Markin' my territory - A tale about learning how to use stitch markers

One of the greatest downfalls of being extra is that you are easily convinced into buying the stitch markers in every shop update. Once you discover the greatness and the effectiveness of such a tiny knit notion, you can never go back. 

You may ask yourself, why would you need more than one marker for the BOR? 

Well allow me to tell you the tale of my pink velvet sweater. When I knit this bad gal up I too thought the same way. And after a decade of knitting, I didn't think about the benefit of using stitch markers to show the beginning and the end of each chart repetition. 

Now this gorgeous sweater was knit at the beginning of the pandemic. During this time I was about to end my 2nd year of pharmacy school and I had the added pressure of wanting to help my coworkers at our hospital. I was so stressed about family and life in general that I joined the pink velvet KAL in hopes that knitting would help burn some of that energy. 

Now I don't know what happened, but marking up my chart to remind me of my place was not enough. I messed up the chart and I did it beautifully. In addition to this unfortunate mess I managed to tangle the hell out of one of my skeins which is still lying in a terrible knot at the bottom of a storage tote. Now this would not have occurred had I used stitch markers (the skein mess was a result of me not having an umbrella swift), but alas I did not. 

As awful as it is to admit I didn't want to frog it at that time. I didn't have the energy. My life felt like a dumpster fire. And I determined that it would be my hot mess 2020 sweater. Now ask me if I would EVER knit color work without marking my repetitions...hell no. 

So that is when my love for stitch markers came to fruition. 

My first set were the brass kittens. These were puurrrrfect (yes I went there). 

My second set were supposed to be by Odd Knots and Threads when she came out with these gorgeous knit markers with pressed flowers that looked light enough for use. But apparently the universe had determined that they were not meant for me since I accidentally sent them to an old address. Now before you say, why didn't you cancel..well I had not noticed until the item was delivered. *sigh* I hope the person made good use of them. 

And then I was introduced to Hello Lavender's clay stitch markers and holy cow can this girl make some cute stuff. 

I have other's in my collection but I don't want to bore you with my bougie pickings. 

I think all in all I learned some things - 

1. stitch markers are better if they are light - you don't want them to weigh down your cable. 

2. stitch markers can be made out of anything (thread, rubber bands etc) but at the end of the day if stitch markers from small shops make you happy then go for it queens/kings. 

What do you use as a stitch marker? or do you find other strategies that help you stay on top of your color work without having these training wheels?