Some FOs and pictures from my travels

Cute crochet cactus, a birthday gift.

Single sock knitted flat, striped with two ends of sock yarn. A test knit for possible fair isle socks in the future. Yes, Second Sock Syndrome in action, it has no mate!

Belated picture - crochet and knitted hearts for Coventry hospital's palliative care unit

CSM socks made at the MKC retreat day and grafted the following weekend.

Proof that it's working, a repeating bird pattern centred on a "sleeve" sample - I'm instructing someone how to use her Passap E6000 with DesignAKnit at the weekend, and had to figure out how to use the integrated, interactive knitting feature with the Passap. Long story short, I'd downloaded a pattern to that machine with the old W10 laptop, but hadn't got it working with W11 (but it's been working with the Brother and Silver machines). It turns out that (a) my curly cord needs repairing AGAIN (repeated error 200) and (b) the Passap only wishes to communicate with the right hand USB port and not the left one. Nope, I've no idea why either! Ignore the wonky edges, I was being lazy and not fully fashioning them as I usually would. 

It appears that you first have to apply the pattern, position it, and "integrate" it into the garment piece. Then you download the stitch pattern using "integrated download" not "download" - somehow I missed that the first time. Then when you start knitting the piece, select "integrated" not "shape only". It makes perfect sense now, but my poor old brain was struggling with it last weekend. At some point in this process, the Passap will tell you if it's not happy with the design - for example, you've used a two colour double-bed technique, but selected a 3 colour single-bed technique. I've never had issues before BUT so far I've only knitted straight pieces where the pattern alignment wasn't a concern. So it was a nice learning experience for me, and as part of that I discovered there are tutorial videos on the Softbyte website that I'll be working through. 

I won't bore you with too many holiday snaps - in April, we had a short break in Hathersage, famously the last resting place of Little John (of Robin Hood's merry men), and diverted to Chesterfield on the way home. In May we did a week in Venlo, Cologne and a night in Amsterdam. As you can see, it's been a dull, damp, chilly spring! 

View from Stanage Edge. The five mile hike from Hathersage was hard work!

None of my workmates believe me when I tell them this place exists in the Peak district.

Famous twisted spire at Chesterfield, the photo doesn't do it justice. Apparently it's the weight of lead applied to a medieval wooden spire (but there are lots of legends involving the Devil as to why it's like this). 

Cologne cathedral is HUGE. Yes, the weather was as grim as it looks alas!

A visit to the Lindt chocolate museum. Worth it just for the shop (which sells other brands too! Love it!).

Current mood: impressed

A new rabbit hole and computer woes...

First the mini rant - you'd think buying a new whizzbang Windows 11 laptop would be a joyous thing, wouldn't you? Well, I finally managed to "attend" the virtual Radiohead exhibit that my previous laptop's graphics card could not cope with. No more falling through holes into space, forever stuck and having to hit EXIT just to go back to the front door to try again. It was an amazing piece of work and the ONLY "game" I intend to install on the new laptop. No - the IT bods, in their wisdom, have hidden the ports under W11. This is a problem because a perfectly functional DAK cable, that works fine with W10 (it makes my work laptop go "bing bong" if you want to get technical), can no longer be "seen" as viable - it says there's a fault with the USB cable, the fault being that W11 is ignorant. So I cannot get DAK to talk to the Passap E6000. I discovered this quite late at night and gave up in disgust after a fruitless hour trying updates etc. Nothing about it in the Softbyte manual, W11 has yet to be invented there. I am in dangerous waters here because I only want to add ports, I don't want to become admin and end up getting hacked. So tonight's possible job is to try and get to the bottom of that mess. Thanks for nothing, Microsoft! Ironically the Silverlink box works just fine, I suspect because the SK840, being "brainless", needs a seperately powered box with RAM, and even W11 can't ignore actual electricity! Not impressed, Microsoft! Way to annoy anyone with older kit they need to run. 

On a more positive note, I spent a happy morning at Amanda's Glass Academy making a flower ornament using bullseye glass and mille fiori with a fellow WI member and a few of her relatives. Again my only problem was not putting too much on there! I've not got it back yet as they take a while to get fired. The following day (Mother's day in the UK) was also the last day of "Sewing for Pleasure" at the NEC, which also encompassed the "Creative Craft" and "Fashion and Embroidery" shows for the same price. Four of us (Mum was one, seemed churlish not to invite her when I realised what day it was!) went there in the Cog's car and had a great day, though we all ended up splitting up ultimately. Every crafter has their own private passions! J wanted to check out the high tech overlockers, Mum wanted some scrapbooking things, W was looking out for books (not many alas) and I just wanted to feast my eyes and did my usual, very OCD, up and down, so as not to miss anything. My haul? Some beading supplies plus a goody bag which contained three kits and quite a lot of other nice beady things from The Bead Selection, a rainbow necklace and bracelet kit from The Spellbound Bead Company, a fantastic tweed jacket from Manteaux that perfectly matches my current handbag (luckily for me, the last one in my size in their van), a cat and a heart wooden block and three new paints for my block printing kit. I resisted the yarn - there was one where the yarns were pettable, and one selling off the big plastic multipacks. I also managed to resist yet more fat quarters, though I did spend a good ten minutes teasing myself. Knitting-wise it was quite slim pickings, though Rachel Johns of the big needles was there. There weren't as many exhibition pieces as I'd expected, more workshop areas, and the "scrapbooking end" (Creative Craft Show) did seem a bit smaller, but perhaps that was just my imagination. I suspect the hall is the same size but the stands are further apart. One benefit of COVID, I always felt it was a fire safety nightmare in the pre-pandemic days because a lot of folks need mobility scooters and lots of folks take shopping trolleys! So it was a lovely creative weekend. I've made quite a few necklaces and some somewhat successful earrings, I made all of the kits up within a few days. Alas no pictures yet, I will work on that. Life has become even lonelier of an evening as the Cog's dad has gone into hospital in a confused state and the Cog and his brother V who lives over the road get the "night shift" of 6 to 8pm visiting. So I am rattling around the house, beading things, wondering if I really need more costume jewellery, tidying things, watching rubbish telly and getting annoyed whilst wondering why I cannot find any half-decent books on beading that explain actual techniques rather than just projects I don't particularly like! 

The Cog did me a lovely breakfast in bed for my birthday last week and had booked us tickets to the Abba show in London, which was amazing. What wasn't so much fun was being stuck on the M1 for nearly an hour because some idiot with a Bentley (and presumably another car; that was gone by the time we got to the straight section where the accident occurred) had had a nasty collision. We literally made it to the Abba venue with enough time for a comfort break but no lunch. Good job the fast 800 diet means we're fasting pros now, as there was no interval and we'd have had to climb over about 20 people twice in the dark. Not ideal! The show was great, and after a quick l'dunch, dlinner? at the shopping centre we'd parked at, we were back on the road so G could put in another night shift. This weekend we've a theatre show to go to. Dinner was also booked but is looking unlikely with all the ferrying about. My inner five year old wants to scream. Three COVID spoilt birthdays and a fourth with yet another cancelled family event - I really wish the Cog had kept it quiet so it hadn't hung over us all week. My sister is too busy to see me and caught COVID just to seal the deal. Boo and poo! As for London? Never drive, always train it. Though I was surprised that it was £6.50 each just for a return ticket for one stop on the DLR. Wow. Even our local bus is cheaper than that! The Cog did say he'd looked at hotels but it was very expensive. At least it was a sunday afternoon showing, so not too bad and as it turned out, ideal for the Cog and getting to his "night shift" 

Oh well. I am in a very dark mood because despite the change to BST my body still has no idea what timezone it's in yet. I did not manage to drop off 'til 4am after actually having a dream that wasn't a nightmare the previous night (there's always a downside). Career and work stuff upsetting me as usual.  Ugh. Pictures etc when I cheer up and take some. 

Current mood: exhausted

Lace - holes where you want them

I've always thought of lace as "planned holes" as opposed to dropped stitches, which are "unplanned holes". As I am champing at the bit to knit something lacey, I thought I'd test knit the 20 lace patterns that come with the Silver machines - they are on the mylars and also come with Designaknit. Unlike in the Brother manuals, only two of the lace patterns are shown in the manual as examples on how to set them up. 

A few of them are "fashion lace", ie the carriage is moved back and forth to transfer stitches, but the knitting doesn't get any longer. This is the same as the Brother method, where there's nowhere to put the yarn in the lace carriage. Fasion lace patterns are pretty, but time-consuming - you can often identify such patterns by the fact they have "travelling stitches". I had wondered how DAK would handle it - it was easy, a pink carriage means the transfer only lace setting (P), and a blue carriage means the transfer and knit lace setting (L).

And some cheerful crocuses from the village square. We all need a bit of cheering up lately!

Current mood: working

Doing the happy dance / Designaknit 9

Well, after another frustrating Sunday afternoon making no headway with the lace carriage, I turned to just making fairisle with the machine (it kept jamming, I tell you I was at my wit's end last weekend!). Turns out it wasn't quite seated correctly, fairisle is fine, so that meant that the laptop and all cables were working correctly. When you've an issue with anything, it's best to try and be methodical and find out what is and isn't at fault. 

Eventually, I DMed the lovely Andrea from Andeeknits and explained my dilemma. She said without the lace tool add-on in DAK8, there would be no way I'd get the SK840 / LC560 to knit lace. She also said the row tripper just needed bending. So another two hours wasted - thank goodness I didn't go any further, I had taken the top off the machine to see if there was an easy way to stop the machine tripper riding up (it has a smidge of vertical play in it). Luckily I couldn't remember how to get the row counter off - it's directly above. This machine couldn't count beyond nine when I bought it secondhand, so I replaced the row counter straight off ages ago. So instead of having to replace the (perfectly fine) LC560, I just needed to upgrade to DAK9 which now includes the lace tool. So I did, and got the handknit part too just because I might as well. 

I've just knit a test swatch - apart from a dropped stitch hole in the middle, it worked well, even to the point of ignoring a lace stitch that appeared on the end stitch - you don't want a hole on the very end stitches, it's also known as decreasing (leading edge) or dropping the stitch (trailing edge). That may just have been luck. Oh, and a careful application of the pliers to the row tripper and it's now tripping correctly. It means some of the Silver compatibility charts I've seen online are wrong (they specify only the LC580 will work here). 

I can't play more with the machine tonight as it's watercolours on zoom in twenty minutes, Coventry knitwits on facetime tomorrow night, and the Leicestershire MKC zoom on Thursday. But it's lovely to know, it's all ready and waiting for me this weekend! Now I just need to get rewinding the bamboo so I can swatch on this machine... I aim to do something like this again -  but in pink, with a v neck, a bit shorter, and probably not so many different patterns (although...!). The only reason I got rid of it was that I lost quite a bit of weight, and that, combined with the square neck, meant it drowned me and kept falling off my shoulders. You can see I'm wearing a lacey vest under it because it was borderline indecent for work! Sigh, yes, that photo was taken in reception. I miss seeing my work colleagues in person! 

Right, well, those pictures won't paint themselves! 

Current mood: excited

Frustrations

I do wonder how come I ever got this far with machine knittting. I mean, I've been doing this on and off for 21 years and yet it still blindsides me from time to time. I fished out a lost tool from the Brother KH950i and then put it away on Saturday, with big plans to start swatching a lace tunic with the SK840. The Silver handles lace differently to the Brother - it uses a one-action lace carriage, as opposed to a knitting carriage and lace carriage used together, so in theory it should be quicker. I picked up the SK840 as a bundle with ribber, lace carriage and colour changer from a local lady who was giving up due to ill health. You would assume that they worked together. Indeed, I know I've swatched lace with the lace carriage (LC560) because I even got it tuned to fit the bed by Andeeknits. One thing I failed to notice is, it doesn't trip the mechanical row counter - and there's a later 580 carriage that presumably does. It's more than £400, so I'm a bit dischuffed. That, and I cannot get DAK to make it do lace - the pattern appears to advance ok, but no lace is happening. Alas I sold my PC10 and EC1 on, so I don't even have a fallback position. After a frustrating hour of nothing happening, I gave up. Our tv finally started cutting out every ten minutes (it's over 10 years old and has been getting worse for a while), so Saturday afternoon turned into a "play silly beggars with a badly-coded website and go pick up a new TV". The Cog was far more excited than I over it, and immediately complained he wished he'd bought the next size up when we got home! Sheesh! 43" is enough and certainly much better than peering at a spare computer monitor. 

It shows how much I've progressed recently with the Passap, as I ended up casting on a simple 2x2 scarf on it, which will be 100% successful even if it IS 800 rows of tedium. 

I've had some useful responses on Ravelry - apparently this is a flaw of DAK, one must program a "piece" even if swatching, and then delete any transfers that fall on the end stitches. Annoying when I'm only at the swatching stage. But the row counter is more tricky - one needs to know where one is when knitting, because there are often interruptions from telephones and well-meaning partners to contend with. I am rather stumped as to know how to proceed! 

Current mood: annoyed

Passap and DAK, finally!

My first programmed pattern on the Passap! Yes, no big deal to anyone else really - I think I bought the Passap DAK cable last xmas and then never got around to trying it out. I think I can do without the magnetic sensor bit for interactive knitting - the slope of the back lock doesn't make it easy to position the magnetic arm, and the masts aren't really deep enough to hold the weight of the sensor - and the cable is not QUITE long enough to mount on the mast and ALSO plug into the console, which is a bit annoying because at first I did get it positioned perfectly. Plus there isn't actually anywhere to position my laptop for interactive knitting - putting it on the motor is fine until one wishes to change colours, and then the laptop's liable to get thrown across the room and out of the door. Never mind - the stars pattern was something I had in DAK, probably a .BMP file, and it went well - you start the Passap up with the DAK cable plugged into the top left hand side of the Passap console, in place of the connector that goes to the locks. When the program asks for the stitch pattern, you press the blank button and then zero, and it comes up with "PC START", which is when you hit the download button on your computer. When the programming is all finished and you're ready to start, you switch the Passap off and reconnect the lock, fire it up again and skip straight to the cast on. I can see why a switch box would be useful, to stop me having to keep unplugging. I did buy one many moons ago, with the intention of connecting the machine up, but I've an awful feeling it's a serial not a USB box, because Wincrea was on my mind at the time and not DAK. Quite archaic technology now, but then the Passap is at least 40 years old already... probably older! 

Well I had a fairly productive, if frustrating, final day "at" work. Did some small modifications on an already sold system, which took most of the day, and then an engineer I was working with on something else last week made a right mess of the folder structure in head office and wanted something changing. That is a bit of an issue as we CAD engineers are all currently working on our C: drives to save our sanity (due to the pandemic / remote working) and then copying files back up when done - and we know what goes where!  I couldn't figure out where I'd saved it, as my structure didn't match his. These engineers, pah - firstly, they never consider that you've worked on several projects most weeks, and that theirs might not be at the forefront of your mind. Secondly, xmas always seems to come as a surprise to them. This year 70% of the CAD engineers have already finished for the year, so leaving work 'til week 52 is a really bad idea. I'd consider logging on if I was offered overtime, but I'm not on that sort of contract alas. So extra work is at my discretion. Dunno about you but I'm DONE with 2020! Yes, a whole week early! Someone pinging me about some document he's written at 4:20pm, just putting the tin hat on the icing, as it were? Not my circus and not my monkeys today, mate - it can wait until the 4th January. 

Current mood: annoyed

Parked

Rainbow sock with cable - parked!



Rainbow shawl with hearts design - parked! Might frog this yet, it's not working out - the yarn is way too loud for the design. I had wondered where all my stitch markers were...



Finally got DAK to download a pattern into my KH950i - not sure I got it quite right, I told it I was knitting a sleeve but then didn't. Not a great picture, but I'm really chuffed.

Current mood: cynical

Designaknit and CSMing

Had a lovely two-day course at Metropolitan learning how to use DAK 8. It all made perfect sense at the time - I found the computer aspect of it easy enough, but some of the programming is a little strange because some bits of code belong to big software companies. Who knew? Which explains why DAK7, though not that old, is still limited to the old 8 character filenames I thought I'd seen the last of a long time ago. I've "designed" my first DAK garment, a simple round neck jumper with 38" chest using the standard garment sizes, so we shall see how it turns out. The only odd thing is, although it show the welts and neck, it doesn't tell you how to work out the neck ie how many stitches to pick up - so Knitware has an advantage there unless it's somewhere else in the program and I haven't found it yet. The ladies either side of me had Windows 8 and struggled with it a bit - one lady hadn't verified her existence to Microsoft so couldn't create new folders anywhere... and we couldn't sign her in because no network - there's little mobile signal there as it is, and certainly no wifi! I guess it's a security measure, but, really? I think I'll carry on with my 2009 macbook with parallels and windows XP, thanks... Oh, and the BnB at New Farm, Wettenhall - really nice, lots of lovely little touches, lovely warm room and excellent brekko. Would definitely stay there again (they also have a camp site but you'll not catch me camping in February!). Sad to say, the Old Boot pub, supposedly haunted, which served such lovely evening meals when I stayed there last, is falling into disrepair.

Refrained from buying anything at Metropolitan, but only because (a) I'm a bit skint this week and (b) we'll be back there in two weeks or so...

Saturday saw me driving down to Theberton in Suffolk for one day of a two-day CSM event, organised by the Vintage Krankers. Got there at 11am, desperate for coffee. Lovely to see everyone again (a lot of them were at Bristol last year), but the last bit, a 45-50 minute drive on a winding A-road through little villages wasn't fun, and even less so in the dark in reverse. They don't believe in much street lighting down there! Sold two pairs of socks (took the Etsy "shop" on the spur of the moment) and cranked a further two pairs whilst I was there - could have done more, but packed the machine away early, not realising the pub over the road didn't open until 6pm. I always like to knit a pair if I can, it's a kind of OCD I guess! Had lovely grub at the pub, and then got back on the road, cursing myself for being pig-headed/skint and not booking a BnB - having got involved in this via Facebook (which isn't great for organising events if half the attendees don't use it!), I thought there were only 5 of us confirmed so I wasn't actually sure it was going to be worth the drive. Having said that, it would have been equally as dark a drive home tonight anyway. I just really needed a day at home to catch up on email etc. But it was a lovely day, and I'm an old cynic, scarred by the infamous events of '09 and '10. If we could have moved that little community centre and pub somewhere a bit more accessible to a nice straight A road, it would have been perfect. Finally got in at 11pm and was so fired up my sleep was wrecked. But it's bad every night now so it's hard to know what's normal for me these days! My brain desperately needs someone to invent an off switch... :S

Anyway, some pictures - this was late afternoon when it was just us CSMers, there was a lot of interested onlookers in the morning.








Yesterday's efforts - apologies for the parlous state of the carpet, but it's original to the house so about 14 years old and gets a lot of yarn abuse! :)


Gotta love those rainbow and silver lurex socks! Think I might keep these for myself!

Howard very kindly showed me how his machine has wooden bungs/packing, so I might try and get himself to do some woodwork for me as transporting the CSM rolling around in a plastic tote is not ideal. He also made sure I found my car keys - had somehow put them in my pocket and was frantically scrabbling in my bag in the dark. It was a tedious drive back to the A14, not least because it took me several attempts to get through to the Cog on the hands-free, and I was beginning to think he'd gone to the pub without me! Somehow he missed the 'phone ringing....

Current mood: relaxed but tired, if that makes any sense!