If you have a stash of wires, but have difficulty telling which ones are Regulars, which are Longs and which are Verticals, here is a handy printable wire chart of the 4 styles of wires used in my patterns. Compare the wires you have in your collection with one printed sheet of paper, rather than 4 different pages.
The coloured tip of the wire gives you a clue to its size. There are only 5 different coloured tips, and it is easy to tell the difference between a fairly small size 34 wire and a much larger size 44 wire (for example). Remember that any wire size ending in 0, such as 30, 40, 50 or 60 will have a blue tip at the centre front.
Here’s a listing of the tip colours and their sizes:
Blue tips: 30, 40, 50, 60
Black tips: 32, 42, 52
Yellow: 34, 44, 54
Green: 36, 46, 56
Red: 38, 48, 58
Once you know your wire size, you can print off that one page. Make sure the page prints at 100% and that the box in the corner of the page measures to 2″ (5.1 cm). Now you can lay the wire on top of the drawings and tell whether your wires are Regular, Long, Extra Long or Vertical Long.
