If you crochet more than one row of anything, you have lost your place. You have counted to 84 twice, come up with 83 and 85, and pulled out three rows to find the mistake. I did that for years with scraps of yarn and bent safety pins, and I am here to tell you there is a boring, cheap fix: a bag of 100 locking stitch markers from HiMo. They look like little plastic safety pins with a clasp, they cost a few dollars, and they have quietly saved more of my projects than any hook in my bag. I bought my first pack on a Tuesday in February, the same night I ripped out six rows of a blue throw blanket because I could not tell where repeat seven ended. Stormy had carried off two of my bent safety pins that week, and I found a third with the sole of my foot at midnight. It was cheaper than the yarn I had already pulled out that month, and I have not counted a repeat twice since.
Lose your place one more time and you will want these
A 100-pack of HiMo locking stitch markers is a few dollars and it ends the counting game for good. Clip one in, count once, move on.
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The whole job of a stitch marker is to hold your place in the work itself. With HiMo locking markers I clip the top of the loop I need to come back to, and the marker sits right where my hook needs to go next. I count the repeat once, clip, and trust it. When I come back from making tea, the marker is still there telling me the truth. Last month I was working a shell stitch afghan, 140 stitches across, and the phone rang just as I finished a row. I clipped a marker into the first shell, set the work on the side table, and did not pick it up again until after dinner. When I came back I put my hook straight into the marked loop and kept going, no recount, no second guessing.
They lock shut, so they do not fall out in your bag
A plain ring marker will slip off the moment you stuff the project in a tote. These HiMo markers close with a positive snap. I have carried a half-finished afghan in a grocery bag, in the car, and once through a thunderstorm, and the markers stayed exactly where I put them. That is the entire point of the word locking.
They make repeat counting almost impossible to lose track of
When a blanket pattern says repeat 12 times, I used to count out loud and still doubt myself by repeat seven. Now I clip a HiMo marker at the start of each repeat. Twelve repeats, twelve markers, and I can see at a glance whether I am on repeat four or repeat nine. My counting brain gets a rest, and the pattern gets finished. The first time I tried this was on a ripple throw in March, twelve repeats of a twelve-row pattern. I finished the whole thing in four evenings, and when I held it up the edges were straight on both sides. The time before, the same pattern had taken me two weeks and a corner I had to rip out. I counted each repeat once, clipped a marker, and never looked back.
They mark increase and decrease rows without surgery on your work
Shaping rows are where afghans go wrong. A single missed increase turns the edge wavy and you do not notice until you are ten rows past it. I clip a marker at the first increase of every shaping row. When the row is done, I move it up. If I get interrupted, the marker tells me exactly which row I am on and where the shaping started. I learned this the hard way on a triangular shawl in April. I missed an increase at row six, kept going to row twenty, and had to rip the whole thing back to the start. The second attempt took me an hour longer because I stopped to clip a marker at every single increase row, but the shawl came out with a clean edge and I only had to rip out two rows, both from a tension problem, not a counting one.
They are kinder to the yarn than safety pins ever were
Safety pins leave holes, catch on fluff, and rust if you leave them in while the project is washed. The HiMo markers are smooth plastic with a rounded clasp. They slide between stitches without splitting the yarn, and they do not snag the fiber when you pull them out. My acrylic and cotton both come through fine.
The colors let you leave yourself a note in the work
With a 100-pack in assorted colors, you can build a tiny color language. I use one color for the start of a repeat, another for an increase row, and a third for the corner of a border. When I pick the project back up, I do not have to remember which color meant what. The marker is the note.
They survive being left in the project when life interrupts
My projects live in a basket by the armchair, and life interrupts constantly. The phone rings, the dog needs out, dinner burns. Weeks can pass before I pick up a project again. A HiMo marker stays clipped through all of it. I have found markers still holding their place after a month in the basket, which is more than I can say for my memory.
They double as row counters for short repeats
For a two-row repeat I do not need a counter app. I clip one marker for row one and two markers for row two, then move them up every repeat. It is a low-tech row counter that never needs charging and never asks me to put down my hook. For amigurumi with tight rounds, this alone is worth the price of the bag.
They hold the place for the border you keep putting off
I am a border procrastinator. The body of the blanket gets finished and the border waits three weeks. With a marker clipped at the corner where the border starts, I can set the whole thing aside without fear. When I come back, the starting point is right there and I do not have to count my way around 200 edge stitches to find it.
They are cheap enough to lose, and that is the point
You will lose some. They fall behind the couch cushion, the cat bats one under the sideboard, one vanishes into the yarn basket forever. With a 100-pack from HiMo, losing a marker costs you nothing and you still have 96 left. That is the kind of supply I actually use, because I am never afraid to clip it in.
What I'd Skip
If you only ever crochet flat dishcloths in one color and you finish them in a single sitting, you may not need these. A short project that never leaves your hands has nowhere to lose its place. I would also skip them if you prefer a digital row counter and never put a project down mid-repeat. But if you have ever pulled out three rows to fix a missed increase, or hunted for a safety pin with your bare foot at midnight, the HiMo markers cost less than the yarn you lost the last time you guessed.
Twelve repeats, twelve markers, and I can see at a glance whether I am on repeat four or repeat nine.
Your next project deserves a place to keep
Stop counting twice and start finishing. A 100-pack of HiMo locking stitch markers is the cheapest finishing tool in my bag.
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