It's kind of a sad story really - I'm at Metropolitan Machine Knittting this week because I had a deposit down on a Tony Bennett course, but I think I cancelled it because I realised it was a course of his I'd done already (no other reason, his courses are a week in inspirational knitting), so I transferred it against their maintenance course which alas has been cancelled. So I transferred the deposit against the three day Passap hands-on course, which is what I am now here for. I'm still hoping to pick someone's brains re machine maintenance because I'm worried it's a dying skill and there needs to be new people learning these things if the machines are going to continue working much longer.
Anyroad, we've been playing around with simple pre-programmed patterns on the E6000 - seeing what happens to them when they are knitted in 2, 3 or 4 colours. In most cases 3 or 4 colours is just "meh", but changing the colour order around can make quite a difference. Yesterday I tried to replicate one of the tutor's samples and was convinced it wasn't right - it was, but the order of the colours muddied the pattern to an extent that it just did not look correct. One lady has brought her Duomatic - there was a small moment of panic yesterday when she arrived, because the tutor wasn't sure if we had a machine for her, it being all E6000s, but luckily the student had brought her own and is happily plugging away with various bits and bobs. If I had to buy one more machine it would probably be a mechanical Passap - the E6000s are great but electrical items don't always age well.
I brought my own console but have mounted it on one of the training machines - alas I've had to move to another machine because it was a bit iffy knitting a garment's width. You know when a machine jams during cast on it's not going to be an easy ride, and it not being my own machine I don't want to damage the plastic bed. Today I tested my pattern reader and knitted something from it - I'd never used it before, and probably never will as I have the (as-yet uninstalled) DAK Passap cable. I just wanted to satisfy myself that the device itself worked and transmitted to the bed correctly, so that should I ever sell the Passap I can confirm that it is fully functional. Well, apart from not having a working foot-pedal port. I owned a pedal briefly, but as it caused the motor to have some sort of electrical fit I decided not to bother and returned it for a refund. A dry solder joint somewhere in the workings is the probably culprit, the pedal itself was fine. If the machines were in production today there'd be a massive red emergency stop button on the motor, I'm certain, because it's nerve-wracking in its speed and power. As it is, I only ever use the motor when I'm in the same room and I tend to hover over it which kind of negates the whole point, but there you go! And yes, there IS a go/stop button on the motor, but it stops the locks at whichever end is next ie it does NOT stop it dead like an e-stop would.
Today I managed to make a start on the back of a two-colour tuck stitch garment. I am using the built-in form program from the machine manual and have so far managed to make a few mistakes, ie I misread the line where you enter the border length - it's fixed to 7cm so it wants a gauge measurement, but I assumed it wanted to know how long I wanted it so entered 50 (for 5cm). One very deep border later and I realised the error of my ways, luckily I somehow managed to strip the back bed stitches off by accident so it became a very handy tension swatch. Who swatches for borders anyway?! Not I, not usually! I've also learnt how to unpick 2 rows when within the form programme, because I got so excited about increasing that I forgot to change colours. It's easy enough to tell the computer, but unpicking some 142 stitches (full needle rib) is 20 minutes ot tediousity! I'd like to get better on the Passap with a view to making some short youtube videos for folks a la Diana Natters. Another thing for the round tuit list.
By the time I'd got all of that sorted out it was pretty much kicking out time and we switch the machines off at night so it'll be interesting to see how the Swiss Miss copes with that tomorrow! Oh and I'm such a dope, I felt sure we started at 9am so got there at 8:40. Oops! Mark kindly let me in and clearly thinks I'm mad. I could have hung out at the hotel or Sainsburys for an hour and missed queuing in the rush hour. Well, never mind. What can I say, I'm a lark and an excited one at that, I'd happily start at 8am if I thought they'd let me in! Passaps are the Rolls Royce of knitting machines and I'm ashamed to say I'm still not as confident on them as I ought to be. I've packed away my SK840 and have only the CSM and SK860 mid gauge up at the moment, both because they have work on them or pending for them. I'm going to hunt for or develop a simple ribbed scarf pattern for the Passap and burn through some "I'll never use that, what was I thinking?" stash for the charity box when I get home. If nothing else it'll give the machine a much needed workout.
I've got more say (when haven't I?) but it'll have to keep for now as I'm about to meet the tutor to walk into Nantwich for dinner.
Current mood:
inspired and wishing I had more time in my life to play with the Swiss Miss...
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