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

[lannamichaels]

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.