Brain surgery

I picked up a CSM in 2009 I think. My sister needed a new garden fence, and consequently Mum gave us both some money, and I honestly didn't know what I wanted to spend it on. I'd wanted a CSM for a while so put my name down on the waiting list (there's a restorer in Derbyshire which is within driving distance). I've mucked about with it a bit, and taken it to various demonstrations, and knitted quite a lot of tubes, but never actually made a complete sock with it. I want to challenge myself in 2013 and this was the easiest thing to tackle first I suppose, seeing as the machine is set up all the time.



Heel in progress. The yarn is Trekking XXL handpainted although I suspect it's machine painted because the ribbed sections come out with a regular diagonal  stripe.

I followed this pattern to the letter and the foot came out 29.5cm long which is too long for my foot and a smidge too big for the Cog too, but surprisingly he liked the colour; he's the "prince of black" normally - so I guess he gets them. Alas, I don't have any more of this exact yarn to try out.

The one big problem I had was that you go straight from waste yarn into ribbing and the granny knot required caused problems - main cylinder needles refused to knit off, so some relatching and repairing has had to be done and it's not perfect (the second sock went easier because it had more weight behind it). The other problem with this method is you've almost no yarn to weave in afterwards, so I think on the next pair I will attempt to pull a long end through instead.

Surprisingly (to me), the selvedge doesn't unravel. The sock is started with one round 1x1 rib and two rounds main cylinder needles only (ribber needles are disengaged ie slipped). I can't mentally understand why it doesn't unravel, but it doesn't - furthermore, it's a lovely stretchy cast on.

Why the post title? Well, it took me several hours to finish a pair of socks. Transferring to rib or to stocking stitch means literally taking a needle out of one cylinder and transferring it to another. A fiddly business, even with full strength reading spectacles and a daylight lamp. Can you imagine Victorian ladies trying to do this? It has to be done in stages, too, as the needles can only be exchanged when the yarn mechanism is in a certain area. I almost had a disaster on the first sock. Whilst working the heel, a stitch didn't knit off correctly. As you cannot move the needle itself enough to fix this, I foolishly removed the clasp spring (equivalent to the sponge bar on a flat bed knitting machine). The needles in hold all went "Sproing!" and fell forwards. Luckily I managed to rescue them and reseat them. I shall know not to do THAT again!! Ha! It should have been obvious really, if you try changing a needle on a knitting machine with a lot of needles in hold they will very likely drop forwards.

I could have easily made these socks on the Brother or the Passap, with the caveat that the ribbing would need to be done in two halves. These socks are completely circular - the only sewing I had to do was to graft the toe (the grafting lies on top of the toes).



Finished socks. Yes, there is a bit of a chunk out of the ribbed edge - that's partly because of the bodged repair. Despite them being a bit big, I'm really chuffed with them.

Addendum: If anyone wants to buy a restored CSM, you can contact Dennis Wright on 01335 342093 or rytholme (at) timetalk (dot) co (dot) uk. Posted with permission. 

Current mood:  tired - yeah, insomnia again last night. I wish there was such a thing as a silent knitting machine, I could get more knitting done whilst everyone else is asleep!

Gadgets ahoy!

Went up to Derbyshire again, to swap my CSM for a slight upgrade (an Imperia). The ribber on the Cymbal was too turny-twisty and it meant you could only ever rib with a really fine yarn - any more than that, and it hung up between the cylinder and ribber dial, and disaster ensued.. The seller was happy to exchange it, and I got it ribbing perfectly with Trekking XXL, so I am a happy bunny! It is all set for that yarn, so I shall probably try not to fiddle with it much now (apart from changing tensions occasionally).

I had a few spare hours to waste yesterday afternoon. The house is in uproar at the moment, because we are redecorating the office (small box room), so I don't have access to my PC (Knitware!) or printer/scanner or camera cable. So although I knew I wanted to knit something, it would have been almost impossible to draw up a garment because I think my swatches may have been stored with some of the office stuff, and anyway, no access to a PC :/ I'm not using a calculator on a sunday afternoon, ha!

So I decided to play with a few gadgets I've picked up lately and never used. First off was the RT1 transfer carriage (for Silver/Knitmaste std gauge machines). Now, I did have one of these way back, but could never get it working, so I sold it on Ebay. It later transpired my bed adjustment was all out, thanks to a sponge bar that was damaged at one end (it got damaged when I tried to insert it in a Vogue machine I was doing up, it was a suggestion I wish I'd ignored!). So when another one turned up in the estate sale I am doing, I figured I could at least give it a second chance. And guess what? Works perfectly! So I have made a donation for it.

Second up was the Passap tricofit device - a casting off tool not unlike the Brother linker, which never seemed to work for me. I must have picked it up on Ebay yonks ago and then never used it. Well, I think it may have dropped one stitch, but it was pretty good actually! I think some more practice is needed, but it made a decent cast off.

Oh, I should mention, I spent 30 frustrating minutes previous to this, trying to get the E6000 to get past error 200 - fluff on bed. That machine is so damn picky! Argh! It needs to be clinically clean for the electronic eye to do its stuff. I've also started used a simple cast on I learnt at Metropolitan - it always works, and is far less hassle!

Lastly the U100E transfer carriage. I just wanted to try it out, but it wasn't very successful, it did say it required a stretchy yarn and I was using some kind of cotton, so that probably didn't help, but dammit, sometimes I might want to use cotton! Argh!

Oh well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad! I spotted a page about U100E maintenance in the Passap Paramedic book, so maybe it just needs a little TLC...

Knitting mojo struggling a bit ATM - a few things have stalled, and I wanted something simple to work on, so I cast on an eyelash yarn scarf last night. 10 sts, 8mm needles, garter stitch, no concentration required whatsoever. Perfect.

FO: slip stitch sweater

Picture 037
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Made my Jan challenge, with 2 hours to go. Cut and sew neckline.

A few miscellaneous pictures...

A handy tip for anyone who despairs of finding snag-free stitch markers:


"No more snags" hair elastics from Claire's - £1 for 100. Especially ideal for lace work! Thanks to Linda M for the tip. I think she has forgotten she has a blog! :)

Blusa Queen, progress so far:


I'm having great fun with this, although it's a bit stop-start at the moment, because I am getting near to the divides for back and fronts, and I have to keep measuring.

My January challenge, two-colour slipstitch. I made three sleeves before I got a pair (the first one had reversed colours). Now I have the challenge of sewing down the raw ribbing by hand. Possibly not the best way to finish this collar, but I forgot what order to hang the neckline in.


(yeah, I'm hoping to fix that dropped stitch when I get to that point!)

Rear view, with neckline marked in contrast yarn:

Neckline looks a bit large, but toddlers have large heads in proportion to their bodies, so I'm not worrying too much. If you look closely, you can also see the texture of the slipstitch pattern, which would be the right side if I was using only one colour.

Jo gave me a belated christmas present:

I was thinking of making them into jaywalkers, but Julie has had a lot of trouble with the pattern, so now I'm not so sure! Aren't the colours lovely though? Isn't Jo a sweetie?

W gave me two balls of this yarn:

which I am using to crochet some slipstitch samples with. It's an acrylic yarn, that looks like cotton, and is actually made of 6+ strands of yarn loosely twisted together.

In progress: Two-colour slip stitch

Two-colour slip stitch
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

After one false start (I got the buttons mixed up on the console), my first two-colour slip stitch garment piece that actually came out as intended! The pale colour is actually school grey, can't get it to photograph properly indoors. The neck on the front will probably be cut-and-sew, so that I can maintain the pattern.

Challenge yourself in '09

Originally posted on Ravelry 24th Dec 2008:

"I’ve been watching the KAL garment-a-month thread on the Ravelry Machineknitting group, with interest - I haven’t committed to it myself, because for eight weeks in Jan-Feb-Mar I will be on an evening course that rather eats into my knitting time.

However, I have decided I will force myself to get to know, and get familiar with, some of the gadgets I’ve bought for my machines, and some of the techniques I’ve only tried once. This is partly inspired by dancingbarefoot, who was working her way through different punchcards a while back.

It’s far too easy for me, to stick to stocking stitch, or simple stuff, quick bang-for-buck, because I am very impatient and love projects that are made quickly. I need to force myself out of my comfort zone.

For example, I have the tricofit(?) thing for my Passap, which does intarsia, and I haven’t tried it out yet. I’ve also not really tried out the transfer lock, because I’m a little afraid of bending needles on a machine where I don’t know how to replace needles. I’ve also never really done much with the garter carriage or garter bar. I always had vague plans to make some kind of cute hoodie for my niece, using pile stitch (I envision fluffy pink hearts, she’s 2 and very keen on pink at the moment).

So! that’s gonna be my personal challenge for ‘09. I’ll probably try and tackle one thing a month.

Anybody care to tag along?! :)"

---

Schedule so far:

I came up with this:

Jan: 2 colour slip stitch
Feb: DB jaquard
Mar: garter bar
Apr: pile stitch
May: garter carriage
Jun: passap linker
Jul: passap intarsia
Aug:
Sep: pc10 punchcard maker
Oct:
Nov: passap transfer
Dec:

Starting easy, and working on up! :) I still fancy making a circular yoked sweater, and that circular cardigan from Knitwords (Circle of Life, I think), so that might go in somewhere.

---

Last night I was struggling to focus on anything too complicated. I made some slipstitch samples (see below). I have mislaid my instructions for the colour changer (if there ever were any), and to start with I kept starting the pattern on the RHS, which get you nothing but 2 row, slightly wiggly lines. Once I remembered to start on the LEFT, all was well!


Maze slipstitch 1 - love this one, kinda Aztec


Maze slipstitch 2 - eye-boggle alert!


Grapevine slipstitch - found this amongst the cards, cool huh?!


Passap slipstitch (single bed). The top half looked a bit smoother before I stretched it (it's some kind of 2ply/3ply cotton).

Yup, another Passap pattern that's been programmed black-for-white. I should probably go through and try all the patterns, and figure out which ones are back to front. So far it seems to affect slipstitch techniques. Mental note - if the tension's too tight on a Passap, stitches will be skipped (rather hard to spot if it's already a slip-stitch pattern). Try not to jam the locks - they are a LOT harder to unjam than Japanese machines!!

I see a toddler's jumper in Maze 1, with a cut and sew neckline, coming soon. A slash neck is too easy!

MK Challenge - Silver Reed techniques

Techniques from the manual that I have tried on the SK840:

Fair-isle (Knit-in)
Tuck stitch
Tuck Lace
Tuck stitch in colours
Slip stitch
Slip stitch in colours - just need to figure out how to get it to come out right!
Single motif
Weaving
Punch lace
Platting

Plain lace
Fashion lace
Sectional patterning

K1P1 rib
Double rib (aka FNR)
K2P2 rib
Wide rib
English rib
Swung english rib
Variation of english rib
Double english rib
Tubular knitting - requires the use of the P carriage so is slower than on the Brother
Herringbone swing
Variation swing
Pin tuck
Pick rib
Swung pick rib
Platting rib

Pin tuck
Tuck rib
Drive lace
Mesh knitting
Pile knitting
Shadow lace
Double jacquard - done, but with mistakes
Double face knitting
Multi-coloured jacquard

Think there might be a few more, eg mesh knitting, in the ribber manual, but I don't have it to hand right now.

Gosh, I really ought to work through the ones I haven't tried - tackled them on the Brother, as part of my OCNCE, but not on this machine! I need to get cracking!

In other news, I started making socks for the Cog in the Opal Planete - pale yellow and blue self-striping yarn. Trying to cheer him up as he is worrying about his health. He also returned two pairs of socks I made because they are too big. Some frogging is in order methinks. *sigh* I'll never get to the bottom of this stash!

....but then again, do I want to?! :D

MK Challenge: Slip Stitch

Inspired by Susan's two-colour work, I made a start on a child's slash neck top. On the left is a successful start; alas, the yarn snapped and it came off the machine. The front and back both came out "wrong", although I stopped the pattern (I thought I'd finished, but I was 32 rows too short) and when I restarted it, it came out right for the last bit. Decided to stick to 2 row stripes for the sleeve. Must practice getting the slip stitch to come out correctly!


Skirt attempts. The pink is the best, but I suspect I don't actually have enough yarn! Alas, the pattern gives weight and not length of yarn required, which would be more helpful. Maggie Andrew's booklet arrived, so I suspect I shall use one of those patterns instead.

Been very tired lately - a gym session last night was curtailed because I was just, well, shattered. I have reduced some medication I am taking so I guess it's just a case of getting on with it. Went to bed at 10 last night, which is an hour early for me!


Current mood: apathetic

Passap challenge: two-colour tuck stitch

Had another crack at the passap...


Knit side - click for a bigger image


Purl side

The console kept asking for the colour every 3rd row - turns out this is so that the motor is prepared, to send the locks overshooting into the colour pick-up thingy (technical term). So I was actually doing it right!

This was the second attempt to cast on. I also tried the pretty slip-stitch zigzag thing, and got a material full of holes and long floats. There must be some sort of trick to that one!

I was intending to cast off properly, as this can go in the big bag of samples for a patchwork afghan - alas, 10 sts from the end and it dropped, so I gave up, lost a few more getting it off the machine! My overlocker will fix it when the time is right.

This pattern would be nice for a baby blanket I think.

I was also going to post a video of the passap in action with colour changer, but my camera batteries do not appear to have enough juice, despite there being fresh batteries in there. Feh!

Right, off to watch some Ugly Betty. I made licquorice ice-cream tonight - not as licquorice-y as I'd hoped. I should have put the leftover licquorice in too instead of eating it. Oops!


Current mood: mellow

MK Challenge: Passap day 3

Yep, it's certainly a challenge...

...especially as yours truly has really only skimmed the instructions for this machine. I think I have it figured a bit now. The annoying thing so far is that when you make a slip up, eg you move the locks in the wrong direction to drop the yarn, the computer gets its knickers in a knot and makes you go through the whole cast on process again. However, I've discovered tonight that if you set the locks to GX/GX (free move), agree with everything and don't pick up any yarn, you can fool it that you've started again when in reality you've done nothing except set it up again.

I've fallen in love with the tuck stitch patterns this machine can do. This was going really well with the purple 'til it ran out, but the beige is some sort of linen and not nearly stretchy enough. Cue some nasty sounding bangs when an errant stitch refused to knit off. Yes, this sample is as 3D as it looks. And in a 1ply yarn, too!

I started to cast it off, but decided I couldn't be bothered, it's getting late, and this is just me playing about. The pattern was supposed to be slow waves, a lot closer together, but this is quite cool too. I need to read up on the "altering patterns" section, because I obviously didn't input it quite correctly.

Also I've discovered it's a reaallllly bad idea to attempt to use the black pushers (single bed work) when you're knitting on both beds. Took a while to extricate myself from that one, I can tell you! Luckily I'm not the sort to force a machine to do something - for one thing, I'm not strong enough to do any serious damage.

Right, time for some shut eye!

Current mood: amused

MK Challenge: Passap day 2

It helps to tell the colour changer what you're doing...

My first attempt at reversible double-bed jacquard on the passap:

For the start of this piece I had it set to 3, couldn't figure out why every third colour change it would pick up nothing!

This would have been longer, but the pink snapped and I didn't catch it in time. The yarn cut outs don't seem to be much use, either. Hmmm. Lovely drape to the material though!

Murphy's bag was completed last night - a handle plaited out of 3 black i-cords, some of the sparkly yarn and some of the eyelash yarn. G's verdict: "Sideshow Bob with a handle on top".

Humph!

Current mood: happy

MK Challenge - Passap day 1 addendum

OK, I figured out how to do a fancy tuck pattern...



I made a child's blanket out of the knitting I was doing earlier. I let the motor get on with it, once I'd figured out how to get it going properly. I overlocked both edges, after a few attempts, rotten overlocker thread kept snapping, mutter mutter!

This is a tuck stitch technique from the Passap book. Passaps can tuck more than one stitch together at a time - because it's knitting FNR, which is every needle on every bed.

I've no idea how many rows this was - it kept going until the yarn ran out. The photos don't really do the colour justice - it's a deep magenta/raspberry. I've nicknamed it the raspberry ripple blanket! It's really thick and snuggly - and the yarn was only a 1 ply!

Think I might need to move the knitting machine slightly further away from the wall - the yarn cut-out didn't work, hence my having to extricate it from the machine, and cut n' sew the edge. But anyway - not bad, for someone who's not even really read the manual properly yet!!

Next stop, double bed jacquard, I think!

Note to Susan: Alas, no, increasing and decreasing are still done manually, as is casting off. I understand that necklines on Passaps are usually done by the cut-and-sew method, and a strip of ribbing used to bind the cut edge - you can't move the beds apart much, and I don't think there's such a thing as the holding position, although I may be wrong, as I'm still learning!

---

I also made inroads to the bean-bag today - the casing is all done, but I need to make the inner liner now. Not bad, but not brilliant - the sewing machine decided to do a loopy stitch at one point, might have to go over that bit. Enough tonight - it's getting late!

Can't believe how much I got done today - I also nipped into town and bought some nice undies in M&S and 2 skirts and a top in T J Hughes. I did pick up a nice skirt in Primark, but the queues in there made me put it back. I nearly bought a gorgeous blue dip-dyed skirt in Bon Marche, but when I tried it on, it made my thighs look enormous. I wish they wouldn't put braiding at mid-thigh level!!

Current mood: excited

MK Challenge - Passap day 1

Well, after a bit of fiddling around, I got the Passap machine to do this:



Please ignore the rotten edge with dropped stitches and holes, also the display that reads "cast on 2", which it shouldn't. I haven't figured out how to make it do a fancy tuck stitch yet, but I will, never fear!

It took me several hours to get this far because first I used some awful yarn - brown wool plied with yellow nylon, an old cone from Uppinghams. Apart from the fact the colour combination is awful, the yellow started to bunch up in the tension mast and cause lots of problem. The second yarn I tried was some 3ply white - it's so old it keeps breaking, so poss. needs to go into the freezer, or down the tip. The third yarn I tried is a kind of cotton/viscose, it's a 4ply, this was too thick for the machine.

The yarn in the video is 1ply magenta acrylic, I think. I figure I'll carry on with the knitting until it's a blanket length, then just overlock the damaged edge and remove the holey bits.

I'm finding the Passap ok to work with, although it's a bit snippy about skipping ahead of anything it wants to do. For instance, I've got a cast on and some knitting going, but I'm not sure how I get it to start doing something in pattern without going through the cast on again. I shall figure it out though!

In typical British weather fashion, the weather's been lovely all weekend, although it's still chilly for July - you can't sit around with no sleeves, put it this way. I want to play with my new machine, but my body wants to get out into the sun! Think a trip to Cov in the new car this afternoon, might treat myself to some new undies.

Lace knitting now past the 7th repeat - finally I think my slow brain is getting the pattern. Glad I photocopied the chart though - the book'd be dog-eared by now!

Oh, and I knocked out another lurid neon charity tee yesterday, using the "pick up as you go" method. No sewing up to do, except for the ribbing. Not sure how I feel about the side seams, though, and it sure slows the second half down. I hung the bottom edge of the sleeves onto the sleeve edges and cast them off using the transfer tool - it worked ok actually!

G's playing Civilisation and is having a whale of a time killing off rival nationalities. The cad!


Current mood: determined

MK Challenge

Dancing Barefoot is working her way through the Brother punchcard combinations, and issued a challenge. If I can find the time, I want to work through all the gadgets I have bought for the Silver Reed machine. So far I have:

• Knitleader
• Shadow transfer tool
• Transfer carriage
• Garter bar
• AW1 weaving arm
  
• Intarsia carriage

I also need to get more familiar with its workings, and that of the Passap. Shouldn't be too tricky, as my most familiar machine has now been packed away. The thought of spending an hour rearranging knitting machines and setting up should be enough to curb my desire to go back to the familiar. But it'll have to be an ongoing thing, as I am trying to learn to sew a beanbag too!

So many projects, so little time!

===

The cashmere pashmina is knitted! 732 rows in 1x1 rib at T6/6, a row at 8/8, latch-tool cast off. I was about to start weaving in ends, and fringing, but my sister called, and anyway it was getting quite late. I'm quite pleased with it, although it would have been nice to be able to make it in FNR which would have been wider. I was using every needle I could as it was. The lower edge is a bit wibbly, but I think I will fringe both short ends anyway. The only edge now causing concern is the colour-changer edge - there are 4 row loops all along between yarn changes. I think I will have to work a row of crochet or something to neaten them up. Not sure I'm going to have enough yarn for all this! Maybe I could make the fringe in a different colour? *sigh* I dunno. I did get more than enough yarn, but I used a different pattern because I couldn't do FNR, so it's likely it's used more yarn that I expected. We shall see!

Anyway - some kind of record for shortest project, surely? Three evenings, not consecutive, and it's done, bar the finishing. Genius!