Stitch markers

[untonuggan]

I realize I'm probably opening up a whole kettle of fish by asking this, but I am new to knitting and wonder whether it's worth it to bother buying stitch markers. Right now I'm just using a loop of a contrasting scrap yarn as a stitch marker. It can be a little cumbersome, but I don't have to worry about losing it (can always get more small bits of yarn). Annoyingly, the acrylic yarns tend to fray a bit.

I've read that it's much smoother and faster to use the commercially made stitch markers, but I do wonder (a) if that is just slick marketing, (b) about the wasted plastic/shipping/processing costs to the environment, (c) about what happens when I lose the expensive little things.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: Thanks for all the suggestions and input, folks! I think I will go crazy if I try to respond to every reply, so I'll just say thanks here!

Comments

[synecdochic]

it's very personal. if you knit complicated lace, you almost certainly need them; if you knit less complex stuff, they can help but aren't necessarily as vital. i personally use them all the time whenever i have a pattern where I need to do something different at a certain point, because that tells my fingers "okay, stop and do something different here!" and I can totally knit without paying a lot of attention to what i'm doing.

i notice you have an etsy shop and make jewelry -- it's fairly easy to make your own stitch markers. check out our etsy shop for details: essentially, it's a stick-pin with something pretty on it attached to a jump ring attached to whatever you're using for the ring. (we generally use the toggles from bar-and-toggle clasps that we get for like $2 a bag at michaels; some people do wire wrap for the whole thing, or use flexible beading wire/crimp beads/crimp bead covers.)

if you're really undecided about whether you'd find them useful, i'd be happy to send you a few samples! we have a bunch that we've made for next month's phat fiber box, and we made a bunch extra, so we could totally send you a few to try!

[quartzpebble]

Everyone has opinions! I am pretty much the opposite of you; I knit complicated lace and just read my knitting for that (unless the pattern is one of those pseudo-freeform ones that you can't predict from the previous rows), but for small things like gloves that involve shaping, wow, it got so much easier when I realized there was a reason lots of people use them.

I just use some spare jump rings from my partner's chainmail hobby, when I do.