. Not stinky hardly at all, just a little big.

Knit On!