Stitch Markers You'll Want to Snitch

Recently, after years of using improvised stitch markers, I decided to treat myself to some real ones while on a visit to Toronto's Romni Wools, and was disheartened by the limited selection and general unattractiveness of the stitch markers they had for sale. But I knew I'm not the only crafter who loves using beautiful and high quality tools. There had to be some awesome stitch markers out there, and even better, I could write a post about them. Well, as it happens, there are and I did and here's the resulting post.

If you've never used stitch markers, they are quite a simple and handy little knitting accessory to help you keep track of where you are in your knitting project by marking the beginning of a round or a lace pattern. One simply slips the stitch marker from the left needle to the right when one comes back to it. There are both closed loop and locking stitch markers. The latter are preferable because they have more uses in knitting and can also be used for crocheting. This Lion Brand blog post goes into some more detail about how to use stitch markers.

It's quite easy to make your own stitch markers with items you probably already have lying around your home. You can use earrings, paper clips, safety pins, bobby pins, twist ties, plastic drinking straws cut into small pieces and slipped onto the needle, or a contrasting strand of yarn or embroidery floss slip knotted over the needle. But if you'd like to indulge in some special stitch markers, I've picked out a selection of stitch markers from around the net that you can either buy or make for yourself with beading techniques. If you've never done any beading, Worm Spit has a primer on how to make beaded stitch markers.

The notation stitch markers above (which are the closed loop type of stitch marker) are available for sale at Stitch Culture.

Craftsy suggests you can make these yarn and bead markers with technical reminders on them. I don't think I could be bothered changing the beads as they propose doing, but it's workable idea if it suits you.

These number and pearl stitch markers from Seahorse Designs would be an easy way to keep track of your rounds.

If you don't want to use your yarn makers to keep track of technical requirements but still want them to reference your love of knitting, these yarn ball markers from Hiya Hiya North America are cute and colourful.

Make sure you don't lose these little sheep! From Caryll Designs.

These green bead markers from Yarn Tomato are ever so pretty. You could make something very similar yourself, and once you know how to make stitch markers, your ability to make them will be limited only by the kind of beads available to you.

Here are some pearl markers from Shade Tree Art. What else would one put with cashmere yarn but pearls?

How do you like these apples? From Creations Jacqueline.

Here are some adorable owl stitch markers from the Etsy shop Lavender Hill Knits. There are a number of lovely stitch markers in this shop, and for that matter the entire shop is well worth a look.

These are definitely the coolest stitch markers I came across while researching this post. From Etsy seller Lady Danio.

These disco stitch markers will add a little bling to your knitting projects. From Etsy seller rosyretro. There are a lot of stitch markers available on Etsy.