February is Knitting Needle Emergency Month.

... Or at least it is for me. Last week I needed a set of dpns that I didn't have, and had to buy some at my local yarn store. Yesterday, I was working on my shawl using my Knit Picks interchangeables, and I got to the part of the pattern where I was supposed to switch from size 7 to size 8 tips. I went in my bag, grabbed my 8s, and was reminded of how I had an accident with the 8s a few months ago.

A few months ago, I reached under my bed to unplug my phone charger, which was plugged into a serge protector. I do this all the time, so I wasn't even looking, and just stuck my hand under there to unplug it. I heard a loud pop, saw a spark, and smelled something burning. I was startled, but I unplugged the serge protector from the wall. I tried it in another outlet and it didn't work. I tried my phone charger in another outlet and it did work. I was really confused, but then I saw that a project I was knitting was also under the bed. I pulled it out, and saw that this had happened to one of my needles:

All I can guess is that the needle made contact with the phone charger while being unplugged, and created a mini explosion or something. You can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, for some reason I didn't order a replacement tip right away, and ended up forgetting about it. Until yesterday.

So I went to my yarn store again with the intention of buying some fixed circulars, and I'd replace the Knit Picks tip later. I decided to get a Clover needle, since it was almost $10 cheaper than the Addis and I never use fixed circulars anyway. The woman was ringing my order up and I told her what happened to my needle. She told me that while they don't carry Knit Picks needles, they carried another brand that was compatible.

Hooray! Crisis averted, and now I don't have to order a new set of size 8 tips. And these are prettier than the metal tips I had before.