I finished the sweater.....almost

I finished the sweater today, all the knitting and sewing up anyway.  Just have to get a cute button for the neckband tomorrow.  I remembered when my kids were little they didn't much like having tight necked sweaters  pulled over their heads so I decided to leave a little opening on the left front seam and made a loop for a button so it will make it easier to get on and off.

I was happy how the neckband came out.  One of the books I bought from Alibris was 'The Machine Knitters Guide to the Ribber' by Betty Bailey.  It was printed in 1988 but was in perfect condition for being second hand.  I bought four knitting books for $14 from them.  Postage was $14 too but still a great deal.  But I digress.  When reading through this book which is full of useful info and patterns I saw a pattern for a round neck sweater which had the cast on edge as the edge. When the neckband is knitted and all the stitches transferred onto the main bed you pick up the stitches from the three parts sewn up item onto the needles with the neckband on then knit one row then cast off.  I thought this was a good idea so that you get the nice cast on edge rather than a casted off edge.  And to be truthful, I haven't tried casting off rib yet so this seemed like the quickest and easiest way to go.

The longest part was picking up the stitches but it didn't take too long. I crocheted a loop ready for the button.  I left the neck open about two and a half inches so it should slip over my grandson's head easily.

I am sure I am going to be making lots of things on my machine now I have completed the first one after twenty plus years absence from using a knitting machine.

Now if I can only get used to all the levers and what they do so I don't have to have the manual right by my side every step of the way!

I really do like making things............

How did I forget this, it was hard work!

I made this robe for my husband for the winter of 2010.  My mother in law, who passed away last year, was a wonderful seamstress, knitter, crocheter, quilter etc, etc, etc.  You name it, she made it.  She had made him a robe years ago which he loved.  It was made from terry toweling and it just plain wore out.  I patched it a few times but if finally gave up the goat.

I didn't want to make one with terry toweling because it frays so much.  We looked at fabric and I wanted to use fleece as it sews so nicely and doesn't fray.  He didn't like any of the patterns on the fleece fabric. We thought we would try another store but as we were walking out there were some throws on sale for $5 each.  'That's what I want my robe made of"  he declared

Its like a fleece but had a pile and a big pattern to try and match.

We bought four of them and they sat at home for a while while I pondered on them.  I had found a pattern which was very similar to his old one so one day I decided to get at it.

Guess what though, it frayed.....and terribly!  It made a huge mess cutting it out in the spare room where I have my sewing machine and now my much loved knitting machine. Being a trooper though I soldiered on and got it cut out and managed to match the fronts and backs to each other and the sleeves to each other.  The only thing that didn't match was the band that went all around the edge which was impossible to match because of the angles of the neck edge.

I had to make french seams for everything as I don't have an over-locker but it all worked out well.  My machine struggled with the thickness sometimes but I just hand sewed anything that was too thick to go through the machine.

The fabric although thick is very soft so the thick seams aren't a problem.

So here it is. I hope this one lasts as long as his last one because I wouldn't relish making another one, not with that fabric anyway.  I think with just ordinary fleece it would be quite simple though.

A useful link

I have put up a link on the sidebar and also in this post for the Hong Kong knitting shop.  I have found them to be very reasonably priced and they ship for free. They ship the day of the order and I have received both my orders here in Missouri  within a week of ordering.

http://shop.sckmcl.com.hk

I was having difficulties finding a supplier of parts in the US and so far this place has had everything I need.

And no! I'm not on commission lol, just thought they were worth a mention.

I dug through my photos and found some of my previous projects

Here are some of my previous projects.  We had a spate of babies, grand kids and grand nieces and nephews and that was when I decided the knitting needles should come out again. The last sweater I hand knitted was an Arran one in a beautiful buttercup color and I forgot to take a photo before I mailed it off.

Oh dear, it sucks to be getting older and more forgetful!

(Since living in Northern America (Canada and the US) for fifteen years I have picked up some of their not so nice sayings, 'sucks to be....' being one of them. But I guess, when in Rome.....and all that lol).

I realized that my sewing these past years had been mainly limited to making curtains although I did make one summer dress for my grand daughter but that was a very easy garment.  The hardest part being the tie up straps on the top.

Wrong date on this, I had forgotten to reset date after charging battery on camera, made this in 2010

Now I have my machine I think I will be much more prolific with my projects.  That's the plan anyway!

Made for my granddaughter. She is four now and still wears it.  It kinda grew with her

Shoes for a friend's granddaughter

Another for my granddaughter

One for a grand nephew

Wrong date on this too, I made this June 2010 for my grandson.

Living room curtains, there are two windows this size so made two sets

Sunroom curtains.  there are two other windows in this room two that I made sets for

I searched for more but I must have deleted them.......thank goodness eh?

Off to sew up the sweater ready to do the neckband.  I dreamed about it and that I did the neckband in the contrast color so that's what I'm going to do.

Thanks Susan

I got a comment on one of my posts from Susan about how to set stitches back out of use whilst splitting the piece for the neck.  She has put up many videos on her blog which are great.  So now I know how to put the stitches out of use using the ravel chord and also have a heads up about using the knit radar.

Thanks Susan

wow me!

I knitted the second sleeve this afternoon and it only took one hour and twenty minutes. It came hot on the heels of the one I did Monday afternoon so I remembered where I had make mistakes on that one and so I managed to avoid them today.  No need for a picture, it looks just like the other one lol.

Yeah, found time to do a sleeve today!

I found the time this afternoon to do a sleeve.

It was not without mistakes lol but I managed to unravel the wrong bit and pick up the good bit onto ravel chord and then transfer it back onto the machine to complete.

Took some more pictures too.

The machine set up with the ribber attachment

The knitting on the machine for ribbing

After ribbing done and all stitches transferred to main bed. The ribber is dropped to give easier access to main bed

The left sleeve

Early night tonight as we have the trip to Columbia tomorrow.

Goodnight.....

Sweater progress report.

I have been on a bit of a spring cleaning session but decided yesterday to try again to knit the front of the sweater.

It was not without difficulties! It took three and a half hours and should have only took about two. I remembered this time to set the punchcard to move so I didn't get the dreaded stripes and I got up to where I had to shape the neck. This involved splitting the work. I thought that I would leave one side on the needles in the holding position. So to be sure this would work I went back to the trusty manual. Oh no! for that to work I would have to move the russell levers from the ll to l position. I had no idea how this would affect the knitting and didn't want to lose what I had done. So I had a brain wave. Use the ravel chord!

For those who don't know, a ravel chord is a nylon chord that pulls out very easily so you can knit with it to hold stitches. Great I thought, easy peezy! Except having used the chord to manually knit the required stitches onto it.....of which there was only 23, I realised that there was nothing to stop the ravel chord stitches unravelling when I took them of the needles. That's where I think the waste yarn knitting comes in I had read about. I thought it would be easiier to just thread the ravel chord back through the ravel chord stitches to stop them from unravelling. So that's what I did, but it wasn't quite so simple as it sounds. I had to do it while the stitches were still on the needle because of the texture of the chord had I taken them off they would have just unraveled. I got it done though.

This added about an hour to the process.

I casted off the center stitches and proceeded on the rest of the needles to shape the neck edge and the sleeve edge. That went well.

Back to the stitches on the ravel chord.

I managed to get the stitches back on the needles and the ravel chord out and continued on to do the neck and sleeve shaping. Ravel chord is my friend!!!

I was well pleased with myself!

I went downstairs clutching said completed front piece to impress my husband.

He was hungry lol so I stopped and did lunch.

I was gloating about my work and was spreading it out to show him when the glaring error hit me. I had shaped the second side backwards. ie. I had done the sleeve shaping on the neck edge and the neck shaping on the sleeve edge. Arrgghh!!!!

I was distraught but thought about it and realized that I could maybe save it by unravelling the offending side to where I started the neck shaping on the picked up stitches. It was easy to know where that was because I had broken the yarn to start on that section. Phew! I picked up the stitches by threading my new found friend the ravel chord through them first just to ensure they didn't run then transferred them to the machine and completed the shaping the correct way this time.

That took about 30 minutes but it was done. yeah, so now I have the back and the front done.

Next to start on the sleeves.

I spent last night writing out the sleeve pattern longhand on a row by row basis where shaping is involved.

When I started hand knitting again about 5 years ago I realized my ability to remember where I was in a pattern was gone so I write out my hand knitting patterns too and I can mark off the rows as I go.

It takes a little longer but it works for me.

Tuesday and Thursday we are at the VA hospital, today I have to shop so probably Wednesday before I get back to it.

It's still really hot here, still no rain. I got up at 4.30am to go to the bathroom and the a/c was still blasting away. Will have to take out a bank loan to pay this months electric bill!!! But it is nice to be cool indoors. We keep it set at 74F. We would like it a little cooler but are realistic about the cost.

Can't wait for when we can open up the windows again and let the cool fresh air in. Come on Fall!!

just one teensy weensy thing I forgot!!!!!

So, I had time this afternoon for knitting so upstairs I went to the spare room where I have my machine set up.

I casted on perfectly, I ribbed perfectly, I transferred all the stitches perfectly, I weighted it perfectly, I put in the punchcard perfectly, I did my row for it to remember the pattern and off I went on the pattern. The contrast color was knitting in OK so I was knitting up a storm.

Now on machine knitting you can only see the back of the knitting but a dozen rows into the pattern I could see something was wrong. It looked like it was doing just stripes instead of patterns.

I checked everything and I had forgotton just one step!!!!It was to take the punchcard lever off of stop to go. (round spot to triangle) arrgghh!!!!! This meant that the punchcard wasn't going through so it was just repeating the one row.

So I got stripes, which my husband and I both agree are pretty nifty but it doesn't match the back lol.

At least I know how to make vertical stripes now!

Going to see if I can get pictures and post but first I need a cup of tea.

Too late to start again this afternoon. Need a good couple of hours without interruptions and I won't get that now, plus that cup of tea is calling to me.

Too bad we already had pie and ice cream, I could have wallowed in self pity over a plateful of that. Maybe a cookie with my tea will help.

A knitting blog I read has the lady quoting that she makes a lot of things but most of all she makes mistakes. I can certainly relate to that! But, I'm still very much enjoying the challenges.

This is what it should have looked like

This is what I got.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow lol.

Yeah, I've started a garment

I decided to make a sweater for the smallest member of the family, baby Henry who is seven months old now and lives in NJ where they have cold winters.

Yesterday, I took the bull by the horns and started. The new parts had arrived from Hong Kong and I changed them for the worn ones and was ready to go.

I finally found a pattern I liked for a raglan sleeve round neck sweater so I had run out of excuses. Yesterday afternoon I did the back! It involved using the ribber and the punchcard and doing a lot of decreasing. Going cautiously, it took about two hours.

I am so happy, happy, happy.......

Knitting update

Oh no cries the reader, not again! Well, this is my blog so there.....so this is the latest.

I didn't do anything yesterday on the machine, just wasn't in a very good mood and also was busy. I went out and mowed a couple of hours before it got too hot but I stayed out too long and was very hot when I got back in. The heat makes me grumpy.

Added to that, my husband was all fired up about Google+ and wanted me to set mine up and was in here on my computer doing stuff to do that. I wasn't ready to do it, I don't like change plus I like my Facebook, so that made me grumpier.

Then we went to town to eat and shop and by this time it was really hot. Lunch was excellent. Fast food again! Am I becoming a fast food junkie?????

We went to shop but my husband was tired by this time. He got a haircut from the instore hairdresser but she didn't cut his hair as he wanted so he was grumpy too. We got the basics stuff we needed then headed off to get gas and coffee.

I dropped my full cup of coffee in the store when getting it from under the dispenser so I felt really bad for the sales clerk who had to clean it all up.

We left the gas station and went to DQ for ice cream. That was good!

Then we came home and I put away the shopping.

My husband had gone to lie down and I joined him. I slept till 5.30pm, I couldn't believe it. He had only napped briefly so had been up quite a while.

So that was my day yesterday....but!!!

The day before I had been on the machine and did two perfect test pieces, one with the ribber and one without. My home made round brush covers worked just fine so now I am going to embark on a garment........

Um, I recall saying that some time ago lol, but this time I think I am really ready.

This afternoon maybe...........

Oh as an afterthought. I bought a barbie doll yesterday. Can you believe it they are less than $6 for a basic doll. I missed the Barbie era, they were before my time.

Anyway, the dresses I made out of test pieces fit perfectly! Yeah! Maybe a picture will be added later.

My oh my, I need to get a life!!!!

What can I say??? I have been quite busy this morning. I cooked breakfast, I did washing and hung it out and bought in yesterday's. I've made a loaf of bread and stripped the bed so I deserve a little down time...right? lol.

Googled Barbies too and apparantly they came out in 1959 so I have no idea why I never had one, I would have been 11 years old then. Ah, maybe it was because I thought I was all grown up by then and into pop music.

Instant gratification...it ain't!

I spent a lot of time on the knitting machine over the weekend. Saturday afternoon I decided to set up the ribber attachment. I believed I followed the instructions but it didn't work. Tried several times to no avail. I came downstairs muttering that I had bought a hunk of junk.

We watched the NASCAR race and I finished reading a book and had my usual NASCAR nap. I was very, very tired and couldn't stay awake even though my guy was in the lead.

Sunday, I was giving some thought to the machine and decided to go back and try again. Again, no joy. I realized that I mustn't have it set up correctly so I went through the manual again and lo and behold I had missed a step completely. I redid it and had some success. I managed to knit in rib but I had lost stitches off the side and this time I couldn't blame it on the carriage arm because it wasn't attached. How's that for logic lol? I tried again and ribbed some more which was going really well until I dropped a stitch from the side again. I then tried to see if I could transfer the stitches from the ribber bed to the main carriage and proceed in plain knitting. Now this part I managed perfectly! So I did about 6 inches in plain and cast off. I could see where the stitch had dropped and I think it was because i didn't have it weighted equally.

Barbie now has another dress, this time a blue one. She is going to be one well dressed barbie by the time I've finished practising!

I made some makeshift round brush covers for the main carriage arm. That really awful clear plastic packaging that everything comes in these days that you have to cut off and is really sharp is actually perfect for making the little round covers. I made some yesterday and they work just fine on the main machine arm.

So progress was made over the weekend but still no real garments in the works yet. I will practice with the ribber some more before I embark on one.

The books I bought off the Alibris website are wonderful, full of very helpful and useful information and tips and lots of patterns. I even found a pattern for a doggy coat on the internet so Boris will be getting his coat......eventually.

I can't remember having this many problems before but I was a lot younger then and my attention to detail was much better but I am sure I will get there. Meantime I am having fun but as the title of this entry states

"Instant gratification...it ain't!"

Knitting machine update

I haven't had chance to do anything with the knitting machine since Monday other than order some new brushes from a supplier I found in Hong Kong.

They also had a ribber manual which you could purchase and download. On Monday I had tried to assemble the ribber and found out that the manual the kind lady had taken the time to copy and send me wasn't the exact same model so it had different parts to mine to attach the ribber to the machine and I couldn't work out how to do it.. So finding the actual manual at this Hong Kong online shop was a bonus and she emailed it to me and I printed it up. Now I understand what the problem was so when I next get chance to work on it I should be able to get it all set up. It didn't help that the ribber I purchased came with some additional fittings that didn't belong to it lol and I was trying to fit those!. I found this out when I printed up the ribber manual and it had a list of parts that came with it.

So all is going well, just need to find some time to work on it.

Tomorrow we are going to Kansas City to take care of some business and hopefully sell some of our corals which have multiplied like crazy in the fish tank.

So look likes Saturday before I get anymore knitting stuff done.

I have encountered a snag with the knitting

Yesterday afternoon I tried many times to start on a garment and I kept having problems with the every other stitch casting on again. I finally realized that it is not me. At first I put it down to user error but the same thing kept happening over and over again and always on the right side. When I took off the front plate I could see that one of the round brush covers was warped. I had managed to find a maintenance manual online so I knew the correct names to look up on the internet for availability. I have found a source for all spare parts for my machine, it is Hong Kong but the shipping is free. The parts are not outrageously priced either.

I was a little dubious about the supplier but it shows up all over the place and on ebay too and has good feedback so I will go ahead and order some, probably through ebay as they have buyer protection.

I also found a great website about machine knitting and problems and sure enough, the looping I am getting is caused by worn round brushes.

What on earth did we do before the internet eh?

Meantime I have two options. It seems to knit well on every stitch so I could do a turned edge or I could put on the ribber as to use the ribber you have to take off the plate that has the faulty brushes.

Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Meanwhile, I will order the parts then ponder some more.

Am I ready for the ribber???? That is the burning question of the day!

Time to embark on a garment on the knitting machine

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday experimenting on the knitting machine. Still haven't 100% conquered he casting on for mock rib which is using every other needle but two out of three times it works OK so I must be on the right track. I also did some punchcard knitting yesterday. The darned manual didn't tell me how to resume normal knitting so the first time I did it I lost my stitches. Had to think through the process and came up with a sequence of moving levers that worked so the second attempt was good. It's a case of understanding what the levers do as opposed to just following instructions because then the instructions make sense plus you can also logic through the processes.

My last test piece sewed up nicely into a Barbie dress (now I have to go and pick up a Barbie doll but that's OK because I have a 4 yr old grand daughter so by the time I've finished she will have a Barbie fully outfitted lol). Another test piece, the one where I lost the stitches, will make a cute doll's hat. I picked up the stitches with a darning needle and pulled it through so just have to sew it up the side.

Soooooo, now I am going to embark on a garment. A child's sweater using mock rib and having a bit of fairisle going round the bottom of the body and the sleeves. I will make it using a size 2 pattern which I assume is age 2 and see how it comes out. With two grandsons, one just over one year and one 6 months, it will fit one of them at some time. If it knits up small then it will be ready for the next new baby that comes along. How's that for improvising? Eventually I will be able to knit exactly what size I want but for now it's all experimental....but such good fun.

I need to make something to boost my confidence. It's not that I'm new to machine knitting, I've had three others along the way but over 20 years ago and this one is a different make. The mechanical ones all work on the same basic principles but the levers are different and take a lot of getting used to.

So that's my plan but first of all I have an apple pie to make......it is almost July 4th after all and what can be more American than hot apple pie and icecream.

Knitting machine update

I didn't do any practice yesterday as we worked on the fishtank all day as stated in my previous post. I did make progress on Sunday though. I mastered the e-loop casting on method which I was having so many problems with.....yeah me! I was getting over confidant though and thought maybe I should start on a garment lol. Well, I wanted to use the punchcard and try a pattern for the grand daughter and see how the two colours went together so I followed the instructions but it didn't work, so I tried again and it still didn't work. In hind site, I think I had the second yarn threaded wrong but it was time to quit at that point so I will try again, probably after the hospital stay is over and done with.

Who knows, maybe the treatment will work and my husband will be as he was and we will be so busy catching up with all the jobs that have not got done the past couple of years that I won't get chance to be on the knitting machine for months.........a small price to pay!

The new addition....the knitting machine

Just a couple of shots of the new machine and a piece of practice work.

Had the perfect spot for it in the spare bedroom complete with seat right by it so Edward can come up and observe lol

Note the instruction manual isn't far away!

a practice piece, casted on using the instructions in the book but haven't mastered casting on every other stitch yet. That's tomorrow's project. I did make it into a double hem to see how it looks.

Remembered how to make holes and I casted it all off afterwards.

Some mowing done, shopping next and hopefully some knitting m/c practice in later

Yesterday's plans got thwarted so no shopping or mowing got done yesterday afternoon. (that wasn't a bad thing though and that's all I'm saying about that lol)

Did get some mowing done this morning and just having lunch now then shopping this afternoon. Hopefully will get some knitting practice in later but if not, for sure will tomorrow. Had some good tips from my knitting friend Julie and have watched a couple of Youtube videos so am raring to go on the casting on. The knitting, increasing, decreasing and casting off I remembered well from before but for some reason casting on successfully and neatly is evading me for the time being.

Will take some pictures of the machine and post them later for my good buddy Laura who I have known now for a number of years and had somehow with held my obsession of knitting machines from. She is my best friend and confidante too so how that never got out I have no idea!

Off I go..........

An amazing kindness shown by a total stranger

Back to the knitting machine for this post. The ribber didn't have a manual which I knew when I bought it. I thought it would be easy to find one on the internet but I had searched relentlessly for over a week to no avail. Somewhere in my search though I came across a knitting forum and someone who had bought a similar machine to mine had asked a question and another lady, Julie, who was familiar with the machine had responded to her. Based on the remote chance that Julie might also have a ribber I sent her a message and asked if by any chance she did and did she have a manual for it. She replied the same day saying that she did have a manual, albeit a little old and worn but she would try to get it copied the next day. She did and put it in a pdf file and emailed it to me last night.

How amazing that this total stranger took time out of her busy life to do that for me?

I was blown away by her kindness.

Julie, if you ever read this blog, please know that I am eternally grateful to you.

Shopping on the cards for today and if it dries up a little some mowing then hopefully some knitting practise time later today.

Check out Alibris second hand books

I have used Alibris before to buy used books but had forgotten about it until today when I was googling knitting machine books. I found some real bargains, 3 hardback and one paperback for $14 plus shipping of $14 as they were coming from three different bookshops but still a great bargain.

Did get some mowing done this morning and my husband did manage to get down and check the blades, all of which need replacing but he did it. He is such a trooper. We will pick up new blades tomorrow on our way to the VA hospital.

Appointment with the neurologist tomorrow, keeping all fingers and toes crossed for some better news and/or a course of treatment.

I called the nurse on Monday and told her we had been to see the neuro surgeon at the University hospital last Thursday so the neurologist would have a heads up and she advised us to go and pick up the notes before coming to see him as the VA takes forever to scan in notes from other hospitals....as we are well aware! so we will do that.

Off to practise on the knitting machine again......

Yeah, the knitting machine arrived.

I spent yesterday catching up with correspondence, filing, making phone calls and bill paying so when it arrived I would be free to enjoy it. Well, I waited and waited and waited and finally at 7pm the UPS guy showed up with it. I was like a kid at Christmas. I opened it up and checked it was what the seller on ebay had purported it to be and it was. I read the manuals to familiarize myself with the parts and terminology etc. I was exhausted by the time I went to bed and actually slept like a log.

This morning I took it upstairs and assembled the main bed. I decided to play around with that before attempting to incorporate the ribber. Well, what can I say?....I dropped stitches, I got tangles, you name it I did it wrong. So many different levers to keep changing but I'll get the hang of it. I tried the punch card and it seems to work OK, but haven't got the hang of the correct tensions and hanging on the weights yet. All in good time.

I was happy with today's progress but realize I have to practice a lot more before I embark on a garment.

The grass needs mowing and I just haven't felt like doing it, have to go to town to get gas and the blades need sharpening which involves my husband and he just hasn't felt up to it. He is just so exhausted all the time and is finding it more difficult to get up and down even out of chairs so getting down to lie on the shop floor and take the blades off doesn't look like it will be on the cards for much longer, if at all. Maybe he will feel a little better tomorrow and it is supposed to be cooler too.

Will try to get out and do a little mowing in the morning. We have a bit of gas in it and if the blades hold out I should get some done. Maybe a trip into town later in the day for gas but to be honest I have enjoyed the past few days of going 'nowhere' so am a little loathe to go out tomorrow. We have to go to Columbia Thursday so could pick up gas on the way home......if we remember to take the gas cans with us lol.