Knitting Needle Review: Addi Sock Wonder

A while ago, a kind friend sent me an email asking if I’d ever tried the Addi Sock Wonder needles. He had ordered a set for himself and somehow wound up with two. I jumped at the chance to try out something I wouldn’t normally be able to get my hands on very easily.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you probably know that I am a really big fan of tiny circular knitting needles for my sock knitting. My first pair was the ChiaoGoo Shorties/Minis back in 2018. At the time, I could only find a wood pair, which were fine but not fabulous. I’m a tight knitter, and I really need a more slippery surface. I got my hands on some Shorties with metal needles pretty quickly, though. They have been my favorites ever since.

But I’ve heard from other knitters that the tiny needle tips on the ChiaoGoo Shorties/Minis were uncomfortable. I wondered whether the different needle tip configuration on the Sock Wonder would make a difference.

So here’s a review of the Addi Sock Wonder knitting needles based on my experience of knitting quite a bit with them over the last few months.

A quick note: these needles have so many different names on various sales listings on the internet. Addi’s own website calls them addiSockwonder, sock wonder, Sockenwunder, and addiSockenwunder. English-first sites seem to use Sock Wonder most frequently. I’ve gone with Sock Wonder because I write an English-language blog read primarily by English speakers who will also be shopping on English-first websites. I wanted to try and maintain some consistency for my readers.

Needle Tips

The distinguishing feature of the Addi Sock Wonders is that the needle tips are different lengths. One tip is very short, like the needle tips on the ChiaoGoo Shorties. The other is about an inch longer. You hold the longer needle tip in your working hand and the shorter needle tip in your non-working hand. This gives you a longer needle to hold onto with your hand that is actually inserting the needle tip into stitches and manipulating the yarn.

Even though I am not one of the people who experience is discomfort with the ChiaoGoo Shorties, I was surprised to discover that this slightly longer needle tip is in fact a little bit more comfortable. Now, I am very much of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought. That means I’m not in a rush to go out and replace all of my ChiaoGoo Shorties, but I did think this was a pleasantly interesting discovery.

Needle length

Here’s one of the drawbacks of the Sock Wonder. The longer needle tip, combined with the cord length that is necessary for a comfortable circle, means that the overall length of these little knitting needles is longer than the ChiaoGoo Shorties. The Sock Wonder has a total circumference of 10 inches (25 cm). The Shorties that have a total circumference of 9 inches (23 cm).

For knitters who knit socks with a larger circumference, this may not matter much. For knitters with narrower feet, this may be a dealbreaker.

I tend to aim for a 7.5 inch circumference in my socks. This means that the 9 inch Shorties are not too much of a stretch. The 10 inch Sock Wonder does stretch the work a little bit more, though. While it’s still manageable for me, if I were knitting a sock in a smaller circumference, I might be concerned about how hard it would be to manipulate the stitches around this circumference of the needle.

Needle surface

Like all of the steel Addi needles, the Sock Wonder has a wonderfully slick coating. If you’re like me, this is a good thing. I knit very tightly, and I tend to use a lot of grippy yarns like wool. Having a nice, smooth surface is really important to me.

If you are a loose knitter or someone who tends to drop stitches easily, this might not be the needle set for you. They will be more likely to slip out of the stitches and wreak havoc.

One important thing: my friend Aimee, who sells Addi needles in their online yarn shop, let me know that a few years back, Addi reformulated the coating on their needle tips. Previously, that coating was nickel-based, but now it is brass-based. Neither Aimee nor I have noticed a difference in function since then. It looks like we have ended up with the same slick needles with better usability for friends with nickel allergies.

Addi Sock Wonder versus ChiaoGoo Shorties

So which would I recommend, the ChiaoGoo Shorties or the Addi Sock Wonder? I’ve been a Shorties user for eight years now. Would I still recommend it?

Well, as with so many other things, it depends. Sorry! You can take the girl out of the law firm, but you can’t entirely take the lawyer out of the girl.

The thing is, it really will depend on who you are as a knitter and what you prefer. If you are a tight knitter who wants the most slick needle tips possible and doesn’t need to knit at a small circumference, the Sock Wonder might be the right call for you.

If you are a slightly looser knitter who needs a bit more grip on their surface but still wants a metal needle, or if you are a knitter who needs a smaller circumference, the ChiaoGoo Shorties might be the better option for you. ChiaoGoo metal needles have a brushed metal tip, so they’re not quite so slippery as the Addi needles.

Finally, if you are the kind of knitter who prefers interchangeable tips, the Sock Wonder doesn’t appear to currently come in that format. They only have fixed needles. If having interchangeable tips is important to you, the ChiaoGoo Shorties might be the better option.

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