Knitting

I use stitch markers all the time. I use both plastic stitch markers and your average safety pins. (My current Big Project has 12 plastic and 2 safety pins on it right now). I prefer the plastic. I own, but very rarely use, ring ones that don't unlock, and ones with gaps that don't lock at all. There's nothing like using stitch markers to count how many you've cast on and the marking-ten markers keep falling off. I like the plastic locking markers because 1) plastic, so I don't have to worry about sharp, 2) big enough to slide along my needle and cable as I'm going (the safety pins aren't that wide, and any safety pin I could get that's wide enough would be too long to do it without completely getting in the way), and 3) can be used between stitches or into a stitch. I use safety pins mostly to mark the beginning of the first round or something where it doesn't ever move, anything that moves is a plastic stitch marker. I'll also tie a marker along the end of yarn attached to the ball after I've cut it, so it's very easy for me to start using that yarn again and I don't have to search to find the end. And my stitch markers weren't expensive, it was about two bucks for twenty of them, and I think that's less than how much I spent on the safety pins when I bought them years ago.