I ordered a wool winder today

I have been researching wool winders for a while.  After I screwed up rewinding my cone two days ago I realised that sooner would be better than lately as I need to rewind that into a usable cone so I can use it on my current project. (more about that later)  There are some all metal ones on the market.  One of them has more gears than the other making it go faster.  That was the one I was going to order, it was $42.  The other one was $40.  After looking around ebay some more this morning I found someone else selling the one with lesser gears for less money, $36.95 and they had a make an offer option too.  Also, they had stated that they had tried the winders and found the two metal yarn feeders to be substandard as the finish on them was rough and they had replaced them with nicely chromed feeders.

I made an offer of $33 expecting it to be rejected but they accepted it and my wool winder is on it's way. I made the offer and then went out to mow.  While driving around on the mower I was thinking I should just have paid the full price and be done with it cos they have 48hrs to accept or decline your offer. I had only been out about half an hour when my husband came out and called me over to say they had accepted my offer so he was going to pay for it. (We use the same ebay and paypal account lol)

Wow, I just checked on ebay to find the listing number to post and he has upped the price to $39.95.  Didn't I do well?

Anway this is the item link

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Large-Metal-Yarn-Fiber-Wool-String-Ball-Winder-10-oz-/390351167670?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5ae2be20b6#ht_735wt_997

Can't wait for it to get here.

Now back to my project.  I have emailed my daughter in law to get up to date measurements for my granddaughter so I can make the correct size of jacket for her so will proceed with that when I get them later tonight.  (She is out on a photo shoot right now, she is a professional photographer).

Tomorrow will be out all day at the VA hospital with my husband so will be Friday when i get back to it.

I wish I was as prolific with my knitting as some of my knitter friends.

A disappointing afternoon

I was ready and eager to start on my next garment.  I have a knit radar pattern I like, I have the yarn, I had a spare few hours.  It was the perfect time.

I started off great.  The ribbing went well, the transfer to main bed went well, I set up the tuck patterning perfectly and the knit radar was working wonderfully. I glanced at the carriage and misinterpretated what I saw.  The lever was on tuck and to the left and opposite the 4 on the tension dial.  I misread it as the tension being on 4 and I wanted it to be 6.  I had only done a few rows in the tuck pattern so thought it wouldn't make too much difference to change the tension to 6.  So what did I do???? I moved the lever back to the centre so it was opposite the 6 and continued knitting.

Duh!  It was doing stockinette.  I was confused until I realised what I had done.

Oh well, no big deal, just unravel it and start again.  I wound it back onto the cone but did it too tightly and made it into a kingpin shape.

Oh well, no big deal until I tried knitting with it and it wouldn't unravel because of the bulge at the top.

Fortunately I had another cone so I set the new one up and started again.

This time the ribbing wasn't going well and when I dropped the main bed after transferring the stitches I could see that it had done it's weird thing that it does sometimes.

Oh well no big deal, just unravel it and start again.  I also resited the ribber.

I started again,  this time the rib went perfectly, the transfer to main bed went perfectly and it started knitting perfectly.

I was nearly up to the armhole shaping when I saw that something wasn't right with the pattern.  It had started about 5 rows down in the middle.  I thought that the knitting had caught on the gate pins but it wasn't that.  I guessed it was a dropped stitch so was not recoverable as it is tuck stitch. After i took it off i could see that was exactly what had happened.  It had dropped a stitch.  Thinking about it I think I should have hung weights all along and not just at the edges.  I still had the ribber cast on comb attached with weights on it but I think the knitting needed to be weighted too in the middle.  Will try that next time.

This time it was a big deal.  The afternoon had gone by and it was time for dinner.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow!  

I do think I am going to like using the knit radar.  Just have to up my inventory of patterns.

Finally have a plan for my next project

I wanted to knit a cardigan for my grand daughter who is 4.  I eagerly awaited the knit radar patterns arrival but was confused by them....for a while.  In the meantime I had decided to knit her one from a regular machine knit pattern but when I was checking it out it wasn't going to turn out any bigger than the sweater I knitted for my grandson who is 15 months old so that was a bust!  Also, I realized that my tuck stitch pattern didn't grow as quickly as stocking stitch does so knitting from the pattern I had it wouldn't be anywhere near long enough and whereas it isn't difficult to work out how many extra rows you need to lengthen the body part I wouldn't be quite sure how many extra rows would be needed for the sleeve shaping etc.  I realized that the knit radar would be perfect because it is based on your actual swatch and moves the paper accordingly.

I went back to the knit radar patterns.  I had eventually worked out about the sideways knitting but didn't want to try one of those for my first attempt, plus I am bound and determined to do it in tuck stitch and the patterns weren't suited for that.

There was a nice pattern however for a hoodie but it only went to a size 3 which wouldn't be big enough.
Then I had a brainwave.  Well I think it is, but my knitter friends probably know all this and wouldn't think it was clever at all.

Anyway, here is my plan.

I am going to use a different size ruler thingy (heaven only knows what they are called but they are the things that slip into the knit radar part of the machine that gives you the number of stitches) which will give me more stitches and I will adjust the number of rows on the knit radar so that it doesn't go through the machine so fast. This should give me a bigger garment using the pattern.

I may decide to do just a regular neckband but probably not as it calls for a zipper which makes it more of a jacket than a cardigan so the hood will be appropriate. The pattern calls for a band across the top of the sleeve in a different colour so I might do that and make the hood the same colour as the band.  I have blue yarn the same color as the sweater I knitted for my grandson and a lovely lilac colour yarn which will contrast with it very nicely and make it girly.

I am ready now to start.  I am happy with my pattern choice and I have finally finished punching all the missing cards from the original set that came with the machine so there's nothing to stop me now........

except the mowing and the dozen other things that I need to get done but I will find the time, I am eager to try the knit radar.

Help needed please

I received the knit radar patterns I bought off of ebay.  There isn't one that is exactly what I wanted so will probably proceed with the other pattern.

A couple of the patterns show either the front and backs or the arms knitted sideways.  Is this normal?  Why would you knit a front or a sleeve in two parts?  I am confused but that isn't hard to do these days lol!

Here is the girl's sweater pattern with the sideways sleeves :-

If you click on my photos they enlarge so you can see them better.

How do I do a sleeve?  Do I start with just the few stitches at the narrow edge?  What happens when AI get to the end of the first part of the pattern?  Do I take the pattern out and turn it upside down and proceed so the sleeve knits in one piece?  If so, why didn't they just show it as one piece?

All and any help will be appreciated.

Why do they make things so complicated?????

The other problem with this is that the tuck pattern I want to use won't work sideways. It is the one Alex posted and has vertical lines to mimic Arran knitting and I really want to use it.  Besides I have 4 different swatches I made using that pattern to ascertain how many rows and stitches I needed so I know exactly what tension and what ruler I have to use now.

Another question I have is does the paper have to be exactly this wide?  I have some blank graph paper sheets which came with the machine but it is narrower than the sheets that these patterns come on.  Could I trace the pattern from these ones onto the narrower paper so that it feeds the way I want it to?  I just want to knit a sleeve starting at the bottom. (Hope that makes sense).

Now wouldn't you just believe it? my camera battery went flat!

But! I was not to be beaten, I took this next one with my husband's phone so hopefully you can read it.

Can anyone translate into idiot proof instructions the part about the sleeves.

Picture not too clear but this is what it says:-

Knit back

Finish the knitting by waste knitting

Knit front

Finish the knitting by waste knitting

Knit four pieces of the sleeve for back and front sleeves.

With waste yarn, cast on and knit several rows.

Work partial knitting by increasing stitches to shape underarm

Finish the knitting by waste knitting

Knit two pieces of yolk in a symmetrical pattern

*Before knitting yoke join the front sleeve to the armhole

Pick up last row stitches of front and sleeve and place them onto needles.

Knit the neckband

Knit two pieces of the cuff.

Thanks in anticipation.

Always learning

After ironing the swatch I re washed it and tumble dried it.  It didn't go back to it's original state so ironing is a definite no no for a sweater.  However I now know that I can use the tuck patterns to knit a scarf.  Un-ironed it curls at the edges so would not be good for a scarf but after it has been ironed even if you re-wash and tumble dry it , it still stays flat.  So something else learned!

I now have a bunch of swatches in the washing machine to see how they react to the washing and drying process.  

Yes!, it is cool and damp outside today so the tumble dryer will be in use.

Such a nice change from the heat we have had all summer.

Also my knit radar patterns haven't arrived yet so in readiness I have found a pattern I can use.  I am trying to hold out until they get here.

Still punching away at the punch cards to bring my set up to the original 20.  I have four more to do so have done six. They are quite tedious lol but gives me something to do while my husband watches College football! (*see note below)

Went to a city wide garage sale yesterday to out nearest town.  For my English friends a garage sale is like a jumble sale except it is done from your house and usually in the garage, most of which are two car garages or more.  Yesterday it was a good job as it poured with rain most of the day.  I went with the hope of finding some yarn or knitting stuff and even the hopes that someone had a machine for sale that they had been storing under the bed for years.  No such luck!  But I did pick up an upright Dirt Devil cyclonic vacuum for $5, (the lady was selling everything half price because it was raining),  a thick fluffy rug for a dollar, (now I can burn the dog's bed which is decidedly smelly and I don't want to pollute my washing machine by washing it in it). I also got an unused Circulon griddle pan for $2 ( an absolute bargain and I haggled too cos it was marked at $3 and our old one is at the end of it's useful life) and a Swiffer Wetjet for $2. So a good $10's worth in my humble opinion.

Will do some more punching today. Currently watching the Man U v Chelsea game.  My husband is an avid soccer (football) fan even though he is a Yank lol.

*In the US and Canada, they refer to what we know as football as soccer so as not to confuse it with their version of football which is actually more like rugby.

I think that as the Yanks and Canadians use our language they could at least use the right words lol but I am a lonely British voice in the middle or Redneck land so I usually keep those thoughts to myself!

I remember now why I don't iron anymore!

That's not exactly true.  I do iron shirts when required, ie. weddings and funerals but knitwear never! I either dry it flat if it calls for that but mostly I machine wash and tumble dry.

Today I decided to do the swatch for the next sweater or cardigan (still undecided until my patterns arrive).  It looked great.  I didn't take a photo.  The book said to steam press the swatch before measuring.

Now where did I put the iron again?  Oh yes, I remember, up in the spare bedroom closet.  So I found it and set the ironing board up and plugged it in.  I added the water and pressed the swatch. It is now almost half as big as it was before I ironed it and the tuck stitch pattern is flattened!  Now as I am sure my daughters in law don't iron knitwear either I am going to have to wash and tumble dry the swatch and hope it goes back to it's original state before taking the measurements I will use.

Out of curiosity I will take the pressed swatch measurements too just to see the difference.  The book did say to wait a couple of hours before doing that so maybe it will shrink back a bit.

Off to hide the darned iron again!

well darn!!!!!

I was bidding on a very old machine.  A Knittax M2.  The good thing was that the  mailing was very reasonable and that makes a big difference here in the US.  I was high bidder at $5.55 but at the last minute someone came in.  I upped my highest bid a couple of times but I wasn't prepared to go above $18.  After all, I don't need it, I have a super machine and ribber.  I just wanted it but where do you draw the line?  For me it is about practicality.  We are seniors on a fixed income so I bid up to my maximum and it went for a few cents more.

Oh well, there will be another one one day.

I hate bidding on ebay, it raises my blood pressure!

Definition of time dragging.....

When you've got a bid in on ebay and you are the highest bidder and there's only five minutes to go and you don't know whether or not to up your highest bid cos do you want to miss it for a dollar or two!!!!!!

Will let you know in 5 minutes folks.........

Filling in time

As I am waiting for my knit radar patterns to arrive before starting on another sweater I decided to go on an internet  hunt for my missing punch cards.  When I bought my machine the only things missing were 10 of the original punch card set of 20 and the knit radar patterns.  I have purchased one set of kid's knit radar patterns from ebay UK and can purchase a man's set later from them, so am on my way to getting  those. Still need to locate a woman's set or the original set which I believe had men's women's and kid's patterns

I found one site that had two images of all the patterns in the original punch card set and miraculously I found a pdf file which had images of each punch card individually.  I printed the ones I was missing and have started on punching them.

As several of my missing cards were for tuck patterns there are a lot of holes to punch lol!

I have done three so far.  Two were perfect but on the busiest one I made a mistake. Had to get out the nail varnish again!  At least this is something I can do in the comfort of our living room.

I also found a site where I could purchase the original set of punch cards for $24.95 plus shipping and might at some later date purchase them but for now I will punch away!  I need other stuff first.

Any recommendations for a good wool winder?  Do I need to buy a jumbo one or will a standard one suffice?

KR7 patterns on ebay

This is the link to the patterns I bought on ebay.  They seem like a great deal so I am posting it on here in case anyone is looking for patterns.  The sale ends soon it says.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KR7-Patterns-Knitmaster-Empisal-Silver-Knitting-Machine-/190289077199?pt=UK_Crafts_Knitting_Crochet_EH&hash=item2c4e1ce3cf#ht_940wt_1293

Grrrrrr!

Is any one else getting their blog attacked by something that makes words into links?  I had to go back and change the past few blogs because some of the words were showing up in green and were links to sites giving away things.  Anyone know how to stop this please?????????

I got me a whirly gig!

I had forgotten to post about my successful eBay bid.  I wanted to pick up a wool winder and a skein holder at some point so I can obtain skeins of yarn if I see something I really like.  I didn't want to pay a lot as the likelihood of using them very often is quite remote.  Anyway, I saw the whirly gig on ebay so thought I would put in a bid.  I was prepared to pay up to $10.  I entered when it was around $5.  I got it for $8.52 brand new with $5.95 postage. Around $9.40 UKP all in. Another seller was selling them for $14.99 plus postage of $8.00 so I think I got a good deal.

Here it is....

Next is the wool winder and then some skein yarn.

Also I found a KR7 children's pattern set on sale on ebay-uk for 1.82 UKP and postage of 4 UKP buy it now so I bought those too.  Will perhaps wait for them to get here before I start on my next project so I can use the Knit radar.  Also I still have some of Susan's videos to watch on using knit radar.  I watched four last night.  Our internet is quite slow so watching videos takes up a lot of bandwidth so I do it at night after my husband has gone to bed so as not to interfere with his computer use.

I will do a swatch in the meantime and see if I can work out which ruler thingy to use.

The same company also has a website for online sales.  They have a man's set too for 5.82 UKP with 5 UKP postage.  I will buy them if I like using the knit radar. I am sure I can find something in there I can use as a base for making myself a sweater.  Gotta love pay pal for being able to purchase using different currency.

The finished product

Well here it is, finished finally.  A big learning experience on this one but thoroughly enjoyed every minute even if the air was a tad blue at times.  Only Boris the dog was in earshot so no harm done lol.  He likes to come and lie down in the room when I'm knitting.

Not going to start on the next one for a few days.  Now that the temperature has cooled down a bit it's time to get out and catch up with the seven acres of mowing that really needs doing.

Will be checking in though every day to see how my fellow bloggers are doing on their projects.

Finally got the neckband done and attached and a reminder to self to think twice about doing a mitred ribbed V neck sweater ever, ever again!

In my last post I had knitted one part of the neckband, finally realizing that I couldn't do increasing on the ribber with the cast on comb still between the two beds.  So I ventured on with the second half but this time casted it off tighter.  It attached to the garment OK and i could see that the tighter cast off was much better.

So I decided to re do the other part of the neckband.  I did try the obvious thing of just undoing the casting off and putting it back on the machine and casting off again but it was taking forever and I dropped a stitch that I couldn't pick up so decided to just re knit it.  That part doesn't take very long at all.  Then I casted it off tightly.......way too tightly as I discovered when I tried to put it back on the machine to join it to the garment.  So, I did a third one and this time was successful!  The only thing I am a little disappointed in is the thickness of the join.  Had I been able to leave the neckband,without having to cast it off, on the machine and bring the garment to it it would have been better. But doing the mitred neckline was the reason I couldn't do it that way.

So my neckband took almost as long as the rest of it lol.  I could never make a living out of this! I would be working for pennies per hour at the speed I go!

So here it is pre final sewing up.  Look at all the ends!  where do they all come from??????

This is all I have to show for nearly three hours knitting lol!

Alex and Susan have been very productive, not so me today!  I still can't do increasing in rib when I have just casted on and the cast on comb is still up between the gate pegs of the two beds. There just isn't room to hand the big hook thing on there to hold down the zig zag made by pulling out an extra needle.  So not to be beaten I decided to reverse what I wanted to do and make the mitre by increasing instead.  This means though, that I can't use the nice casted ON edge as the open edge and as I have to have the casted OFF edge as the open edge, I can't leave the neckband on the machine and bring the garment to it.

So, I did a sample run on waste yarn to see if I could get the neckband back on the needles and bring the garment to it and get that on too then join them to see how it would look.  It actually will work fine.

So then I decided to do the first half of the neckband (well, it's actually more than half as it goes across the back then across the top of one arm and down one side of the front) and goodness only knows what I did wrong but it was only knitting on every other stitch like I was doing mock rib but I was using the ribber!!!!! Go figure on that one lol.

Anyway, I tried again and this time was more successful.

So my nearly three hour knitted stint produced only this.....but there were a few more lessons learned too.

I am just hoping that the open edge isn't wrinkly when it's all joined up.  Hopefully it will stretch out enough for it not to be.

Tomorrow I will finish the other part of the neckband and attach it all together.

Looking forward to the next project with tuck stitch.        

Google saves the day!

After seeing Alex's tuck stitch swatch I decided to knit my next garment in tuck.  He kindly put up the link to the punch card pattern he used and I printed it out last night.

Today I decided to mark up a blank and punch it out.  As you can see it has a lot of holes to punch and I decided to make it the full length of the blank card rather than the shortened one.

I was doing great until my husband came into the room and started chatting.  At that point I should have laid it down....but no, I was feeling over confident and carried on punching away.  I punched a wrong hole.  aarrgghh!!!!!

It took a long time to mark and punch and I didn't want to start all over again.  I thought about using sellotape but it would cover up some of the holes I'd already punched and then it wouldn't have a little hole in it for me to use to re-punch them.

'Google it' my husband said.......so i did and found this very useful tip which I expect you all know but thought I would post about it in case anyone didn't. It was actually in part of the description of a puncher for sale.

Punch Card Punch - This punch card puncher is used for 24 stitch punch cards. Transfer your punch card design to the blank punch card. There is a little point on the cutter in the punch card puncher that you position in the tiny hole of the card. Squeeze the trigger and the hole is punched. If you make a mistake and punch out the wrong hole, take one of the round pieces that collect in the non-breakable reservoir on the puncher. Position it in the incorrect hole. You might want to take a toothpick to hold it there for the next step. Take some red colored nail polish and dab on a tiny bit to glue the center back into the hole. Use red nail polish (or something similar) so you can see where you made the repair. When you go to use the card, check the red spots incase the hole came away from the card. This doesn't usually happen, but it's a great way to make sure.

The amazing thing is that I had nail polish.  I don't usually wear it but I knew that at some time in the distant past I had bought some so I rummaged through my bathroom cabinet and found a bottle which was amazingly still usable.  It wasn't red though!

sleeves done and it's sewn up ready to do the neckline

I got both sleeves done and have it sewn up except for the left back seam.  I just have the neckline to do.  I am going to do it the same as I did the previous sweater in that I make the cast on edge the open edge and then bring the sweater to the machine with the ribbing on (after I have transferred all the stitches onto the main bed) and attach the sweater to the neckband by picking up the stitches along the back, top of sleeve and neck edge then knitting one row and casting off.  This way the nice cast on edge is what shows. Because I am doing a mitred neckband I will do it in two parts.

Should get that done today or tomorrow. Have been kind of putting it off because i can't make up my mind on whether to do it in the contrast colour, or do it in the main colour, or do stripes with two contrast and one main colour or two main colour and one contrast.  decisions, decisions, decisions.........

Looking forward to the next garment.  I think a cardigan for my grand daughter, the third youngest of my grandkids.  Then a sweater for my husband ready for the winter.  Doesn't feel like winter will ever get here, it's going to be 101F for the next three days!!!  Forecast is predicting a bit of a cool down next week though.    Fingers crossed on that!

Sleeve number one in the bag!

I got a sleeve done today.  I revised the pattern so it wasn't so long and I did everything right with the patterning.  The rib on tension 5.1:5.1 came out perfectly so I am a happy camper today.

Sweater non progress report and the burning question of the day!

I have to call it a non progress report because I have not progressed despite doing a sleeve yesterday!  Time to knit this week has been limited but I did grab some yesterday so I thought i would do a sleeve.

I write my patterns out longhand as my attention to detail is not so good these days so if I have a place to increase or decrease I write that section out and tick off rows as I go.  It takes longer but I make fewer mistakes that way.  When I was writing out the sleeve pattern I thought that the sleeve was going to be too long and I almost adjusted it but didn't have the confidence in myself to do so............I should have done so!  It was very long!!!!!

I also made a mistake with the patterning......completely my own fault.  When I had finished doing the pattern section I took out the punch card, reset the punch card lever,  reset the cam lever (I think that's what it is called, the big round one in the middle) and the side levers and proceeded to do a row.  What I had forgotten to do was take out the contrast colour.  I realised this after the first row but didn't think it was a problem because all the stitches on the needles were the main colour.  I took the contrast colour out and carried on.

Everything went smoothly and it only took an hour and a half to complete.  I was excited, but my excitement was short lived when I took it off and turned it over.

Aside from being way too long there was a straight row of the contrast colour at the top of the patterning. So leaving the contrast colour in the yarn feeder on the carriage, even though it didn't seem to knit is NOT the thing to do.  Another lesson learned lol. (No photo as I unraveled it straight away so the yarn wouldn't be too wrinkled to re-knit.  I decided to re-use it this time as I have been wasting a lot of yarn on this one!)

So I will adjust my pattern for the length and try again.

But my burning question of the day is............

Does anyone have a way to see the back (which is really the front) of the knitting while it is on the machine.  I thought of setting up a light and a mirror under the desk or taking my phone up with me and taking pictures but both seem a bit extreme. It would be nice to be able to see it though so I could stop and restart much sooner if I have made a mistake.

Ideas anyone????????

A totally unrelated to knitting and sewing post

Well other than it meant I didn't get any knitting done it is unrelated. But the outcome was well worth skipping the knitting for.

Our downstairs bathroom has had a leaky tap for about 18 months now.  It is one of those things that isn't critical and although annoying, it can be lived with.  Up until a couple of days ago that's what we did.  My husband has a degenerative neuro/muscular disease in which the axons in his nerves are dying off and as a result of that his muscles are wasting so doing any jobs such as changing taps is virtually impossible for him.  The leaky tap got worse two days ago to the point that we had to cut the water off to it which left us with just cold water running in the downstairs loo's sink.

He has been prepping himself for the past two days to get it done and this morning he decided was the day. We have had the new taps for about a year now. So with the aid of a kneely stool, a large sponge wedge and a huge pillow he got down on the floor and worked under the sink and got the old taps removed and plumbed in the new ones.

He was exhausted afterwards and will suffer a lot of pain for a few days but he got it done and here they are.

They are beautiful, not only because they are very nice taps but also because they are not dripping.

I love my husband dearly.

Best of three

I knitted another front yesterday.  When I dropped the ribber bed the rib looked fine so I proceeded on.  The pattern seemed to knit OK so I carried on some more.  The shaping went well for the left side so on I went again and the final side went good too.

I took it off the machine, turned it over and it was almost perfect.  The patterning was fine but the rib was still a bit tight in places.  I stretched it out both longways and sideways and that helped quite a bit so now it is only barely noticeable.

I think I had the tension too tight for the yarn.  I did it on 4:4. Also I don't think I've quite got the hang of the yarn mast tension either so I will loosen that a notch too.

I notice that it only looked tight on the front so maybe I should have used a looser tension on the main carriage.  I will change it for the sleeves, I will probably do them on a 5 for the ribber carriage and a 5.. for the main carriage.

I am happy that I now have a good front and can proceed with the sleeves.

Loving my machine adventures.

For my English friends who may want another machine or have friends who want a knitting machine

Was doing some searching around and found this.  It's a great buy.  100.00 UKP ono. (sorry no pound sign on my yankee computer)

Knitmaster 260L knitting machine, standard gauge with
Lace attachment 360/260L
Ribbing Attachment SRP/50 (still in original box)
Knitradar KR-7(boxed)
Automatic linker SC-3
Intarsia Carriage AG-20- knits argyle patterns without the floating yarn on the back
and lots of accessories inc hole punch, wool winder, punchcards and instruction books/knitting manuals.
http://www.preloved.co.uk/fuseaction-adverts.showadvert/index-1034285981/c0fb5030.html

The puncher is a clever little rascal!

I punched my first card in more than twenty years this morning.  I was a little nervous at first but got back into the hang of it and finding the hole with the little pointy thing.  I was very careful not to squeeze the puncher until it was located safely in the hole.  The punched card came out great, I was very happy with it and myself for not making any errors.  Then I read the box and it said that even if you squeezed it, it wouldn't punch if it hadn't located the hole. Duh! I had forgotten that.  Like I said, it's a clever little rascal.

The new punch card is not quite so thick or stiff as the original and a lot longer.  I think it will be much easier to set up as the shorter one was a bit difficult to wrap round to put the clips on and the second time was more difficult and the third even more so. Also, I believe I have the pattern correct so that if it goes more than one complete turn the pattern will be consistent.

So I was thinking all is going to be honky dory now I have the new punch card and then I got Phil's comment on my previous post.  He has been absolutely correct on everything so far so now I have to go check the needles and the carriage.  Frightening thought is that the ravel chord debacle might have damaged the drums on the carriage.

The back knitted perfectly, going to check the first front though because I had got past the pattern part when I jammed the machine,   Fingers crossed................

Phew! (wipes sweat off brow) the first front is wonky too in the same place, but not as wonky as the second one. (strange I didn't notice that before, was probably too concerned about the mangled rib!) The good news is the ravel chord probably didn't damage the drums and hopefully  it was either the original punch card, which I have replaced, or I have some bent needles, of which I have some spare.

Off to check the needles and double check the carriage then try it out on some waste yarn.  Not up for doing the third attempt at the front today, probably be Saturday as we have plans to go out tomorrow. I am feeling a bit like I did after I failed two driving tests in the UK many years ago.  The theory being if I don't try again I won't fail.

I did get over that though and I will re do the front lol.

This is not a hobby for someone in a hurry lol!

I redid the sweater front after thinking about it and possible reasons for the ribbing problem.  I loosened the yarn feeder tension and kept a careful eye on the yarn going through it and it was much better. Phil was spot on with his analysis of the problem.

So, I finished the front with just a minor problem when I was decreasing for the arm and neck.  I forgot to do the three rows in between the decrease rows so was out on my row counter numbers.  I didn't realize this at first so did a few more rows.  But I was able to undo it to past where I went awry and put the needles back on and continued to finish it off correctly.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.....BUT!!!!! when I looked at it closely I could see that the patterning had gone wonky.

My first reaction was to say 'oh well, it doesn't show that bad so I'll go with it' .......but I won't. I'll redo it but if the third attempt has a problem it will be the best of the three, cos I ain't doing a fourth!!

I think the problem is the punch card.  It is one of my new ones but it is a very short one and made of clear plastic so when it is joined together it makes just a small cylinder and because of the stiffness of the plastic I think it is causing it not to knit properly.

But said Baldrick, 'I have a cunning plan'. (only the more senior English readers will understand that lol)

I have the new blank punch cards I bought so I will sit the clear one on top of the other one to mark where to punch the holes.  Yes! I have a puncher.  Of my previous machines the only thing that I kept hold of was the puncher.  That travelled with me from England to Canada and then to the US. The blank cards are longer and less rigid. Just have to make sure I get it so that it will do continuous pattern in case I ever want to use it to do a longer section of patterning.  Complicated stuff!! Hope I'm up to it!

So off I go to do that.

Ravel chord was my best friend and my worst enemy today! Well actually my stupidity was but the ravel chord played an integral part lol

I decided to make the front of the sweater today.  I started off with the ribbing which seemed to go well until the last 6 or seven rows when, for some unknown reason, the carriage started to drag. I couldn't see any dropped stitches so I carried on and transferred the stitches to the main carriage and proceeded to knit up to the armhole shaping.  I set half the stitches to the non working position using the ravel chord as per Suzy's YouTube video. It worked like a charm. (Thank's Suzy) I knitted the one side and all went well.

I put the set aside stitches back into play and wound up the ravel chord and put it in the tool box which is an integrated part of the machine.

I started on the second side, did three rows and the carriage jammed big time. I couldn't move it either way.  I took of the plate and pushed the needles out to the holding position (D) and released the carriage top but it still wouldn't budge.  Upon closer inspection I could see the ravel cord was caught up in it.  The whole chord still tied in a knot!  I snipped away at it with scissors so I could get ends to pull out, but that didn't work too well so I got my long nose pliers (which incidentally are great for straightening bent needles) and was able to pull the bulk of it out.  Then I got the other strands and was able to take off the carriage and get the rest out.  An end of the chord must have been sticking out of the tool box and got grabbed by the carriage.  The ravel chord now has a new home well away from the machine! My fault, wasn't careful enough but a lesson learned for sure.

The good knitting fairy was with me because the carriage was not damaged and I was able to complete the front.

I took it off the machine but the ribbing was not good.

So does any one have any advice for me as to why the ribber is doing this?

It was working perfectly then started acting like it was drunk last week.

I am going to play around with it some before I redo the front.  Had it have been the back I might have let it go but it shows up too much on the front.

I know I promised no more pictures until it was completed but need to show it in case anyone can help.

So a mixed day, good that I found out that I can hold stitches on the ravel chord and not have to take them off the machine, bad that the ravel chord got caught up in the machine, good that it didn't damage anything and good that I could complete the front despite jamming it.  Good that I did the split for the V neck without any problems. Not so good that the ribber isn't working correctly.  I know it is user error, either the yarn isn't feeding into it smoothly or I have the tension too tight for the yarn or the ribber isn't fitted quite right or it needs adjusting somewhere.  Hopefully I will sort it out soon and get going again.

The good thing is there were more 'goods than  'bad's.

More about the sweater and plumbing woes. (House plumbing that is, not mine lol)

I used one of the new punch cards on the new sweater.  They were such a good buy, I am still excited about them.

The blue yarn had a lot of knots when I did the back.  Hope they are not all through the cone.

Have plumbing problems today, the pipe broke last night on the water supply to the downstairs toilet. Have been to get the parts to fix it and waiting for them to set before trying it. My husband, is a wonder.  Despite his illness, he still got down and fixed it.

I got up in the night to go.  A candle I had sitting on the cistern fell off and hit the pipework where it comes out of the wall to the tap thingy to turn it on and off. (US fittings are a little different to the UK ones, I don't recall these taps back when I lived there). So the water starting spurting out in full force while I was on the loo!!!!!  I knew where to turn off the water so I did that pretty quickly then woke up my poor husband to give him the good news.

Hope it works, the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes!

Started the sweater and a buck and his doe come to graze

Just a quick post.  First of all I did the back yesterday of my second youngest grandson's sweater.

I promise not to post anymore pictures until it's done!

Secondly, just because I mentioned the deer roam freely around here in my previous post, here is a photo I just took of a young buck and his doe who came to graze.

If you click on the pictures they enlarge to see them much better.

That's it for today..........

Knitting heaven and the treasures I found

We went to the yarn shop yesterday.  I got yarn for my grandson's sweater and some contrast for my grand daughter's.  They have a brand of yarn which they are selling off because they can't get any more.  It is Millor yarns. 9oz cones and great yarn but now the quantities and colours are limited but I found what I needed. In total I bought 11 cones.  We couldn't get the royal blue we wanted for my grandson's sweater but got a nice mid blue colour instead.

The owner of the store delivered some of what we needed from the warehouse and he and my husband started chatting which meant I had time to browse the store.  I found a couple of hang on combs for $1.25 each.  They are only 2" wide but have the hole to hang the weights on so they will hook over my long combs when they come.  I also got a cleaning brush which was missing from my tool kit.

Then, and this is where the heaven bit come in, I found a huge stack of punched cards for 50c each so I waded through them and found about six.  They were still chatting so I looked some more and found another six.  I looked around the store some more but they were still chatting! So I looked some more and found another six.  I was sooooo happy. Each one had it's own instructions too!  One, I expect I will never use but just had to buy it.  It is a deer.  We live in the country and have 20 acres of land, which is a mix of hills, woodland and some reclaimed land that we keep mowed. The deer roam freely on our land so it is very apt...........but a tad gauche even for us rednecks lol

And then, they were still chatting so I waded through the box of pattern and knitting books they were selling for $3 each and found a great pattern book.

So for $66 I got all that yarn and all the other stuff.  I was grinning all day. (about 41.25 GBP). Of course we had the expense of gas but we combined the trip with going to the pet store to buy some fish and corals.

I woke up and am still grinning.

Now to find the time to go and play with my new treasures!!!!!

PS.

At the store they had a lot of garments on display that had been knitted on machines and my husband really liked the ones that had been made on the chunky machines so maybe, in time, with a bit of luck and all fingers crossed, I may get a chunky machine too.

Some progress

I got a couple of hours yesterday afternoon to try some things.  Firstly, a big thanks to Phil for his tips on casting on on the main bed.  Pulling the needles out to D position for the first six rows works perfectly.  No floats.  Also I ordered a set of long combs on ebay. The hook type to better weight the knitting when casting on using the main bed.

I decided to give the blue and green yarn another go. I know, I'm a glutton for punishment!  What can I say, I'm a stubborn old lady who doesn't like to waste anything. I tried just using one strand and while it knits very easily, the knitting comes out too thin even on the tightest tension.  So I tried using two strands using the punch card that knits every other stitch. I used one blue strand and one green strand with each fed through their own side of the yarn feeder.

Afterwards I thought that I could have used two strands of the same colour using the punch card to give a plain colour with a thicker texture.  So I do have a way to use up that yarn now.

I thought I would make our dog a doggy coat to start with and see how that comes out.

So that was my knitting experience yesterday.

Have to get some different yarn to make my second youngest grandson's sweater.  My husband wants him to have a royal blue one and I don't want to use the thin yarn.....so back to yarn shop we will go lol.  Also I need to get some contrast colour to go with it and some to go with the yarn I have for my grand daughter.

Housework day today so probably no knitting. Blah!

This is a great site

Ok, not wanting to bore the pants off of anyone, more a record for myself.  This site is great for looking up machines.

So this was my second machine around 1980:-

http://www.knittingmachinemuseum.com/Jones_588.php

and my third was one of these but with a ribber attachment.  I think it was the model 836 around 1990

http://www.knittingmachinemuseum.com/Brother_800_s.php

If only I had kept hold of them all.  Easy to be wise after the event eh?

OMG I found out what my first knitting machine was

Thanks to reading another blog I was compelled to google what a Knitmaster 4500 machine is.  I was amazed to see it was the same one as I had all those years ago.  Mine didn't have a ribmaster though.  But now at least I know what it was.  I loved that machine, it was my first and I was 21 when I got it. The good thing about that machine was the sinkers.  No weights required.  Sometimes the simplest things are the best!

http://www.knittingmachinemuseum.com/Knitmaster_4500.php

Knitting machine blues

I had a bad weekend with the machine.  After I did all those swatches on Friday I was ready to go but I had an idea that I wanted to swatch first before starting on the sweater.

Well, it was like the machine was drunk on Saturday.  The ribbing just wouldn't work.  I tried it over and over again with the same results.

I thought at first it might be because I was using the two strands of blue but as you can see, it did it to the other yarn too.

So I took of the ribber and refitted it, maybe it had slipped somehow.  The right hand bracket on the ribber is very stiff.  The bracket that raises and lowers the ribber carriage.  I have looked at it and examined it but can't see why it is so stiff  but has been so from the get go. Because of it raising and lowering the carriage is very hard.  I have to really tug on it on the right side to get it to move.  I oiled it a lot and it has helped a little but clearly there is a problem, but it isn't insurmountable.

After doing this on Saturday, I left it.  Yesterday when I went back to it was still having a problem.  This time I took down the whole thing, ribber and main carriage and set them both back up from scratch.  It seemed to work on the beige yarn OK yarn but still has problems using the two strands of the thinner yarn.  So for now I have put that yarn away.  I will try and find out if there is anything to make knitting with two or more strands easier.  I have enough other yarn to betting on with.  

I did a couple of swatches after I put it all back together again.  Just as a side note, I still had two strands of green in one side so I used it as a contrast in one of the swatches.  It seems once the knitting is started it doesn't seem to have a problem.  Just with getting going with it seems.  But I am still leaving it aside for now.

So that was my weekend of knitting horrors.

I am not complaining though, just documenting.  This is my happy blog.

I want to thank Phil for the advice on casting on.  I will try that when I get back on the machine, probably Wednesday.  Today we are working on the fishtank and tomorrow we have the 300 mile round trip to the hospital for my husband's cardio appointment.

Cup of tea time now.  There are some things that an English woman can't do without lol

And to prove I really do need to get a life, Here is the Barbie Collection by Maureen

Well what are you supposed to do with all those swatches? lol

Ok, that's enough blogging! Off to make an apple pie.  Trees weren't very fruitful this year but picked enough yesterday for a pie. And as for the blackberries, nary a one this year, they just didn't plump up. Not one peach on the peach tree either.  So a bad year for fruit all round.

Our radio station - Radio 66 plus

I am sitting at my computer listening to our radio station which is selecting absolutely great music this morning. This is my husband's project, I just lend a hand with the jingles sometimes.  We need to get back to it and do some more stuff for it, my husband hasn't been feeling too great lately.  It runs 24/7 and can be accessed from our website

Radio 66 plus

Give it a listen, it has all sorts of music.  Oldies, rock, blues, recent, country....something for everyone

Test swatches day!

Because we live in the middle of nowhere when we made the trip to the yarn shop I bought a LOT of yarn. It didn't help that I had forgotten an awful lot about machine knitting and  it doesn't help either that I live in a different country where the measurements are a tad wacky.  Like fractions! What's wrong with good old 3 ply, 4 ply, double knitting and chunky? So being totally clueless but overly excited and ambitious I bought a lot of yarn.

The brown and beige yarn I made the first sweater with is actually perfect for my machine.  The only problem is that in the store I didn't notice the glimmer.  It knits really nicely though and looks great.

I bought some mid blue yarn which is a little thinner than the brown, about a 4 ply and that knits great too.

So those two lots of yarn turned out to be just fine in hindsight.  The only problem is the difference in thickness so I can't use the mid blue yarn with the brown or beige so at some point I have to get something that I can do a contrast colour with it.

Here is where I went a bit silly and wasn't so wise.

Note the cup of tea that is never very far away lol.

I think it is about 1 and a half ply per strand so I have been using two strands together making it an approx 3 ply.  As I have sooooo much of it, I have to use it.  It's way to much just to be waste yarn lol.  I'd be knitting till I'm a hundred and fifty to use it all up!  Each cone weighs about thirty six ounces.

So to start I am going to make my second youngest grandson a sweater with it. I mentioned this in my previous post but I have changed my mind on doing it all stripes.  I may incorporate some into it but not all throughout.

So I did some swatches to see how it knitted and check the tension.  I do not like knitting with two strands, although it looks fine. I found that I casted off way too tightly with it and had difficulty doing ewrap cast on with it.  Mind you I have yet to master the art of casting on on just the main bed, sometimes it works great and other times not so good!

My first swatch was to test the size the garment would come out as well as test the pattern.  I like the pattern a lot but the floats were way too big for a young child.  He could easily catch his fingers in them.  On this one I also tried using one strand of blue and one of green together.  I liked how it looked on the rib but not so much on the stocking stitch.

I did another couple of swatches using different patterns and colour combinations and the floats on the back of both of these are not a concern.  I also tried different amount of rows for each rib and decided on 24 rows and 18 rows of pattern with 4 rows of plain before the pattern starts (well 5 with the pattern  remembering row).  

So, I've decided to go with the last pattern but using the blue as the main colour for the rib and the rest of the body and arms.  I will decide on what colour to do the neckband.  This one is going to be a V neck so maybe that's where I'll do some stripes.

Bedtime now, started this around 4 pm but then had evening meal and watched some TV. 

I am sure that as the novelty wears off my posts will get shorter and simpler but for now I am enjoying documenting what I'm doing.

It's done!

You wouldn't believe the problems the button caused lol.  First of all, as we live in the middle of nowhere, a seventy mile round trip was made to buy a button.  Then there was choosing said button which was a lengthy process.  I took the sweater with me, (a miracle in itself that I remembered!).  But, we had other shopping to do also so we did that and checked out and afterwards when I opened my purse (handbag for my English friends) to put the receipt away I spotted the sweater in it's ziplock baggy and realised I hadn't purchased the button. My wonderful husband who has some serious health problems was by this time exhausted so he sat  with the cart full of shopping and waited while I went back to get it.  We shop in a superstore that thankfully sells everything.

Now came the choosing process.  I was hoping to find a cutesy button of a teddy bear or something similar but they were all too big and jagged which I thought might scratch my grandson's neck.  So then I thought I would get one that matched either the brown or the beige but nothing jumped out at me and then I spotted the one(s) I bought.  They were wooden buttons that incorporated both colours of yarn.........perfect.

That was Monday.

Yesterday, Tuesday, was my birthday and I decided to have a chill day and not do a lot.  Something very rare for me. It was also the hottest day of the year so far, 109F about 42C. Later in the afternoon though I thought I had been lazy enough, plus being lazy is very boring I realise, so decided I would sew on the button.

Now as this is my first garment on the machine I have been ultra meticulous in sewing in the ends etc so I sewed on the button, sewing in the ends in the edge of the neckband where it joins the main body.  It was an amazing work of art.....but...the button wasn't in the right place, when it was done up the neck edges didn't fall in line. aarrgghh!!!!!.  So, I unpicked it all.  Then my brother called from Canada to wish me happy birthday so I was trying to talk to him and mess with the button at the same time and sewed it on again only to find it still wasn't right. double aarrgghh!!!!  Then it was time to eat so I abandoned it.

Sat down after dinner (tea for the English and supper for the Canadians) to watch some TV and decided to try again.  Carefully unpicked it again.  Then I got wise!  I kept trying it by just threading the yarn through two holes of the button and holding the yarn at the back to see if the button was placed correctly.  I finally found the perfect spot and sewed it on properly.

So messing with the button took as much time as knitting the front even with all the problems I encountered with that lol.

So here it is.......

I am ready to move onto the next garment now.  This one has been fun and a learning experience but I am ready to mail it off.

Soooooo, next one will be for another grandson who is 14 months old.  He will be one and a half when it will be cool enough for him to need a sweater, he lives in California.  Plus he is an altogether much bigger baby that my other grandson so I will knit for an age 2 at least.

I have some royal blue yarn and some green, both 2/24 weigh which is about 1.5 ply.  So two strands together shouldn't be too thick for him.

I thought I would do the rib in a mixture of both colours then do alternate stripes of blue and green.  Will do a swatch to see how it looks.  Another simple garment to get broken in with the machine.

My husband is already joking that he has been thrown over for the knitting machine lol so don't want to overdo it.  he is and always will be my first love.

Ideas wanted

I have two teenage grand-daughters (13 and 17) and one nearly teenage grandson (12).  Making things for little ones is easy but what to make for older kids?  Don't think any of them would like a button up cardigan lol.  Also to take into consideration is that they live in Florida where sweaters and cardigans are not really required.

So any ideas anyone?

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.