Fun with fairisle

Well, I had a fun weekend playing with the patterning on the KH965i, the Cog being employed elsewhere for the day. I've long hankered over making a sideways-knitted fairisle sweater, and having managed to acquire a simple Wendy Phillips pattern, the creative urge just overtook me on Saturday.  All went well for a while, but the patterning mechanism starting to make a noise akin to a washing machine with rocks in (ok I'm guessing here, but it wasn't good!). I took the back parts off a few times but couldn't see anything amiss. Eventually I oiled both drum pivots, and the rotating black bar, and it seems a lot better. There WAS a bit of fluff back there but nothing out of the ordinary. 

The sweater in question has patterned bands, I'm in love with it already, despite black not really being my colour. I'm using pink and blue Magicolour for the fairisle. One more sleeve and cuff to go and then just sewing up. I over-complicated programming the pattern for the welts - it's much easier just to start from row 17 than it is to try and extricate the pattern if you only need one repeat. Still, I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy the machine is to program. The manual is still terrible though! 

If I make this sweater again, I might flip the pattern at the centre neck to make it more symmetrical, and posibbly pick a pattern with less long floats or use the ladder back technique. What with carrying the unused colour up the side, there was already enough going on. I fancy doing this for a Christmas sweater, though I'm tempted to swap to a V neck. I'm not a great wearer of round necks. I had a few false starts - a mispatterned band, and a sleeve that was 25 stitches too narrow. Oops. 

Pictures to follow shortly! 

Oh, and the KHC / two colour tuck problem I had in the last post seems to have evaporated. Performance anxiety perhaps? Who knows!

The circular cardigan is in time out. I cannot seem to keep my increases in order, one would think it would be easy. I seem to be tinking more than knitting on it. Ugh. 

In non-crafting news, we paid to stream the Black Sabbath charity concert this weekend, having failed to get tickets. £25 (£33 after other charges - yeah, there's always someone making a quick buck) and you get zero toilet queues and a better choice of food and drink. What's not to like? The Cog streamed the first half (that we missed) yesterday. I wonder whether Oasis thought about streaming their concerts? Could be quite a money-spinner!

Current mood: enthralled

Long time no blog

Gosh, I didn't realise I hadn't posted since March, sorry about that! There's not been much crafting to post about really. I started a handknit circular cardigan (a free Drops pattern), but it's gotten quite tedious so has been parked for a while. I did finally finish the cat cross stitch, it's waiting to be pressed and framed. We're in the middle of a humid 28C / 82F heatwave here, so doing anything much feels exhausting.

I got the donated SK260 up and running and it's been put away, because I have a knitweave project in mind and Brothers are much better for that I feel. I did finish a gold boucle cardigan on that machine, and it handled the yarn very well. We'll gloss over how many fronts I had to knit before I had a pair, gah!

I did run a very successful two day MK event at the Alex, at the start of June. I took the KH881, the KH260 and the KH965i. Apparently the chunky machine was a little badly behaved. I haven't used it in a while, it probably needs some maintenance. I had a lot of fun using the 965i to knit double bed jacquard. I couldn't get it to knit two-colour tuck to my satisfaction though - seems I have to change colours at the left end, which doesn't work with the colour changer. I got lots of loops - it should have knitted something, even if not the expected pattern. It's something I'll have to investigate further. Perhaps one needs to invert the colours or start on a different row? Hmmm. The manual is very hard to read, and the KHC manual doesn't mention any programming changes (possibly because it came out before the electronic machines). Oh well, something to work on... 

Current mood: hot

Bits and bobs

I had another lovely weekend at Kegworth, where I demonstrated and made 2.5 pairs of tube socks, despite my machine going "sproing!" at one point and trying to ditch the lot in my lap. The missing sock has been knitted but is still on the machine.

This keyboard case was actually made towards the end of last year and never got photographed. Not sure why! Pattern was made up on the fly.

Hat made from trophy yarn, a true one-off. Yes, it really is that neon in person!

And finally, the unfortunate Passap cardigan. It came out too short and there's way too much material in the sleeve head for me. Otherwise there's nothing wrong with it, but I went off it before I even finished sewing on the buttons. Pity, because it's a very cheerful colour.

Current mood: awake

FO: Peacock blue hat and Passap play...

Apologies for the marks on the hat, the mirror needs a clean. Still using up this yarn, I've half a pair of fingerless gloves on the go too. Does this hat need a pompom, do you think?

I've been working on a v-neck cardigan on the Passap, from an unknown salmon pink 3ply. To give it some body I thought I'd use K/K (aka full needle rib) instead of plain stocking stitch, but didn't realise how much extra work it is to do increases in this fabric. I also (at one point) made a monster sleeve, that got frogged back. The cardigan is now finished but I forgot to add borders to the DAK pattern so it's a bit on the cropped side, and I'm not keen on how much extra fabric DAK seems to make in the armscye (but that could be operator error). A picture of that, next post. As I discovered, fully fashioned increasing as per the manual looks pretty neat. Being lazy and leaving the empty needle to pick up a loop is surprisingly holey! I guess it could become a feature elsewhere, but maybe not on the sleeves. Next DAK pattern I intend to measure myself and probably do raglan sleeves instead, I think they will work better though they are more work. 

Fully fashioned increasing in K/K, step 1 - needles moved out

Fully fashioned increasing in K/K, step 2 - empty needles filled with heels of previous stitches

Result when it's done as above

Result when empty needles are returned to work with no heel

The cardigan came out a bit "meh" if truth be told, another one for the charity pile. The yarn didn't cost me very much so it was a useful exercise on the Passap more than anything else. I am working my way through the Bill King videos on the MKC and that was inspiring, so I am already planning other things this year and may rethink what I was going to do with some burgundy bamboo yarn. 

This weekend I also had a play with the U100E transfer carriage, it didn't go so well but it turns out one of my brushes isn't in place (I thought it was a spare). Trying to work garter stitch out of the box was probably a bad idea too. I did play with long stitch, interlock and overknit which were interesting. 

Next weekend I'm teaching at the annual Kegworth CSM event, so do say hi if you're there! Family issues have kept me quite busy and quietly anxious even though a lot of it is things I can only sit and watch. 

Current mood: lethargic

FO: Agnes cardigan

I think I accidentally doubled the buttonholes on this, but it doesn't really matter - I don't tend to wear them buttoned up anyway! Quite pleased with this and it's a cheerful colour.

Current mood: cold

Moving back into my room

On Saturday, we had a lovely, almost springlike, weather. Alas my partner and I missed the first few hours of it, because we were busily swapping our WFH offices. The Cog's worked in my knitting room, first on a folding camping table, and then from a proper sit-stand desk, since the 2020 lockdown started. I took over what had been his desk in the box (third) bedroom - not sure if that's a term that translates outside the UK. A "box" bedroom is a small bedroom that will only really take a single bed and a few items of furniture. Anyway, we managed to rig up a screen set up that will work for him temporarily. He can't use one of his two old monitors because he didn't have the right connectors, and as it's temporary (he's going to buy himself a superwide monitor) he can work off his laptop screen for a few days. Luckily his laptop is bigger than mine. We actually moved some of the items on Friday night (mostly because he invaded the 3rd bedroom and started getting cute with me) but it did mean that some of the difficult stuff was already shifted. It was certainly nice to get hoovering up in there! So I've swapped the snug navy blue room with all my stationary supplies (sob!) for a larger sunnier room under the eaves which we painted in a cheerful yellow. Yes, that was the irony of the pandemic for me - I'd just got that room the way I'd wanted it, and then had to give it up! My WFH desk is where the E6000 used to be, because I don't like having a computer monitor blocking the precious sunshine. Neither room has a large window so it's a pity to block whatever sun comes in with a computer. Yes, I did draw my room up in CAD, but I think I got the east-west dimension wrong because I definitely can't stack the out of use machines in the corner without a fight. Ah well, nothing's perfect!

The two monitors plus mounting bracket went down a storm on Freegle and have already been passed on, I could have freegled them several times. The lack of manners of some folks though - one person lived 44 miles away. What on earth are they doing on Freegle Rugby? Don't answer that... As it was, a nice chap popped over at lunchtime and the set up now has a new home. 

So, I've been attempting to use up the kingfisher blue yarn leftovers to make a hat. The first hat came out way too tight, and the second looked like a too-short condom, so it's been knitted and frogged twice. Let's hope the third time is the charm?! In both cases the machine fought me all the way but I think it's down to my being out of practice more than mechanical failure really. Let's hope this is the year I can get back on track in there! 

Current mood: happy

A rose by any other name...

Not much to report lately, other than I am making more roses! I am not sure I'm up to the amount that was hinted at, but I'll have a go nevertheless. I spent a fun few hours at the Alex with my friend C, and got her making a heel on her Russian CSM (which is quicker as it's an unusual midgauge CSM so less needles). She's also got two Gearhearts, only one of which is functional. The badly-behaved one actually cost more, so it just goes to show you never know. 

All of the Christmas chocolate Roses and Quality Street have long gone, and the last of the Christmas snacks (asides from crackers for cheese). I find both chocolate brands disappointing now - the useful tins are now plastic and much smaller, and the selections less in both cases. QS wins for me because of the recyclable packing - I really do hate modern "flow wrapping", it was much more fun to delicately peel off the foil and try to keep it intact (not to mention it could be recycled). That pleasure is now solely restricted to the noisette triangle and Cadbury's Creme Eggs! Boo! I did receive some very nice Lily O'Brien chocolates which disappeared VERY quickly. I do also like those Lindor balls, too much in fact! The weather's been either very cold/icy or not quite so cold/foggy. I'm appreciating the chance to hibernate, even though I'm not home as much as I'd like for various reasons!

I'm still hoping to knit down some stash this year - I've some leftover teal wool from this jumper to use up, so either a hat, scarf or pair of gloves. I've never found making full gloves on the knitting machine much fun - the main part is ok but the fingers are such a fiddle I'd much rather do that bit on DPNs in front of the television. Of course, mittens are much easier. The next large project will probably be something in some burgundy bamboo, because the SK260 is up, and then something with knitweave which needs to be a Brother machine I think, for ease. 

Current mood: impressed and still exploring the Machine Knit Community