Needles
Unlike yarn the idea is that you buy your needles once and that's it, you'll never need to buy them again. In reality you will lose one needle at some point so I always buy duplicates.
Rather than going into the yarn store and spending a fortune for those first few pairs it is an idea to go on an online auction site and pick up someone's old collection, it's cheap and will give you a great selection to work with. The most common needles in any one's collection range between 2.75cm to 5mm, you will get circular needles and dpns for a fraction of the price, and then it's just a matter of getting the needles of different sizes as you need them.
Craft magazines will give away free needles, often in a size that is completely impractical, but don't underestimate it as a source.
Thrift shops often have old bundles of needles that you can pick up for next to nothing.
Keep your eyes open. You will still have to go trawling the internet for miniature needles but the human sized ones, they're easy to get. If someone asks you what you want for a gift suggest needle bundles from stores. Needles can cost absurd amounts of money and as you become more adept you'll want to work on the expensive ones simply because they feel nicer in your hand, and you can have them made to measure now, but there is no point in spending a fortune on something you might never really use, and the really expensive needles often don't come in miniature.
No matter how you try there is no way to not work on sizes smaller than 2mm, especially for the smaller dolls, this means you have to purchase miniature needles. Reassuringly they rarely cost more than their human sized counterparts, they're just better at hiding.
Online auction sites can be a good resource but also places that sell items for doll houses, an online search for doll knitting will bring up a wealth of places, and don't be afraid to ask other abjd owners where they got theirs. Personally I use Hiya Hiya needles because they're easy to get and go down to 1mm width in their circular needles. If you can't get them online as your yarn store to order them for you, but as a rule, don't frighten yourself with them until you think you're ready, until you're comfortable, because once you go miniature you'll never go back for two reasons, one- human patterns take forever and far too much yarn, and two- 3mm will start to feel like knitting with broom handles and just as clumsy.
Needles have different sizes in different countries, this means that a 2.75mm needle might be a size 12 in the uk but a size 2 in the US. This means that accidents will happen because a UK size 2 is 7mm.
It is not necessary to learn the numbers and what they mean, I work in mm because it's easier and universal but this is a needle conversion chart which includes miniatures.
| METRIC SIZES(mm) | US SIZES | UK/CANADIAN |
| 0.5 | 5x0 (00000) |
|
| 1 | 4x0 (0000) |
|
| 1.25 | 3x0 (000) |
|
| 1.5 | 2x0 (00) |
|
| 2 | 0 | 14 |
| 2.25 | 1 | 13 |
| 2.75 | 2 | 12 |
| 3 | - | 11 |
| 3.25 | 3 | 10 |
| 3.5 | 4 | - |
| 3.75 | 5 | 9 |
| 4 | 6 | 8 |
| 4.5 | 7 | 7 |
| 5 | 8 | 6 |
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