Trying to get back to my knitting machines

I follow a lot of knitting blogs.  One, in particular, is a great inspiration to me.  It is Suzy Ranner's blog.  "My knitting machines and me".  It is listed on the side of my blog with a link to it. Suzy's videos have been such a help to me and she lists lots of patterns.  She was also a big help when my lace carriage wouldn't work.

I think about knitting all the time.  I want to be knitting all the time but alas life throws us some curve balls and for me it just isn't possible right now.

I am really lucky.  We have a spare bedroom that doubles as a knitting and sewing room for me.  I have my sewing machine table set up in it and a desk with two knitting machines set up on opposite sides.  My Studio SK700 standard machine with SRP 60 ribber and my Studio SK155 (battered but usable) bulky machine.  (See previous posts for all the gory details on how it arrived all battered).

So what is my problem you might wonder.  Well, this room is upstairs.  My husband has a chronic auto immune neurological disease and although he isn't bed bound he can't really be left alone too long.  He is still undergoing the chemo regimine in a bid to stop it progressing.  He spends most of his time downstairs or outside or in the workshop and I need to be close at hand.  He is bound and determined to be productive as long as he can and I commend and admire him for that.  My job is to take care of him and make sure he doesn't injure himself in his endeavours so for the time being his interests are also my interests and we spend most of our time together.

When I go upstairs to 'my room' I get lost in another world.  I need time to concentrate and do my knitting without being disturbed.  That sounds a bit selfish I know but that's how I am. I could be up there all day oblivious to anything else. But that said, I am trying to be more flexible and not be so absorbed.  I am trying to find a way to work machine knitting back into my life without  spending hours at a time holed up in my room. I now do my research downstairs, I sort and wind my yarn downstairs, I read my manuals downstairs.  I even knitted a couple of hand knitted things for the grand kids whilst watching TV downstairs.

I do love hand knitting but it seems a bit senseless to knit by hand when I have three knitting machines.

I love my Studio 700 standard machine and ribber, it really is my favourite machine.  I personally prefer garments knitted with finer yarn but I have a boatload of thicker yarn inherited from my mother in law so I need to use the bulky.

My husband wants an Arran cardigan.  I could hand knit it but it would take me forever.  I am not good at finishing large items and he wears XXL.  I have been looking for a tuck stitch pattern that resembles Arran.  My bulky came with some hand punched cards.  I believe they include the 5 original patterns that came with the machine plus some others.  I found another pattern I liked so I punched it out too.

I knitted a swatch yesterday of the one I punched out but it wasn't as nice as I hoped.  When I was sorting yarn I found a swatch I did some time ago on the bulky and on looking at it again I think it will be just fine. (see photo below).  I believe it is one of the cards that came with the machine and I did it on elongated.  (The problem is that I can only vaguely remember doing it!!!!!)  So at this point it is only speculation. (Getting old isn't all it's cracked up to be lol).

So I will find the time over the next few days to try and replicate it.  I will have to use slightly thicker yarn as I don't have enough of the yarn it was done in to make a whole sweater.  I am hoping that won't be a problem.  (The yarn I do have enough of is the same colour as this but is thinner so I will be using two strands).

I used the same two strands yesterday on my punched tuck stitch card and it knitted quite tight.  It was too tight in my opinion. I didn't do it elongated though. The sample I found (pictured above) which used just a single strand of the other (slightly thicker) yarn is much looser and probably a tad loose.  I am hoping the two strands of thinner yarn will be just right.  Fingers crossed on that!

I can see from the swatch that I didn't start it off on the right row.  The hand punched cards have Row 1 higher up than the originals I think so I will start it a couple of rows lower.

Also I am going to use the garter bar I bought to turn the knitting around when I have done the mock rib and latched it up and knitted one row. The purl side of the tuck stitch will be the right side so by turning the ribbing around before starting the tuck stitch the smooth edge of the mock rib will be the same side as the tuck stitch pattern.

Now I have to find a pattern for this cardigan.  I really want to be able to use the Knitware software but it just will not work on my computer even using the fixes they recommend.  Our computers are all 64bit and this software is for 32bit.  I have yet to find an old computer to be able to use it on.  So the search is on for a man's cardigan  for a bulky 9mm machine.  I have sweater patterns but no cardigan one as yet.

My thanks go out to Suzy again and her blog.  She is such an inspiration to me. Please keep on knitting and blogging Suzy!

My Christmas decoration prototype and a new phone cover

I bought a set of Tandy Christmas stamps on sale.  Christmas has and hopefully always will be a special time for me.  (Yes! even at the tender age of 66 I still look forward to Christmas every year.)

What to do with these stamps was the next question?

I was trying them out so thought I would try and make a Christmas scene using them.  This was just on a test piece of leather.  The stamping is terrible, over impressed most of them and double stamped one.  aarrgghh!!! But it was only practice.

Even my husband commented that it wasn't my best work and he is rarely ever critical.

I was bound and determined though to salvage something out of it so I trimmed it down and wondered if it could be made into a Christmas tree decoration.  I stained the leather lightly leaving the indentations unstained so as to show up.  I added some glue glitter to write the current year on the back and put some glitter along the edges.  I trimmed it with some Christmas ribbon and made a loop for hanging it using some leather lace I had bought on sale along with the stamps.

Some of the stamps are disproportionate in size to each other.  For example see Santa on top of the roof!

I would never give it to anyone because it is so flawed but it will hang  on our Christmas tree this year and for many years to come.  I will work on my technique and come up with some other ideas.  I do like the idea of making family members and friends a leather Christmas tree decoration that they can keep.

I lost my cell phone case so had to make another.  The 'T' motif sewn on the front was a practice piece I had done for the centres of some coasters I had made last Christmas.  (Can you tell I hate to waste anything?)

So these are my latest projects.

Looking forward to working on some more decorations. Maybe star shaped or bell shaped.