Don’t feel bad if you prefer dpns! Especially if you’ve tried magic loop but didn’t like it. They’re just not for me. And it’s not a question of tension that irritates me about those last few stitches, it’s purely an issue of physics: The needles are sticking out everywhere, and when I get to the last two stitches they’re harder to access, because they kind of tuck under the next needle. I suppose I should try overlapping the needles the other way, but then tension comes into play—I feel I get more even tension if I start knitting with the new needle under the one that preceded it.

Anyway, for those thinking about trying Magic Loop, it is, of course, a little awkward at first. But the idea that I could knit absolutely anything requiring size 3 needles on just one pair of needles is appealing. With a large needle I can do a sweater—flat or in the round. I can do socks in the round. I can start and finish a hat on the same needles, without having to switch to dpns or having to use dpns the entire time.

To each her/his own, of course. And to tell the truth, now that I’ve been working on the dpns for a little longer, I’m back into a groove with them. I still don’t really like it, but it’s moving faster. (Plus the other issue at hand, the suckiness of the needles themselves, is still a factor.) Anyway, all this to say you can basically get used to anything, but for me, the practicality of just a few large circulars and the simplicity of magic loop (I didn’t have any tension issues with it) outweighs having multiple sets of various sizes of needles.