Botheration!

Tried 5 times to cast on with the Bramwell's Rania - it was determined to get wrapped around the radiator, even WITH insulation tape on the end plates! Finally gave up and did a swatch in a hot pink 2ply. The swatch is created over 100 needles, and the tension is tightened by a dot every 20 rows. Swatch knitted successfully. Alas, I don't think there's anywhere near enough of it for a skirt for me! Yes, I weighed the cone AFTER I'd knitted the sample.

Then I decided I'd do something easy (ha!) - a baby blanket in punch tuck rib. The cone of whatever-it-is I am using (a cotton-silk mix) keeps snapping and producing big holes - but apart from all that, I forgot to connect my carriage to the electronics, and couldn't figure out why it was doing nothing patternwise. That fixed, the snapping continued. But not until I'd done about 8 inches. At that point, I gave up in disgust - have been knitting for about 3 hours now and have nothing but scraps to show for it! Who said machine knitting was fast?! :)

I do believe half of my machine knitting problems are probably down to yarn that has seen better days - some of it says "best before 1998", if yarn could be said to have an expiry date. It's almost all old yarn donated to CSV but too thin for them to use on blankets. Perhaps I should just bite the bullet, ply a load of it together to make some DK and just knit it in a simple 1x1 rib blanket. I just hate to throw out yarn, even if it *is* a little flaky. Sticking it in the freezer overnight (which can be done, to add moisture to old yarn) isn't really a solution, because (a) I tend to pick out cones at random, with little forethought and (b) the freezer is pretty full of veggies, meat and fish! :)

Off to the Nottingham show tomorrow, with some MK converts. Looking forward to it.