Knitting Needles & Crochet Hooks

For the past couple of weeks, ever since I saw Lily Chin on Knitty Gritty, I have been mulling over something that she said on the show. She talked about equivalent sizes of knitting needles and crochet hooks, and she gave us a simple mnemonic device to remember - H=8. If you can remember that, then you can count up or down and figure out what size crochet hook is the same as your knitting needles and vice versa.

What amazes me about this is the difference in the size of the needles and hooks I use with the same weight yarn, and I think this says something about the difference in the two fiber arts. For example, I know that with worsted weight yarn and working in stockinette stitch, I will always get a gauge of 5 stitches to the inch on size 5 needles. This is a nice gauge for a lot of items, including hats and mittens. But if I translate that to a crochet hook, that would be a size E hook! I would never reach for an E hook with ww yarn. Now, I have been told in the past that I am a loose knitter (even though my dh says I shouldn't spread that around too much!), which is why I am using size 5 needles when most people would probably be using size 7. But that still only brings us up to a size G crochet hook, again too small for ww yarn, IMHO. On the other hand, I have taken to using a K crochet hook and ww yarn to make preemie blankets, because they come out so much softer than when I use an H hook. That translates to size 10.5 knitting needles, which I don't think I have ever used in my life. I have used size 11 or 13 needles to make fancy scarves or shawls made from Lion Brand Homespun. But it is fairly unusual for me to knit with such large needles, since I don't seem to be a fan of bulky weight yarn.

I think this has a real impact on my crocheting, and I am glad that I have started to think this through. Anyone reading this from the Connecticut Crochet group will know that I sent out an email this week in which I said that I am frequently unhappy with my crocheted scarves and did anyone have any stitch patterns they could share with me. Dee kindly wrote back and suggested that I am probably unhappy with the drape of the scarf and to try using a larger hook than I have used in the past. I am definitely going to try this suggestion, but I think that the reason I didn't figure it out for myself, like I did with the preemie blankets, is that I tend to think like a knitter and go for the smaller crochet hook. If I am going to knit a scarf, I will usually reach for a size 7 or 8 needle, liking a slightly larger gauge in a scarf. That puts us to an H crochet hook, which is what I usually use for a crocheted scarf. Now I think I will start with a K hook and go up from there if need be. I'll let you all know how this goes!