Chiaogoo Twist Shorties Review

Chiaogoo Twist short interchangeable needles, known as Chiaogoo Twist shorties are circular needles that allow to easily knit in the round small circumferences: socks, sleeves, baby and pet clothes. With these needles you almost don’t need double pointed needles and Magic Loops.

And if you don't want to spend too much to buy the whole Chiaogoo Shorties Knitting Set with full size range: US0 (2.00mm), US1 (2.25mm), US1.5 (2.50mm), US2 (2.75mm), US2.5 (3.00mm), US3 (3.25mm), you can choose the size you need (knit) the most and buy the Chiaogoo Shorties Combo Pack with only that size. The combo pack includes:
1) one pair of 2"  tips
2) one pair of 3" tips
3) 5" Red Twist cable
4) 6" Red Twist cable
Combining the tips with the cables you can create 9" (23cm) to 12" (20cm) circulars.

In June 2019 Chiaogoo started selling also the shorties set with the blue X-flex cable. I didn't try this cable yet, but if it would have been out when I bought the shorties combo I would definitely have bought the X-flex cable version to see what all the fuss is about.

My Experience

When the 9" circulars appeared on the market I thought the idea was great, but when I bought one, I was disappointed. My hand was getting tired very fast and hurt from using the short needles. In theory it should have worked perfectly - to have a tiny circle and not hassle with magic loop or double pointed needles - but when applied to real life (real knitting) it failed.

So when I learned about Chiaogoo shorties I got my hopes up again. I wanted to see if that 1" length added to the needle would make the change I needed. And it really did. The 3" needle fells more like the 4" tip and less than the 2" one. The hand is closer to the usual position I knit in. And it still gets tired, it's not the same as the usul 5" tip, but it happens slower and in my opinion it's worth the advantage of losing the Magic Loop and DPNs.

Yarn:

For outfit: Yarnart Christmas
For demonstration: Alize Bella color 4150

Needles:

2 mm - US 0 Chiaogoo Twist shorties combo
3.25mm - US 3 Chiaogoo 4" interchangeable tip

What You Can Make

In the picture below you can see what I knit using the Chiaogoo shorties. I used Magic Loop only for the tiny doggy sleeves, and for the hat cone. The rest was using my favorite now for small circumferences - Chiaogoo Twist shorties.