One of my favourite knitting accessories...

... is my little fluorescent torch.

Michael first pointed out how useful it might be as a knitting accessory when he suggested that laying a tension square I had knit in a very textured yarn across the face of the torch might make it a lot easier for me to count the stitches and rows. He was right, of course, and what had been a frustrating task up until then was suddenly very easy.

It was invaluable too while I was duplicate stitching the cross motifs on to the 'Kashmir Hat'...


... as the knitted fabric was quite close in texture, and without the backlighting the torch gave me it was really slow going finding the correct place to insert the needle to give a really neat finished result without splitting the stitches in the base fabric.

Without the 'Kashmir Hat' draped across its face, my fluorescent torch looks like this...


... but any torch with a flat face and a reasonably even level of light will do the job.

The other reason this is one of my favourite knitting accessories is that I live in an area which is prone to power blackouts, so keeping it with my knitting means that I am able to work on my knitting under an even light while I wait for the power to be restored. :)