I like making things: February 2021

Saturday, February 27, 2021

The blanket is done

I finally got the baby blanket finished. I joined a FB group dedicated to garter carriages and learned a lot. I found it interesting that it was about equal between users. Those who had no problems and those who did. It was suggested that the well behaved garter carriages that just knit and knit without needing attention must be girls and the ones that need constant attention and drop a stitch if you dare walk away from them are boys. Mine is definitely a boy!

That said, I am very happy with how it turned out. I hope it will get well used.

I am going to crochet an edge on the two sides in yellow.

Next project will be a baby jacket using my machine with the ribber attached and the manual carriage.

Good news, I am scheduled to get my first Covid vaccination in March and the second in April.

Weather warming up and the snow has all gone, Spring is on it's way!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Saturday, February 20, 2021

An update on the knitting machine and garter carriage

Well, I can tell you that trying to use the garter carriage has been quite the experience!

If anyone has followed my blog for a while they know that I am not new to knitting machines and know a reasonable amount about using them but this garter carriage is a whole different animal. I have named it the 'wee beastie'.

The first time I used went like a dream, but I only did a small piece to try it.

Brimming with confidence after that I embarked on a baby blanket for my soon to be new great grand baby.

Well.................what could go wrong did go wrong and it was 99% user error. I was way too big for my boots, thought I knew it all! Wrong!!!

Anyway, after posting in some knitting machine groups and getting referred to a group dedicated to using garter carriages I got a lot of great advice and now, finally, the blanket is progressing. Using the garter carriage is not a quick process. It knits one stitch at a time and it takes 2 1/2 minutes to knit one row of the blanket. Unlike a manual carriage which you just pass over the row of needles and a whole row is knitted in seconds. BUT! the garter carriage can do patterns that just using the manual carriage can't. That said there are a gazillion patterns that just using the manual carriage can do but it can't do garter stitch or plain and purl in the same row.

Enough of the boring stuff.

Here is a photo of the blanket on the machine, it has taken many, many days to get to this stage. It has to be baby sat. You can't walk away and leave it running, can't take your eyes off the 'wee beastie' so it involves a lot of sitting and watching.

I think I will only make smaller items using the garter carriage in the future.

It does regain it's shape when you take it off the machine and I will be edging it in either yellow blanket stitch or a row of yellow crochet to match the top and bottom.

Friday, February 5, 2021

What a busy couple of weeks!

The last two weeks have just flown by. A lot of time was spent in my sewing (and knitting) room, setting up and testing the new machine, re-organising my yarn, looking online for missing parts and manuals and so on and so forth. I did manage to get a swatch knitted for a baby jacket but I am not totally sold on it so am going to try a different pattern. I also set up the new to me ribber on my other machine and it works like a charm, I was so happy about that. This week we both had hospital appts. on Monday, Tuesday I had to take the vehicle into town to get a tyre repair done , Wednesday we drove a round trip of 300 miles for my husband to get his second Covid vaccination and Thursday and today he has been having flu like symptons and also tiredness and weakness which apparently can happen after the second jab.

As we sleep downstairs and he is running a temperature I decided not to try my garter carriage today. The needle for it arrived this week along with the sponge bar for the machine so really I am ready and eager to try it out but it is upstairs and I wouldn't be able to hear him if he called out.

So instead I got my wool winder stuff out and decided to wind some wool into cakes. I think that is the correct term!

All was going well until the whirly gig thing broke! Once it cracked it wouldn't support the mast.

Bummer! I thought. I hadn't anywhere near wound all the yarn I wanted to.

How to fix it? I knew superglue wouldn't hold it, there is a lot of pressure on it when the thing is spinning around and being pulled on by the wool winder so it needed something stronger to go around the plastic. Ah ha! Would a jubilee clip work I wondered. I trotted out to the workshop and found a suitable sized one and Yay! it did the trick and I was able to continue on and get all my wool wound.

I forgot to take a photo of it while it was still assembled but here it is so you can get the gist. I hope it works for the long term.

So that has been my last couple of weeks. Pretty busy and enjoyable asides from my poor husband not feeling good.

I think my mojo is back!!!

Glad you stopped by

I started this blog in 2011: Ever since my Mum taught me to knit at the age of about six or seven I have made things. Back then it was doll clothes. I was also inspired by Mrs Levitt an elderly lady who had a sewing room in a conservatory type room on the back of her house. I would sit and watch her in awe as she sewed.

When I was a child living in England the school system was such that you started at 5 years, did two years in Infant School, then four years in Primary School then five to seven years in Secondary School, depending on whether you chose to stay on after fifth form to get qualifications to go to University. I can't remember much of the Infant school other than making the standard square doily thingy from fabric that had holes in it so you could embroider patterns into it. A bit like the modern day cross stitch fabric but with bigger holes and spaces to make it easy for small hands to use. I also remember with great joy getting a toy sewing machine one Christmas which sewed only chain stitch but I did make doll clothes on it and that was before I started Primary school. I do have very vivid recollections of Primary school and having sewing and knitting lessons. In Primary school I knitted gloves and made a dress from scratch hand sewing it all.

Secondary school continued on with sewing by which time I had progressed to using full sized sewing machines and was making more intricate skirts and dresses. My parents bought me a proper sewing machine when I was thirteen. I used that same machine right up until I emigrated to Canada at age forty six years.

I have always had a fascination for sewing machines and knitting machines. I bought my first knitting machine at around age twenty one from an ad in a newspaper for twelve pounds. I had absolutely no idea what one was just that I wanted one. I trundled on the bus to the address in the advert and handed over my twelve pounds having absolutely no idea what I had really bought. Fortunately it came with a manual. It was an aged Knitmaster, very basic and I loved it. I wore it out. Next was a Brother push button one which I didn't keep because it was at a time in my life when things were difficult. Later on in my life, around forty, when things were better I bought a brand new Brother punchard machine with a ribber attachment. I loved it and made many things. Life took a different turn, I moved countries twice and along the way, regrettably I sold it.

Now, through the universe's blessing I now have another machine. It is a vintage one because they stopped making them early 90's but works perfectly and I love it. So I decided to make this blog to document my knitting progress and include sewing projects.

In 2013: we embarked on a new hobby, leather-work. My husband got started with it and it drew me in. It is something we can do together. We have a workshop so have plenty of room to work. We added another workbench for me to work on in 2013. We already had one but we were tripping over each other both trying to work at it. We only make things we want to make. It is strictly a hobby. We made some things for our good neighbours who help us out a lot. I am also working on Christmas presents. So this blog now incorporates the leather-work. Knitting and sewing will always be my first love though.

Fast forward to 2023 and now age almost 75 years. I have seven sewing machines, four knitting machines, several ribber attachments and a garter carriage for one of the machines. I am blessed beyond words, but I know that I have more than enough machines to keep me going in my lifetime so I don’t think I will be adding to my collection any time soon……….unless a nice embroidery machine manifests itself very cheaply.

I am a Brit living in the USA, sometimes I spell like a Brit and sometimes like an American. Sometimes I use slang and even make grammatical errors. I blog for the pleasure of it and to record my endeavours in the event that my memory fades, as I am sure it will with more age. I will be able to look back and remind myself of the things I have made along the way. So please forgive my mistakes when reading about my life making things here in the hinterlands and I hope you get as much enjoyment from my blog as I do from reading the blogs I follow.