Which 16" circular needle sizes to buy?

Go to your local yarn shop and test drive the various needles and decide if you want wood, acrylic, metal, carbon fiber, or bamboo; round, square or hexagonal shape; lace tip or semi-blunt tip. Yarns don't play nicely with needle materials. That's why we have so many different needles.

I make hats magic loop style, that way I don't have to switch needles for the decreases. What length I use depends on what size hat I'm making.

I am loving my Knitter's Pride 8/55mm Dreamz 16" fixed circular for making hats with worsted weight yarn. The short (3-1/2) needles work great for my "flicking" style knitting.

LdyM said:

This is really helpful! Excellent information and sounds like what I need. I'm going to check it out! (I imagine the wooden has a bit of give..) Thank you.

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Wooden needles are better for using slippery yarns, metal needles for less slippery yarns.

https://www.amazon.com/Circular-Knitting-Needles-StitchBerry®-Collection/dp/B003IE8YE4/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1471143365&sr=8-14&keywords=16+inch+circular+needles+set

Just a suggestion. Try looking on Amazon for a set.
They are pretty inexpensive and give you a lot of options for different projects.

I have the Knitters Pride "Short" interchangeable set so from tip to tip it's 16" . Needles are the Dreamz (wood) ones which I prefer & sizes 4-11. Use them for in the round items but finish up with dpns if doing hats.
This was cheaper than buying each needle separate. I did have to buy sizes 2 & 3 for baby hats in sock yarn.

Size 6