Many Victorian knitting sheaths have adapters that allow several different sized needles to be used with the same knitting sheath. Many of these Victorian knitting sheaths with adpaters have a look about them that make me think of vocational school projects for teaching young men to use a variety of power tools. That is, these are not tools made by a knitter. Moreover, I do not see much in the way of wear marks on such tools suggesting that they were often gifts and keepsakes.
Several knitters have asked about how to use several different sized needles with one knitting sheath, and this is certainly a workable approach. The photo shows two knitting sheaths that I made which accept adapters. By changing the adapter, different sized needles can be used with the knitting sheath. Thus, with these 4 adapters, US # 0, 1, 2, or 4 needles can be used with either of these knitting sheaths. These are crude prototypes, but they work very well.
Another advantage of this system is that the knitting sheath can be made of a light weight or decorative wood while the adapter can be made of a harder wood such as maple. Thus, the design life of the system can be longer, that the design life of a system with the (steel ) needle flexing against a softer wood.
On the other hand, these adapters are tricky little fellows and I expect they will tend to runoff, join the circus, and never to be seen in a knitting bag again.
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