If you’ve inherited your grandmother’s plastic knitting needles, here’s how you can reuse them.
- In the kitchen, use them as chopsticks when preparing Chinese food or eating sushi.
- When you make your own cotton candy, use it as the stick to spin the cotton candy. (We don’t want to use them in heat or fire, as they risk melting, so we’ll stick to reusing them with minimal heat involved.)
- If you’re always entertaining or having large parties, use them as mixers in pitchers or drink dispensers. make sure they go well with the colors of the fruit and ice cubes.
- Cover the sharp end with an old cloth and use it to clean hard-to-reach nooks and crannies, like between fan vents, vents, and heaters.
- Use the plastic knitting needles as pegs in the ground when pitching a tent outside. It goes deeper into the ground and is ideal for additional reinforcement.
- They make great skewers, so use them to hold fruit at your next party. They will add some color to your fruit table and go well with sauces.
- Get some big beads and make your own abacus. Put them on the ground with the beads and leave them outside for the children to play. Be sure to secure them securely.
- Glue wooden boards on them to use as yard signs. Kids can also use it as a playground to show where they last planted their seeds.
- Make DIY flags or little baby texture books by cutting old jeans, old t-shirts into squares, or use any other textured fabric. Sew a small hem on the side so it fits snugly over the plastic knitting needle. Fill them with three or four fabrics with different textures. Use them as a painting canvas for children or a sensory booklet for a baby. Secure the sharp end with a corkscrew.
- Melt them (by boiling them in a pot of hot water) and once they are soft, quickly mold them into hangers for your dolls’ clothes. Start by shaping the bottom of the hanger, leave a straight piece of about 10 cm exactly in the middle and bend the two ends in an upward curve. Connect the two ends at the top and twist them around each other. Make sure there is one piece left to make the hanging hook.
- A plastic knitting needle can serve as a solid base when making your own table decorations. Simply stick them through a gardener’s oasis or any foam base and mount your flowers on it. If you want, you can even stack fruits, vegetables or Christmas tree decorations in the shape of a triangular Christmas tree.
- When you go camping, the outside light of your tent is always limited at night. Fix this by sticking a knitting needle into a thick pillar candle. Make sure it’s there alright. At camp, you can stick them into the ground and light the candles. Enough of these candles will ensure enough lighting around your campsite.