travelling with your needles

It is my pleasure to present you the second fridica DIY tutorial! :)

This one is just as simple as the first one was, but since it’s sometimes the simplest of solutions that don’t come to our minds, I hope it’s still worth sharing! As soon as I started knitting, I became quite inseparable from the activity, and wherever I went, I wanted to have all my tools with me to be sure that, if inspiration for a new project strikes, I am well equipped to put it into practice! Wherever I’m living, I usually display my lovely tools something like this…

However, long pointy things that can pierce through other stuff yet also be easily misshaped are not the easiest of transportable objects. So I had to come up with a way of bringing my knitting needles safely (both for them and for other objects in my suitcase) with me on all my travels!

It didn’t take long until I noticed this cardboard tube at the top of my closet.

If you’ve ever bought a poster online and had it shipped to you, you have one of these. The posters arrive rolled up in a hard-cardboard tube, with a plastic top like this. The top is usually stapled to the tube on one end, and free on the other.

I always felt bad throwing the tube away after I retrieved my poster. Good thing I didn’t! I decided to put my needles inside it, but the tube was quite long, and the first time I tried it the needles kept rolling back and forth, and creating a hellish noise at it. So I added some improvements.

First, I asked my Dad to cut the tube shorter. He used a handheld electric saw (my parents live in the country, they have these sorts of things), but I’m pretty sure you could do it with a good kitchen knife as well (hehe, I’m imagining scenes from telemarketing – “You can cut a tin can with it, and even after that it still cuts a tomato perfectly!” :D), after all – it is only cardboard. The length I chose was a few centimeters more than my longest needle. That came out to about 45 cm. Don’t forget to add another 1cm of length for the depth of the plastic top (it goes partially inside the tube)!

The other improvement I added was to pad the bottom of the tube, so that the needle tips don’t get damaged when my suitcase is being pulled and pushed in different directions. This was very easy – I simply used yarn scraps! I always feel bad about throwing yarn away, even if it’s so little that you really can’t do anything with it. So whatever scrap yarn I had after weaving in and cutting off ends, I just stuffed it at the bottom of my tube…

… and soon enough, my needles had a soft cushion to rest their tips upon! :)

After that, all that’s left to do is decorate your tube! I haven’t been so good on this part yet, I’m actually embarassed to show you my little “drawing”, but it’s a start at least! :)

Ummm, those are supposed to be needles. Blush…

Since I’ve had it, I’ve made plenty of use out of this tube. I can testify it holds up well in big suitcases (it’s never spilt open!) and it’s even small enough to shove into a backpack for shorter trips (yes, I’m that obsessed!). So now I never have to be apart from these again… :)

I hope you’ve found this tutorial helpful! If you have other ideas for transporting knitting needles, please share! I still haven’t found a very elegant method for cable needles, and my collection of those is rapidly growing…

Advertisement