A Life of Science and Craft: How my knitting was saved

So, if you remember correctly, I was all settled in, with nothing to knit, expect those socks. My yarn stash problem was going to be solved because fall break and Rhinebeck were conveniently the same weekend, so I had long planned a trip home for a visit. My needle problem, however, was a little more challenging. I first decided that I would just buy cheap needles as I needed them, but a trip to my small LYS store came up empty in trying to find a pair to finish Pteryla. Then I decided it was going to be a really big PITA to have to run out and buy new needles every time I needed a different size. I remembered reading about getting whole sets of needles really cheap on Ebay, so I did a little bidding. Eventually, I won a full set of 24 inch circulars...from China.

They took forever to come, and I fully expected that for ~$1.25 per pair (including shipping) they were going to be pretty crappy needles, but I figured they would get me through. Once they did arrive, I was pleasantly surprised.

I opened my metallic-bubble mailer (looked something like this) to reveal a handy wallet of needles:

Other than the 0-16, which refers to the needle sizes, I have no idea what this says. I'm going with "surprisingly awesome ninja knitting needles" because that is exactly what I found when I opened the snap.

There was a bit of confusion on my part because that particular pouch was labeled as size 15, which it clearly was not. So I busted out my handy Susan Bates Knit-Chek and discovered that in US terms I had a set of 12 needles ranging from size 0000 to 7. Plus a small needle sizer and a darning needle to boot.

You can see here where I attempted to sharpie the correct US sizes on the pocket sizer, I'm still attempting to locate a slimmer sharpie. The needles themselves are very lightweight. I was expecting very heavy stainless steel needles, but they are light as air, smooth and fast. The joins are really smooth and while I don't think they cables are flexible enough (or long enough for that matter) to magic loop, I hate magic looping anyways.