Hand made stitch markers for knitting

I have recently switched (or at least for hats) from knitting flat to in the round and realised that some stitch markers would come in very handy.

You can of course just use pieces of contrasting yarn as stitch markers, but hey that’s boring!

Anyway after having a bit of a drool over some hand made knitting stitch markers on Etsy, I decided to have a go at making some of my own.

You can see the result in the photo above. Read on to find out how to make your own cute and very useful hand made stitch markers for knitting.

How to make you own stitch markers for knitting

Making your own stitch markers to use for your knitting projects is really easy.

You simply need 3 elements – a clip or clasp of some sort, a charm or pendant, and something that will join the two pieces together.

To make stitch markers like mine, the clasp is a lobster clasp. I bought these ones in the biggest size. The rings that connect the lobster clasps to the charms are called jump rings. You can buy them via the lobster clasp shop link, or indeed from Ebay, Amazon, anywhere really.

I bought quite large jump rings (7mm) and simply bent them open with my fingers. You can buy specialised jewellery making tools which may help you with your jump ring if you have long nails or indeed don’t like using your fingers for fiddly jobs.

Once the jump ring is bent open, you simply slide on your lobster clasp and charm and then close the jump ring again.

That is all you have to do to make your own knitting stitch marker.

By the way, I used little charms that I already had in my craft stash box. I usually buy things like charms from this Etsy store.

When to use knitting stitch markers

The main use of stitch markers in knitting is to denote the beginning of a round.

As written above, I am quite new to knitting in the round and did try to make do without stitch markers. I was trying to simply use the cast on yarn to locate the start or end of a row and ended up in a right mess. Stitch markers really do make knitting in the round so much easier.

Some other uses for knitting stitch markers is as follows:

To mark the right or wrong side of a knitting project.
To signify the beginning/end of a pattern repeat.
To help you out with fixing dropped stitches.
To count rows (for example, place a stitch marker every 6 rows or so).
Hold your seams together whilst sewing up seams.
To help keep track of shaping progress in your knitting projects.

Stitch marker alternatives

If you don’t have any stitch markers but are now convinced that you need some, never fear! There are many alternatives to stitch markers that you can easily use for your knitting projects.

Here are some of our ideas for alternatives to stitch markers.

A pice of yarn in a contrasting colour. Simply tie in.
A bent paperclip.
Safety pins.
Old hoop or dangly earrings.
Repurposed jewellery bits or keyrings – remove and use the jump ring and charms.

As long as whatever you use as a stitch marker isn’t too heavy as to pull your fabric, or too scratchy or sharp as to damage the yarn (or your fingers!) you can be very creative in sourcing some cheap and simple knitting stitch marker tools.

Thanks for joining us today at The Knitting Times. We hope you found this post about how to create hand made stitch markers for your knitting useful and fun!