FO Friday

Simple 1x1 ribbed scarves knitted on the midgauge (top picture) and passap (second picture) - will write up the pattern soon but it's pretty simple. Some DK jumpers for a friend's new babies. A cowl knitted from leftover King Cole Bamboozle, a present for a work colleague. A granny square blanket for the charity bag, from leftover sock yarn.

Current mood: and - determined to get to grips with my Passap this year, and trying to think of things to get me up to speed...

Nottingham show and a finished object

Wow, a month or so since my last post! Well, there's not been that much to report alas...













Lots of lovely garments and yarn and things to buy. Not sure the show is as well advertised as it could be, as I'm sure there are plenty of handknitters in the Nottingham area that would have loved it.

Had a lovely natter with old friends and demoed Designaknit for Andrea of Andeeknits. I did buy a little yarn (love me some James C Brett marble chunky in blue, I am powerless to resist it!) and a "Stitch Master" gadget, which is for knitting a net behind fairisle somehow. I love a new gadget! Only downside of the whole show was that it was absolutely freezing in the hall, I almost bought some fingerless gloves and wish I'd brought my own. Was so glad to get back to the car and get the heating on. Oh, and I forgot to take my empty cardboard cones to Nick of Uppinghams,

And finally a photo of the ten stitch blanket:



I think I found the video for it here - in future I would start with waste yarn and pick up the live stitches at the start as it looks neater, and I worked mine so as to use automatic wrapping throughout. But the principle is the same. I should technically call this a hybrid blanket because I started it on the chunky and finished it on the midgauge. :) The nice thing about it is you can easily scrap it off on waste yarn at any point, work on something else, and then rehang it when you're ready.

Current mood: very keen to make time to get back to my machines! :)

FO: Blanket from leftovers and Purbeck

Finished this late Thursday, leftovers knitted up on the KH260 at T3 using the SAYG method, then a crochet edging (#93 from Edie Eckman's Around the Corner book).

Purbeck was lovely - had excellent weather all weekend. Heck of a drive down though (satnav tried to take me on the ferry twice, which would have been fine except it wasn't running). Did a steep climb from Tyneham lost village to Flowers Barrow on Saturday, and an afternoon playing with bungypump poles. Sunday was tai-chi in front of Corfe castle, and then a walk to the blue pool (which was more green to be fair). Some interesting blisters and sore calves and a looong drive back. Think I'll stay until Monday morning next year, it would be less hassle!

I nipped to Lulworth Cove (great when the tide's not in, otherwise beach is 3m wide) and Durdle door, and an emergency dash to Swanage (not pictured, I was driving) when I ran out of dosh. Oh and I pimped my poles, will have to post a picture...







More Purbeck pictures here

Current mood: sore

FO: Autumn sweater

This was knitted at T7 on the midgauge, King Cole Twist Aran, a yarn I picked up at the NEC in 2015 (suspect it might be discontinued). Garter stitch bands and lace hearts worked by hand on the machine. I need to either get a garter bar, or knit that bit by hand next time. It was very tedious! There are bits where the yarn was less marled and more a plain colour, which was a bit annoying. I have quite a bit of this left to knit up. Debating whether to add fringe to the hem and neck - it was the original plan, but perhaps it's too much? Will fringe the swatch and see if I like it.

Have finished all the parts for a cardigan for a commission, it just needs sewing up tomorrow night and then some buttons. The pins and needles seem to be easing off a bit; have tried to stay away from too much hand-knitting lately but it's not easy when I've got things to finish. There's a limit to how many things I've got that need frogging. Thank goodness for machine knitting - I'd be climbing the walls otherwise!

Current mood: relieved

FO: Lizard Ridge jumper and a baby blanket

Started in 2014, I finally finished this. Not happy with the neck, the two inner buttons are extraneous as doing them up makes me feel strangled. Debating whether to unpick the buttons (it's four plain and two bevelled) and sew up the spare buttonholes. I mounted the pieces onto the machine and knit the sleeves downwards, so unpicking the neck isn't really an option. Himself insists on tilting the camera at 30 degs so I look like I have tiny legs and am top-heavy. I shall have to start getting the tripod out and doing my own photo shoots with the DSLR and the remote, I think...



Yeah, not one of my better blankets. Freeform is all very well until you later realise that changing patterns means changing widths also. I guess it will work for someone - maybe in a pushchair?

Haven't had much time to machine knit lately - didn't take it to Iceland and I'm away on a two day course from tomorrow in DAK8. :) Have made a front and a back for a child's jumper, might get to the sleeves tonight, in between packing and housework. We shall see.

Despite supposedly trying to get the stash down - I only managed to sell off a few cones on Rav, and knitting them up takes time, ya know - I fell for this online. What can I say, but, whoops?!



Current mood: awake

FO: red reversible hat and other knitting

So I thought I'd try and make some progress on the lizard ridge jumper, which I started in 2014:



But I didn't make any notes on Rav, other than it was T6 and it was supposed to be a cardigan.



So anyway it's now going to be a slash neck jumper with plain arms. The back is done, the front is just awaiting a bottom band (knitting garter st bands by hand) and then I need to find the original tension swatch (ha!) and calculate some sleeves on Knitware. I unpicked something that was either meant to be a sleeve, or a front. Oops. Oh well!

Some not great pictures of a quick reversible hat I whipped up yesterday:





If I could just figure out a way to make the Every Other Needle to Every Needle bit lie flat (the red crown), it'd be perfect. Looks a lot better on a human than it does on the bed, too.

Oh, and a gratuitous kitty shot, just because he looks like such a cutie - and not at all like Eddie noneck stripeytail devil rocketboy...



Current mood: Off to work, but wishing I could stay at home knitting! :)

Machine knitting: It's not a toaster!

I really feel I should dispel a myth about machine knitting. Yes, yards of straight stocking stitch (and other patterns) can be produced quite quickly. But casting on takes time (especially if it's all 200 needles!). Increasing and decreasing, and any other technique you might like to do (eg cables), takes time. Casting off takes time - it can be back-breaking, sat in the same position for half an hour. Then you STILL have to sew all the pieces together (sometimes, you have to do some sewing partway through the process so you can machine knit some more, eg sewing one shoulder up so you can add the neck welt). Not to mention, the swatching/washing/blocking beforehand if you want the garment to fit a specific person, the measuring, the designing of the pattern, the false starts and frogging back when your attention is distracted or you make a mistake. These things aren't specific to machine knitting, of course - any fibre crafter who wants predictable results should be prepared for some up-front prep work. But I suspect people see the word "machine" and imagine it's as easy as waving your arms about a bit, and out pops a fully finished garment, like some sort of yarny toaster. Or this adorable Pingu cartoon.

We don't press a button, and out pops a finished article, all sewn up. There ARE industrial machines that can do this, but only after hours of programming, and my house just isn't that big, and neither is my bank account. Where would be the fun in that, anyway? The only reason I bring this up, is that there was a request on a knitting group yesterday for someone to pop into a tv studio on Tuesday with a finished article (a novelty item). I'm sure the researcher meant no harm by the request. Just as the various requests that crop up on the knitting lists, usually around the beginning of December, for xmas jumpers for celebrities and "oh can we have them finished by the end of next week?", are well-intentioned, but poorly researched. There was a request to hand knit the entire royal family, a fortnight before Prince William's wedding. I've often seen requests on knitting lists, from students - they've come up with a line of knitwear, can someone please knit it for them by the end of the month? Not entirely sure what one is supposed to learn if someone else does the hard work for you, but then I never went to art college...

These things take TIME, my friend. Learning to machine knit is like any other skill - riding a bike, flying a helicopter. It takes time to learn the ropes and then things can still sometimes go wonky. If you know nothing about the craft, know this: the word machine does not mean it's much faster. It can be, but only after a LOT of practice, and quite a bit of swearing. There's a heck of a learning curve, and a lot of folks just don't make it past that. Alas, there are an awful lot of knitting machines in attics and under beds that are testament to that.

Maybe I'm just grumpy, or over-sensitive, but I feel that these "last minute" requests devalue the skill of the craft and are somewhat insulting. Hey ho. Maybe it's just me, I'm not a winter person. I'll be more perky in March, I promise.

Having said all that, I did manage to make a semi-decent jumper out of the olive green all-over cable disaster - this took probably 5 hours, over two days, to make the parts, and then another 3 hours or so to sew up by hand. It was made on the SK860, which protested a bit, until I hit on the idea of running the yarn over a wax candle attached to the tension mast. Himself seems happy enough with it, although I'd've liked a tighter neck. No, he never tucks his t-shirts in. He mostly lives in fleeces since discovering them in conjunction with his snowboarding hobby, so I suspect this will sadly be the last jumper I make for him. He just doesn't wear them.



I also made a hat with some of the leftovers - there's still enough of this yarn to make quite a few more hats I think. The yarn softens quite a bit in the wash. I shamefacedly admit I didn't wash the swatch I used to calculate the jumper from; the yarn felt so acrylic-y I figured it wouldn't change much  - so I learnt a lesson there! The hat was converted to midgauge from Daisyknits' adult bulky hat - it's basically a big hem, so double-thick and nice and warm.



I also finished off the Zen jacket - I ran out of yarn, so the sleeves are shorter than in the pattern, and it didn't come out as long as in the pattern for some reason. I'd definitely make this again, but choose a lighter yarn. This is Artesano Merino. If I was to make this again in the same yarn, I'd probably change the even stitches in the 9 dtr shells for chain stitches, to take out some of the weight (and of course make the yarn go further).



Apologies for the weird camera angle - I am not top heavy with tiny legs, alas. I blame the cameraman! The back problem has mutated into pins and needles in my right leg, should I dare sit on a conventional seat for more than about 30 minutes. It sounds minor, but it means pubs and cinemas are right out at the moment, and the only way to watch tv is horizontally. I hope it hurries up and heals - I have things to do, and a lot of them I need to be sitting down for! And the el-cheapo knee chair at home is not kind to my knees or behind!


Current mood: uncomfortable

Mini midgauge challenge

We had some yarn donated to the Coventry Knit Wits last week, so I set myself a mini-challenge to get it all knitted up by the weekend:



Which became:













Hats from my own midgauge pattern and a conversion of Gina B Ahren's "Mile a minute" hats - basically, cast on 84 sts and knit for 56 rows.
Gloves from Gerda Stitt's mitten pattern, again converted to midgauge by multiplying everything by 0.7 .

Discovered the PC10 uses different program numbers to those illustrated in the literature - so it's pattern lucky-dip. Will have to mark up my sheet and maybe list it online, but not tonight, got to pack for a two day training in sunny Slough. That's a job when I have a spare two hours or so...

Free pattern: Mid-gauge hat for premature baby

This is a conversion to midgauge of a free hat pattern I found here. I was given a load of oddments of DK and wanted a simple hat pattern to use it up, because the local knitting group (Ball of Yarn) are running a hat drive at the moment.



Machine: 6.5mm gauge with ribber (I used SK860)
Main Tension (MT): 6/6
Yarn: DK oddments

Cast on 62 sts in 2x2 rib.
Knit 34 rows in MT.
*Reduce tension by 1 dot, knit 2 rows.
Repeat from * until R46
Transfer every other needle to its neighbour, K1 row. Take off on waste yarn, leaving a tail of main yarn 3x the width of the knitting on the bed for sewing up.
Thread the yarn tail through the last row of main yarn, remove waste yarn, draw up the crown and sew. Mattress stitch the side seam until the last 2-3", then mattress stitch on the INSIDE so that the sewing up doesn't show when the brim is turned up. Weave in ends.

FO: Bubble pops and baby cardigan

There has been some discussion about "bubble pops" on Ravelry lately and it being the 2014 Ravellenic games I got a round tuit and had a go. Sat at the Passap E6000 for about an hour trying to figure it out, and then decided it was easier to hand-manipulate it on the SK860 (not least because it starts as full needle rib and 4ply is just too thick).





The yarn is a Babylonglegs one but I can't remember which one offhand. After casting on FNR, I rearranged the needles for 5x5 industrial rib (ie 5 x 4 on each bed and half pitch). After knitting a further two rows, bring all needles to work on one bed and knit 8 rows. Then you drop these "new stitches" and bring all the needles on the other bed into work, and knit a further 8 rows. The texture is amazing - rather like double-sided bubble wrap. I love it! Link to the video by Anna Kovin - it's in Russian, but you get the idea.

This is an all-in-one baby cardigan, pattern by Marg Coe. Technically it's not all in one though because I added ribbing to the sleeves and the fronts. It's an ingenious shape - kind of a H on its side, with the top of the H folded down to make the sleeves and tops of the fronts.



I also finished a secret project and had a lot of hassle figuring out how to swiss-darn it to my satisfaction. It came out ok, but it's not as nice as fairisle. Having great fun on the Drip Candle sock but cannot make head nor tail of the ankle pattern instructions; the socks in the photo use a very variegated yarn so can't even use them as guidance. I am doing my own thing instead.

We're having another MK meet at my house next Saturday (15th) at 2pm. We are going to have a play with garter bars.

Bits and bobs

Well, the head cold has gradually turned back into a sore throat again. Let's hope the cycle doesn't restart, as himself came back from Austria very late last night with "I might have picked up another cold!" Harrumph! He can keep his foreign germs to himself! I did mean to wait up for him, but fell asleep almost as soon as the light went off.

Not much machine knitting happened this weekend, because I was actually teaching MK to a lovely lady in Hinckley on Saturday, and a lovely lady in Bedworth on Sunday. Although, I did make another reversible hat on Sunday night, I haven't finished sewing it up yet.


Easy handknitted gloves - based on a pattern by Busymonkey but modified to be knitted in one piece. Although, looking at the pictures on Ravelry, I think her thumb is probably nicer.


Simple garter stitch scarf - I love how the cat photobombed this shot!


Ipod cosy - needs a button or something :)


Very small hat - either for a preemie or for a doll, it was all the yarn I had left!


Child's hat made on the SK860. I think that machine needs a good oil, it always seems rather stiff.


And because I never got around to photographing them, the soft weights I made for the CSM, alongside a CSM needle which I don't think fits my machine at all, no idea how it got in the box!

Oh, incidentally, I'm helping a friend put up a website to talk about his CSM collection (amongst other things). Not much up there at the moment but hopefully it will build up into an interesting website.

FO: more hats

Made some stash-busting hats for charity over the weekend. A mid-gauge one:



These two are reversible, made on the standard gauge, and very cosy:

FO and free pattern: Mid gauge hats

You may remember we had a destash night at the start of the month. Well, I've been working away at using up the yarn. It's mostly small quantities, so scarves and hats have been the order of the day.

I made two hats this week. I used the row and stitch counts from Slisen's Chemo hat pattern, but lengthened the hat itself and did not do the decreases along the row (I don't have a mid-gauge garter bar).



This one was made from a ball of James C Brett Marble DK. I assume it was a complete ball but it had been partly undone and rewound, so I'm not sure. I started this one with rib. I think the tension I used was a little too firm, but it stays on well!



I don't know what this yarn is; a very pretty DK. I had one knitted piece and one part ball of this, and decided to hang the hem (as per Slisen's pattern) and make it a bit longer - this hat is designed to have some "spare" hanging off the top of the head. 

Pattern for the burgundy hat:

Cast on 104 sts in 1x1 rib
Knit 18 rows 1x1 rib (T2)
Transfer to main bed and knit 70 plain rows at T5
Transfer every other needle and take out of work
Knit 6 rows T2 EON
Break yarn leaving a good length, thread through live stitches and draw up. 
Sew up the top, and mattress stitch the seam. Add a pompom if you have enough yarn left

Pattern for the striped hat:

Cast on 104 sts using waste yarn and ravel cord; RC000
Knit 17 rows (T2)
Knit 1 row maximum tension
Knit to RC36 at T2
Hang the hem; RC000; Knit 1 row T6
Knit to RC90 at T5
Transfer every other needle and take out of work
Knit 6 rows T2 EON
Break yarn leaving a good length, thread through live stitches and draw up.
Sew up the top, and mattress stitch the seam. Add a pompom if you have enough yarn left

---

Christmas eve was fun, we took a sherry trifle over the road to the Cog's brother's house. The trifle caused no end of problems - apparently making egg custard from scratch (two eggs, two yolks, a pint of milk) just makes a lumpy thin gruel. We ended up mixing in a tin of readymade custard. Then when it came to whipping the double cream, I somehow managed to throw half of it all over the kitchen worktop. Next year we are making tiramisu - a lot easier! Having said that, the trifle disappeared without trace and everyone seemed to enjoy it. 

Christmas day we spent with the Cog's family, and got soundly beaten at Trivial Pursuits (I hate that game!) by his big brother and girlfriend who had a long run of easy questions. Boxing day we had my family come to our house. Don't know what possessed me, but I got far too much food in, including a box of 50 mini sausage rolls (sister is vegetarian and kids can be picky). We are still finishing off some of it now! Later found two presents that had fallen out of the bag so had to drop them off Saturday. We made a trip into Birmingham so I could spend some gift vouchers - Debenhams had a major queue and only one changing room open so I decided to put back the (not in the sale) dress and just get jewellery instead. I confess, I do not enjoy rooting through the sale rails. It might be ok if you're stick thin but the size 16/18 stuff tends to go quickly and what is left is often horrible! 

Technology-wise it's been disappointing, too. The Cog's big present was a new monitor; but surprisingly it only came with a VGA cable and not a DVI cable (shame on you Samsung!). My big present was a new mobile which I couldn't use out of the box, because I needed a micro SIM. It's all up and running now - had a heck of a job getting a case for it too, finally managed to get a very girly pink one. 

I had plans this week to get swatching on the yoked sweater, but it hasn't happened. The xmas break seems to have flown by, and I only really have two hats to show for it. It's raining and blowing a gale out there today and I need to pop into town to try and exchange a gift that was the wrong one (so I don't have the receipt). Tomorrow is the day of the big party for Mum (she's 70) so I really ought to be writing down a speech right now (I think I'm seriously in the denial stage today). 

Whoops...

I went to a destash night and came back with this lot... What can I say but whoops? I should say that the fun fur, the chenille and the snowflake are already well on the way to being scarves. I think the marble might become a hat. Not sure about the other stuff. The irony is, I got back a small ball of green/multi sock yarn which is actually leftovers from a pair I knitted a while ago - so some stash actually came back!

I did manage to pass some other stuff on though - although I discovered my Rav stash isn't quite as accurate as I thought. It has actually dropped below 100 for the first time this year, but that's partly because I've stopped counting "leftovers". They go into a clear plastic bag and end up in other projects.

In other news, I finished the first hopscotch sock, and started the second one. I also did some more xmas knitting which involved the PC10 and a motif pattern. The SK860 gave me fits patterning-wise - it would only see the N1 cam on the second pass, which meant that the motif was out by a lot of stitches on the first row (and this was a reproducible fault). As soon as I removed the N1 cam? Worked like a charm. So, it doesn't ALWAYS pay to follow the instructions to the letter!

I'm still in the thick of xmas knitting, and that also means xmas sewing up, so I can't really get going on the Yoked sweater MKAL (Machine Knit-A-Long)we started on Ravelry just yet. Looking forward to a relaxing week at home over Christmas where I can get to grips with it properly.

Now we're cooking...

Finally, my SK860 is fully functional (does happy dance). I mentioned before that G spotted the back rail wasn't square to the rest of the machine. It was only 2mm further back on the left hand side, but that was enough for the carriage to be unable to sense the magnets in that area - so it really was a "blind spot". Seems to me the QC department at Silver in Japan need a kick up the bum for letting that one go! Just my luck to get the Friday afternoon machine... Andeeknits has been very helpful and her hubby has been acting as courier so I haven't had to trek down the M5 again, which is good, as I'm running out of time this year for such long jaunts!

The gloves for G's dad are now done, and have been modelled by a work colleague as to their fit. Haven't got around to taking their photo yet. I'm onto the second sleeve of the fluffy jumper - I think it's highly unlikely it'll be finished by next Friday though, unless I can somehow spend all weekend knitting whilst also finishing up the xmas shopping. Lost an hour of knitting time on Wednesday because I forgot to take the pattern with me to knitting club so had to stop. Duh!

The saga continues...

Got my repaired SK860 carriage back on Tuesday. Was very excited to try it out. Guess what? Same problem still - put a cam between approx. 28L and 73L and it disappears. Then himself spotted something - the back rail (on which the cams slide) is 2mm further back into the machine at the left hand end, meaning the cam is also 2mm further away from the back of the carriage. Could this be why it can't "see" it?

It's gone back down south for inspection and testing. And possibly a few incantations whilst waving a rubber chicken. Sigh.

Put away my SK840 combo last night and got the Brother 950i and the garter carriage out and deliberately did NOT get the ribber out - this will force me to use the Passap for ribbing. Started a cowl a la Kriskrafter. Can't get past error 200 on the Passap. Grrr.

Happy days are here again....

The reseller (Andrea of Andeeknits) has loaned me her ex-demo PC10 - and it arrived yesterday (I do love new gadgets! Shiny shiny!). And the fault remains - any stitch cam between L72 and L28 becomes invisible - so it is the carriage at fault, as I suspected. I'm glad I kept on with this because I'm not ready to pension off my EC1/PE1 whilst they still work, despite Silver's lack of interest/support in their old kit. Their response was very disappointing considering this knitting machine is the most expensive thing I own, after my car!

I'll be posting my carriage down to her again in the next few weeks (it will take a while for the part to arrive I suspect). The good thing is I can now pack the durned thing away and get on with some chunky knitting I've been eyeing up. I did try the yarn in question (worsted Peaches n crème cotton, bought in a mad fit of passion right before Spinrite bought them out) on the midgauge and practically broke my hand, in fact I gained a lovely bruise as that was the first yarn I foolishly tried to cast on with on this machine. Technically it OUGHT to work - it's a DK thickness - but in actuality it just doesn't have enough stretch. I've knitted various things (peg bag, jumpers) with it on the KH260 so I know that beast can take it. Also I picked up five balls of James C Brett Marble chunky at the Dream Week - and although the midgauge knits it just fine, it is at the top end of its range really.

So I'm rather chuffed - we finally have a conclusion. It's been doing my head in now for a few weeks. I cannot praise Andeeknits enough - she has listened to my woes on the 'phone and in person, and has trusted me with some kit which I haven't yet paid for. Having played with it, I might now buy - it has the standard cards built in, which I didn't know. Yeah, touching stuff is fatal when it comes to yarn and gadgets - fatal to my credit card, that is.

The PC10 is a rather poorly-thought out replacement for the EC1/PE1 combination. If Silver had thought to ask machine knitters what they actually wanted, or if perhaps their machine knitting division had the heady budgets of yesteryear - we might reasonably have expected a USB connector for DAK, or WinCrea, or some other computerized patterning. We might have expected a connection from the old EC1, because feeding 20 odd cards in for a 200st wide design is still far quicker than drawing white and black dots on a dinky strip of a screen. We might have reasonably expected the ability to read stitch patterns directly from a USB stick, and the ability to accept modern memory cards (CD? SD? MicroSD?), instead of the rather outdated and highly specific card it WILL read, which is not even compatible with the card that the PE1 uses - that was another mistake! You could have feasibly thought that you could design your pattern on an EC1 reader sheet, saved it to the memory card on the PE1 and then be able to use that pattern on the PC10 elsewhere - but apparently not!

Apparently the PC10 is being discontinued - presumably it didn't sell. Ooh, I WONDER why not?! (yes, that was sarcasm). If they'd thought it through better and put a little more effort into the design, things might have gone a different way. As it is, Silver sell expensive electronic knitting machines that cannot pattern without further expense - and they no longer sell anything that does the patterning. Go figure.

It's sad, because the short-sightedness of the one manufacturer still in business, doesn't help promote a hobby that has already gone "underground" (online) to keep itself going.

Ok, rant over - it's too sunny outside to be cross. Things are looking up in my knitting room, and that's good enough for me today.

Only slightly excited...

I’m borrowing a PC10 patterning device from the seller, to prove (or disprove) once and for all, what is wrong with my SK860. I like playing with new toys but this has become a necessity – one way or another this little saga must come to an end, not least because I have lots of things I want to knit in my queue and the SK860 is now holding that up. If it works, I’ll buy the PC10 I guess - hadn’t planned on it so it will have to go on the credit card. If it demonstrates the same fault, then the carriage is definitely at fault and will need to be returned (possibly with the machine) for repair. So although I’m slightly excited to be playing with a new piece of kit, I’m going to have to wade through the manual first as to how to get a pattern into the blasted thing. I’m out both days this weekend so I’m hoping I’ll have the time to put it through its paces.

In other news, I’ve only had one bid on my Ebid auctions (and that for an Alan Dart handknitting pattern, which we all know is like knitter’s crack for some people). So I have had no choice but to list other things on that famous auction site – just because it seems to get the most exposure. Luckily these are mostly books and small machine knitting items so there shouldn’t be too much hassle with postage/things going wrong. It seems to be a necessary evil, alas. Trying to limit myself to about 20 auctions a week because that’s a lot of postage and packing to organise when one works full time.

Cameo is growing steadily (when I don’t mess up and have to frog a row). Frogged my one and only attempt at slip stitch crochet, and will probably frog the first Eve's rib tunic top I made with the rest of that yarn, as I doubt even I’LL ever wear something QUITE that loud. Bearing in mind that yarn was originally a cardigan, it's taking quite a while for me to work out what to do with it. Why, yes, I did buy it on a whim, how did you guess? Which is why "Ooh, pretty!" is never a good enough reason to buy any yarn. Even it it's made of rainbows, sparkles and unicorn poo. Ahem.

I am also part-way through machine-knitting another Lilly wrap top, and need to finish the first one - whether or not the second one gets finished in time for its intended recipient remains to be seen. Somebody will get some use out of it.

Argh - (accidentally) talking like a pirate

So I went down to reunite my SK860 with its carriage. It performed beautifully. However, when I got it home, it started to play up again. Turns out if I put the left cam between 70L and 30L it "disappears" as far as the EC1 is concerned - so the pattern stops advancing. We only tried it out over 40 stitches, of course, so did not find the problem.

Hoping I can find someone local who can lend me something so that I can establish whether (a) the EC1 needs calibration or (b) it's actually the carriage at fault. If I recalibrate the EC1 I risk it not working with the SK840. Argh!

Alternatively I can just suck it up I guess and make sure I either knit items assymetrically (would cause problems with the long ribber comb) and/or make sure I travel to 70L whether I'm knitting that wide or not (can cause yarn take-up problems though).

In other news I made another Lilly wrap and a tuck lace scarf this weekend - both need some finishing. And the cameo vest re-crochet continues inexorably. Really need to get working on this stash!

Lost mojo and non-plussness

After such a wonderful week at Metropolitan, you'd think I was raring to go, right? Well, I was. But rewinding some yarn I bought last week took forever (and I've still two balls to do), and I've discovered that Thomas the cat has been using my SRP60N as a springboard to get to the window, and he's damaged the left Rusell lever on the ribber carriage. It knits, but makes a rather scary zipping noise. Woe is me!

Got to reunite the rest of my midgauge with its carriage at the weekend, oh joy. Doesn't sound like it can be fixed - so I have a very expensive, plain knitting machine. Not happy - if I'd known that was what I was getting, I'd've stuck with the LK150 and not bothered upgrading. I understand the sellers are keen to talk us into buying new machines, but I can't see any incentive when they don't work as expected. Silver's patterning is separate, which means if it doesn't work, your machine doesn't pattern. If they hadn't, in their wisdom, withdrawn their punchcard midgauge, that is the machine I would have gone for.

Very glum. The only saving grace lately is that I treated myself to a new (second hand) mobile. Having a bit of a game trying to transfer all the useful Palm stuff I need onto it, though. It's going to take some time before I'm fully swapped; and in the meantime the old Palm Treo is showing its displeasure by discharging itself every day, and being completely flat when I want to use it for something. It had better battery performance when it had a SIM card and connected to the network - nonplussed!