SWING NEEDLES
Grand River Yarns
 

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see short wooden needles for those narrow projects (scarves, etc.)

"Swing" Needles
made by River John in Nova Scotia
 
knobs can be left on end of needle or removed

These needles were designed and made to handle projects where you would use a circular needle and would work back and forth (such as a lot of the Fleece Artists shawls, stoles, throws etc) What they were designed to overcome is the frustration of having to push the yarn back up on the needle part of large circular needles when you are using a finer weight yarn on a large needle. They have a nice light feeling and the yarn moves very smoothly when knitting.. With these you can just knit along without interruption, you can knit back and forth for one way knitting, you can store the yarn on one needle and use the knobs on either side of your knitting to hold it on the needles.
They are hand crafted in Nova Scotia in birch wood and come in
16" long lengths in sizes 6mm, 7mm, 8mm, 9mm, 12mm and 15.5 mm as well.
(in US sizes that is 10, 11, 13, 17 and 19)
Swing needles are large pointed needles with removable stoppers*. They are perfect for knitting Fleece Artist Hand painted yarns. They distribute colour evenly throughout a garment and prevent colour pooling or landscaping, the knitting should be worked from 2 balls of yarn.

Use as follows:
Row 1: Knit with ball #1, remove stopper and place on opposite end, slide back to beginning of row and knit.
Row 2: Knit with ball #2, remove stopper and place on opposite end, turn work, repeat row 1 and 2 throughout.
These needles can be used as regular single points as well, and they make dandy yarn holders.
* TIP: slide the stopper on the needle and turn until tight. Because the stoppers are made of wood, they may loosen up, if so, just tie a thread through the hole and this will hold it tight.

River John  also makes short wooden needles
he calls Commuter needles
(easy to carry in your purse or knitting bags )
CLICK HERE TO SEE COMMUTER NEEDLES

and his latest addition to make knitting easier
are his really great wood cable needle sets
click here to check them out