Bamboo Circular Knitting Needles Takumi , 9-Inch Size 3 (3016/9-03)

I like knitting with bamboo circular needles.

High quality and easy to use.

The size three nine inch were hard to find and they work very well. I especially like the circular bamboo needles.

These are incredibly small and unless you have extremely small hands, difficult to use.

I was worried the 9 size would be tough to work with, but they are fine. I have a pair of 12 Addi Turbos that I found once years ago at a LYS - you never see any that size in the stores and before then it never occurred to me that you could actually find wee circular sock needles. I wanted a second pair because I like working two socks at once and DPNs can be a pain when you knit on the go, which I tend to do for small projects like socks. Plus sometimes those turbos feel a little too pointy and stabby on my fingers. Its been awhile since I knitted and the sensation of those sharp turbos were annoying to my fingertips. Plus, these were half the price. It does take some getting used to the short length of the actual needle. I am including a photo to show the difference between the Addi Turbi and the Clover needle. Its kind of comical how short the loading area is on the Clover needle, and I would definitely recommend casting on to a DPN and then transferring the stitches to the circular to ensure even tension. I thought I would really miss the longer cord on the Turbos, but after knitting one sock on the Clover and starting on a second on the Turbo, I noticed how often the stitches on the Turbo had to be nudged along. That doesnt happen with the shorter needle. And while I wouldnt say that the 12 needle stretches the socks out of shape, they are definitely stretching a bit. You can see in my other photo how the ribbing on the second sock is stretched out. I just noticed that Addi makes an 8 size 3 and now I am curious about that one. The 9 size on the Clover feels about right once you are used to it. I wish they had made a 10 and made the bamboo part a little longer, but regardless, these still beat DPNs in terms of speed and ease of knitting.