I’m still not sure whether I like my stitch markers to dangle, but darn it, they are a lot of fun to make. I used the Crafty Daisies instructions and whipped up the following over a couple of hours.

I foresee all the knitters in my family getting stitch markers for Christmas.

Lessons learned:

• It’s difficult to find cheap, plain toggle clasps online: most are either real silver or gold and therefore pricey, and most have more embellishment than I wanted for sliding onto a knitting needle with my yarn. I found that the Better Beads brand (available at Michael’s stores, six clasps for $1.50) were the plainest. (The beads in the first photograph were also from Michael’s and come from Blue Moon Beads.)
• For head pins, it’s worth the extra money to use real silver head pins. I bought a bag with 50 silver-plated head pins from Michael’s and used those to make the markers with the black swirly beads, and got so frustrated trying to bend them into place that I almost gave up on the whole project. Today I was in the Castro (buying knitting needles at Imagiknit, my favorite knitting store) and picked up silver head pins from The Bead Store, and although they were 45 cents each (as opposed to five cents each), they bend more easily and the plating doesn’t flake all over everything. (The beads in the second picture are all from The Bead Store.)
• Miniature tools are a mistake, especially when it comes to wire cutters. I bought a set at Michael’s that had 4″ jeweler’s pliers (with the rounded nose), wire cutters, and needle nose pliers. I couldn’t get enough torque on the wire cutters to cut unless I held them a certain way, and I couldn’t hold them properly while dealing with the stitch markers (they may also have simply been dull – they were cheap). My experience improved greatly when I replaced them with real, normal sized wire cutters.
• You want to roll the loop of wire closed around the toggle clasp, not crimp it. Rolling rounds the loop, allowing the clasp to move inside it. Crimping tends to constrict the clasp and then the beads stand straight out.