page_title: Knitting needle
section_title: The Guinness World Record for knitting with the largest knitting needles
hierarchical_section_title: Knitting needle / The Guinness World Record for knitting with the largest knitting needles
caption_attribution_description: English: Julia Hopson of Knit Wits, Penzance, Cornwall with the 'Guinness World Record' for knitting with 'the largest knitting needles in the world'. More Details[1]
context_page_description: A knitting needle or knitting pin is a tool in hand-knitting to produce knitted fabrics. They generally have a long shaft and taper at their end, but they are not nearly as sharp as sewing needles. Their purpose is two-fold. The long shaft holds the active stitches of the fabric, to prevent them from unravelling, whereas the tapered ends are used to form new stitches. Most commonly, a new stitch is formed by inserting the tapered end through an active stitch, catching a loop of fresh yarn and drawing it through the stitch; this secures the initial stitch and forms a new active stitch in its place. In specialized forms of knitting the needle may be passed between active stitches being held on another needle, or indeed between/through inactive stitches that have been knit previously.
  The size of a needle is described first by its diameter and secondly by its length. The size of the new stitch is determined in large part by the diameter of the knitting needle used to form it, because that affects the length of the yarn-loop drawn through the previous stitch. Thus, large stitches can be made with large needles, whereas fine knitting requires fine needles.
context_section_description: The current holder of this title is Julia Hopson of Penzance in Cornwall. Julia knitted a tension square of ten stitches and ten rows in stocking stitch using knitting needles that were 6.5 cm in diameter and 3.5 metres long.
caption: Julia Hopson and her world record needles
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