PegP said:
Since this will be my first lace project, would it make a difference if I used regular needles? Or, do you get a finer stitch with lace needles?
To make lace, the little holes are made by doing a yarn over. That adds an extra stitch.
So, lace knitting involves, not only a lot of YOs, but a lot of decreases to compensate for the YOs.
If you have a very blunt point on your needles, like an Addi turbo, it's a lot harder to do a K2tog, or a stitch where you decrease two whole stitches. I've seen places on lace where you start with 5 stitches and wind up with one because you've decreased 4 stitches all at once.
I've also done non-lace knitting where I spent a whole minute (which is a long time--check it on a clock with a second hand) just to
one K2tog because my needle was very blunt and had a fat point! Once I discovered lace needles, I'd rather use them for
everything!
If you're doing decreases, the longer, slimmer point of a lace needle slides into two or more stitches and still leaves you room to get the other needle in there and to finish the decrease.
I
can do decreases on blunt needles, but it's slow, and it's hard work compared to lace needles.