Coping with a cable needle.

I'm knitting a cute little baby jacket for a friend's soon-to-arrive grandson, in a sweet baby blue bamboo. It's got a very simple cable pattern - candy twists - which isn't causing me any trouble, except for the usual problems I have when using a cable needle.

There are different types of cable needle, with ones that look like  mouse-sized double-pointed needles (dpns), ones with a kink in the middle, so it doesn't fall out of the held stitches, and ones like that I'm currently using, with grooves along the length of the needle, again to stop slippage. It does work to stop the needle falling out, but it also catches on the yarn, and this bamboo is very soft and delicate, and snags really easily.

I've had - and lost - all of them, and that's my main problem. They're small, and they're not needed all the time (currently only every 4th row), and I keep forgetting where I put it, or I stand up suddenly when it's on my lap and it flies off and rolls somewhere, or it falls to the bottom of my knitting bag, or down beside the cushion of my chair.  This current one is the only one I can find in the right gauge!

I expect there are a few under my couch, or in forgotten corners of other knitting bags, and it's the one knitting item that I have to keep buying.  I wish I could have it on a string, but it needs to be able to be used at either end.

It's the main reason why I don't do as much cable work as I'd like. I like the challenge of bending the stitches around to make new patterns and textures, but I need to find a better way of controlling the cable needle when I'm not using it. Sigh.