I love stitch markers!! They are very helpful to me as reminders and to help me count stitches. I use one at the start of every pattern repeat. Also at the border. So for my prayer shawl there is one color after the first two stitches because the border is only two stitches wide followed by markers every 10 stitches because the repeat pattern is every ten stitches. There is a final marker that is the same color as the first marker to show that I’m back at the border. This helps me quickly see if I’ve dropped or added a stitch in a pattern repeat and exactly which pattern repeat has the error.
In the picture, I use green stitch markers to signal the beginning of the cable pattern of my sock. The orange marker reminds me that I’m back to the border pattern. Not visible in the picture, but I also have a maker in the middle of the bottom set of stitches both to remind me that this section is the nonpattern section and to help me keep count on this section. If I drop or add a stitch, I can easily figure out which side has the error since it usually occurs at the beginning or end of a row.
This round colored metal markers are by far my favorite. I have only found them at Hobby Lobby. I bought some of the plastic “pins” on Amazon that are brightly colored but they come unattended way too easily. So recently bought so colored metal “pins” on Amazon. They are much better than the plastic ones but the pear shape of the pin sometimes causes the narrower part of the pin to catch on the needle when trying to transfer from one needle to the next. Since I use so many markers in my knitting, I need the markers to transfer easily so as not to slow down my knitting. The round ones are best but are much more expensive and only a few colors. I hope to figure out how to more successfully use my colored “pins”.