Fun with fairisle

Well, I had a fun weekend playing with the patterning on the KH965i, the Cog being employed elsewhere for the day. I've long hankered over making a sideways-knitted fairisle sweater, and having managed to acquire a simple Wendy Phillips pattern, the creative urge just overtook me on Saturday.  All went well for a while, but the patterning mechanism starting to make a noise akin to a washing machine with rocks in (ok I'm guessing here, but it wasn't good!). I took the back parts off a few times but couldn't see anything amiss. Eventually I oiled both drum pivots, and the rotating black bar, and it seems a lot better. There WAS a bit of fluff back there but nothing out of the ordinary. 

The sweater in question has patterned bands, I'm in love with it already, despite black not really being my colour. I'm using pink and blue Magicolour for the fairisle. One more sleeve and cuff to go and then just sewing up. I over-complicated programming the pattern for the welts - it's much easier just to start from row 17 than it is to try and extricate the pattern if you only need one repeat. Still, I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy the machine is to program. The manual is still terrible though! 

If I make this sweater again, I might flip the pattern at the centre neck to make it more symmetrical, and posibbly pick a pattern with less long floats or use the ladder back technique. What with carrying the unused colour up the side, there was already enough going on. I fancy doing this for a Christmas sweater, though I'm tempted to swap to a V neck. I'm not a great wearer of round necks. I had a few false starts - a mispatterned band, and a sleeve that was 25 stitches too narrow. Oops. 

Pictures to follow shortly! 

Oh, and the KHC / two colour tuck problem I had in the last post seems to have evaporated. Performance anxiety perhaps? Who knows!

The circular cardigan is in time out. I cannot seem to keep my increases in order, one would think it would be easy. I seem to be tinking more than knitting on it. Ugh. 

In non-crafting news, we paid to stream the Black Sabbath charity concert this weekend, having failed to get tickets. £25 (£33 after other charges - yeah, there's always someone making a quick buck) and you get zero toilet queues and a better choice of food and drink. What's not to like? The Cog streamed the first half (that we missed) yesterday. I wonder whether Oasis thought about streaming their concerts? Could be quite a money-spinner!

Current mood: enthralled

Free pattern: machine knit roses

We're doing an Alice in Wonderland themed yarn bomb in town this year, and I was sent a link to this video for making roses. Alas I have no intention of acquiring this machine, which takes DK yarn, but I've worked out how to make this pattern on a standard gauge knitting machine as follows:

Yarn: 4ply

Cast on 6 stitches over needles 6-1 left, K10 rows at the tension most suitable for this yarn (I used T7)
*Increase one stitch on the same side as the yarn tail, K10 rows. Rep from * until you have 18 stitches in work. Knit 9 rows, knit a 10th row at a loose tension and latch tool cast off. Leave a long tail for sewing up and break the yarn. Use the long tail to roughly gather up the increased edge, pull up and stitch the work into a spiral rose.

Tips: 

• If you increase by moving the end stitch out one, and pull the empty needle into work, it makes  holes useful for sewing up. 
• I also tried making extra holes every 5th row (when there's no increase), this makes the centre a bit neater because there are more holes to sew up.
• I also tried knitting this in 1ply in full needle rib on the Passap (so 6 stitches in work on both beds). It makes a more "tulip" shaped rose (see left, first picture) because the fabric doesn't curl. 

Machine knitting - definitely not cheating

Some finished Passap scarves for the charity pile, 60 sts and as many rows as I felt like it. There was a row error in the rose one alas. Oh well, after an hour of trying to get to the correct row I gave up and carried on.

This is an interesting pick-up pattern I found in an old MK magazine - 3 Ns in work, 2 OOW, knit 8 rows, pick up every other three from 8 rows down and hang on live needles, repeat, alternating the pick up groups.

Another interesting technique, two rows of fine yarn or overlocker cotton, 11 rows of main yarn, pick up three stitches in the fine yarn and rehang them 9 stitches to the left, K1 row MY, repeat (but hanging the other way).

And this photo I will show to anyone saying machine knitting is cheating. 260 stitches, 350 odd rows into a tuck stitch baby blanket, and the yarn snaps. Should I rehang or give up and serge what I can rescue? As access to my knitting room is still severely limited (himself rarely leaves before 6pm though is only paid to 5pm) this just puts the tin hat on the icing, as it were. Also annoyed that my partner doesn't seem to listen to anything I tell him or ask him to do, starting to feel invisible in my own house  now. Gah. Oh well, at least I've more brain power than a lot of folks down my local supermarket. Lots of families and couples. Surely some of them could shop alone and reduce their covid exposure? Do they hate their children, or just not trust their spouses to shop alone? Oh, tonight we had one lady with a very dangerous chin (mask not over her nose). I actually hung back in the end as I kept passing her on the aisle, and it was SOO tempting to say something snarky.

I used to like shopping, but covidiots and the restricted vegan diet have put paid to that simple pleasure. Bah!

Current mood: angry and HOT (it's gone 8pm and it's 25 degs C and sticky).

FO: Fingerless gloves

Some simple fingerless gloves, made at the weekend workshop in Fladbury organised by rmbroo. Met some amazing machine knitters, got one lady going on her SK840 and managed to sell some items I was never going to use.

Very sorry to hear of Keith Flint's death - Prodigy (along with Underworld and the Chemical Brothers) on the car stereo gets me to work in the morning, especially in the winter. Another band I will never get to see!

Current mood: sad

FO: reversible hats

Three reversible hats, I used this pattern here. Not sure why the site went offline. A great pattern to use up scraps.

Having a mini heatwave in the UK, hope it continues over the weekend!

Current mood: hot

The machine knitting gods and the "art" of being thwarted...

TL;DR: A lot of stuff didn't work out this weekend, but I did learn some stuff and come out with some pretty socks!

So, we had a long weekend coming up, Easter weekend. For me that's Good Friday and Easter Monday. A lovely 4 day weekend - and the weather forecast wasn't great, so a perfect opportunity to get some machine knitting done. But alas, it was not to be!

It started well enough. Friday was overcast with a slight mizzle - started the day by getting up with the Cog (who had to go to work) and then going for a nordic walk - and the sun even came out briefly! Decided not to stop for coffee afterwards, the nordic ladies are a lovely lot but they all know each other very well (quite a lot of them are retired) and sometimes I feel somewhat socially inept amongst them. Plus I had things to do! Recycled some dead batteries at my usual supermarket and had a quick look for gf hot cross buns - alas, a shelf position, but empty. Carried on into town and struck gold at Asda - once I'd finally located the "free from" section, which took some doing. Picked up some fruit beers as an Easter gift and bought a takeaway sub in town and came home. So far, so mundane.

I had had a sore throat a bit last week - well, it decided, over the course of my long weekend, to develop into a full on head-cold snot fest. It hadn't shown up Friday night because we cooked chicken in a cherry pan sauce - nice, but sauce not v thick without flour alas! And I never attempt new recipes when ill!

Saturday morning I embarked on swatching for a knitweave cardigan, a lovely Sue Booth pattern. Dug out the AW1 but came a cropper barely 4 rows in - the chunky yarn caught in the spring of the AW1 and stretched it completely out of shape - I know, because some kind folks on Rav posted a picture of what it ought to look like. Mine's toast. Great. So I swatched the other way - which is really slow on a Knitmaster machine, because, with no pre-selection of the pattern, the yarn has to be moved from one side of the carriage to the other for every row! Argh! This is one thing the Brother is better at in my opinion. Despite the manual suggesting you thread the knitweave yarn through the mast and mimic the Knitmaster technique, it's much faster and easier to just lay it over the needles. So I have the wrong machine set up now. Drat. Did a gauge swatch anyway. You never know!

I'd seen a recent technique video posted on Youtube by a Russian lady - how to weave vertically on the knitting machine - and thought it might be the perfect thing to do with my Dream Week Challenge yarn - plus it looked like a lot of fun. I needed to knit a swatch for some black acrylic I bought with the DW in mind anyway. As it turned out it's a great technique, but not for very lumpy yarns, and the DW yarn is a black nylon icord interspersed with coloured squares which are much wider. Difficult to thread them through live stitches. Plus, some of the squares will not sit on the right side. Rats. Great idea but wrong yarn, back to the mental drawing board of my brain I guess. Looking at the swatch, the most effective is the red bit at the top - the Hayfield Illusion is a black and variegated yarn and doesn't show up well.

Ok, so park that - I'll have a go at the Swirl pattern. I printed it off a while ago - a simple rectangle and a short-row ruffle, plus sleeves, and you have a cardigan. Seemed fair enough. It was a bit tricky knitting Grigna at T10 - it's a boucle yarn and very lively at such a loose tension. I got part way around, and then suddenly realised I may have gone wrong. The pattern seems to be written in such a way as to do the short rowing part in two halves, but the first half is smaller because I wasn't resetting the row count. Or am I overthinking it? I parked it, so I could email the designer.

So project number three (getting somewhat annoyed now but trying to keep calm!). I've got quite a collection of sock yarn, so thought I'd have another go at the lace heart socks. The pattern is from a Jenny Deter's book and her version has 3-4 rows of hearts on the ankle, and then they continue down the foot. I chickened out last time, and one of the hearts came out wonky; the ill-fated socks ended up in the circular file when they later got felted in the wash. The patterns in that book use 1x1 rib to isolate the lace motifs - much easier to count stitches when there are a block of 13, not 72. The downside of doing lace with the ribber in place is that you can't see what you did on a previous row, or fix a dropped stitch - the CSM ribber is about 3mm higher than the cylinder and there's just no visibility. And guess what? On the second lace row, I dropped a stitch. So I had to transfer everything to the cylinder in order to get the ribber off, to try and rescue it. And as any knitter will tell you, rescuing a dropped stitch within a lace pattern isn't for the faint-hearted. Got the ribber off and bodged it as best I could - but then couldn't be certain how far I needed to tink back. You see, because of how a CSM works, you can't just take the ribber off, fix something, and put it back. To get the ribber off you have to knit around a bit to release all the ribber needles. At any time, quite a few of the ribber needles are within the cam mechanism - same goes for the cylinder - so the only way to fix a mistake is to knit past it and then tink it back. Tinking lace? Also not funny!

It had been an hour or two since the knitweaving, so I thought I'd measure my swatch. The stitches weren't far off, but the row count is out by a factor of 0.67, in other words I'd have to multiply by 1.3 to recalculate the pattern. It's sideways knit, so that would mean recalculating the neck and any armhole shapings. By this point I was losing the will to continue - I decided to go downstairs and slob out on the sofa, and do some more crochet on the blanket. Even I couldn't mess that up!

Sunday I was so full of cold I couldn't face anything too technical, so pretty much hung out on the sofa. Monday I frogged the Grigna (NOT easy!) - I've had some emails from the designer but I'm no clearer, I may have to call her. I also decided to snap the yarn on the lace sock (yeah, the CSM's feed is a closed system, breaking the yarn is quickest!) and start again. The original plan had been to knit the socks as per pattern - but again, I dropped a stitch and bottled out (although at least this time I managed to fudge it and pick it up again). Trust me, lace on a CSM is not for the faint of heart - though if you spot the note in Jenny's book, she does say it's a good idea to remove the weights whilst doing the transfers, but you must remember to put them back on again. I found a quicker way - grab the knitting above the weights and take its weight with your non-dominant hand whilst doing the transfers. Gives you a bit of insurance if the stitch does slip off your hooking tool. So at least I learnt something this weekend, even if again, the socks weren't as fancy as intended. That's a LOT of work! But so pretty!

Buoyed up by one mostly-successful pair of socks, and keen to get them off to graft, I started another pair of simple tube socks, in a lovely yarn I picked up at Kegworth (WYS Signature). It's knitting in really cool stripes, and unlike Knitpics Felici, isn't limited edition. Is it sad to admit I was really chuffed about that? Well, these self-striping yarns, you can never tell how they'll knit up until you do it - and the tension and width of your knitting can make quite a bit of difference, too. What looks great in the ball / skein can look very busy when knitted. Decided I'd do an ordinary short-row this time as the last pair still look nipple-like, despite washing!

It was getting way past teatime at this point, so the second sock is yet to be knitted. The cold is gradually easing off - yesterday, bending down for more than a few seconds gave me an instant splitting headache. Today, the cough is probably the most annoying thing.


Trying vertical weaving on a knitting machine - DW challenge yarn is bottom left.


Lace sock - smartphone picture and dreadful lighting, sorry! It was gone ten pm so no daylight to be found and I was too tired to do much else!


Stripey sock one - yes, my craft room is a mess, I know!

Current mood: okay

FO: red cardigan and Lucy coatighan

Finished this on Thursday night, would've worn it earlier but it wasn't dry. The yarn (Patons wool blend aran) was rather rough when knitted, but softened up a treat. My new favourite cardigan. Literally had just enough to finish the fringe, and luckily I accidentally bought an extra ball of the wine coloured yarn because I needed it.



Finished this on Saturday - the crepe yarn reflected the flash, it's actually a lovely deep red.

And when I wasn't doing that, I was threading up this, most of the weekend (it's going to be a table runner):


I'm going to stop using the, count the wraps and divide by 2 method for working out epi and use the various reference tables I've since found online. I warped it as 8 epi and then realised that was too loose so resleyed it as 10 epi, which is still on the loose side. I really don't like warping back to front, it's such a PITA. Would much rather use the reed as the raddle. Got some weaving books on order so that should help.

Himself is on his way back from the third snowboarding trip this year - house has been very quiet without him but I kept myself busy.

Current mood: okay

FO: baby hats

Picture 001
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

More stashbusting - I love this yarn but am not sure what it was - Denys Brunton possibly.

Ravellenic FOs

Kate/Wildhoney shawl, 2ply lambswool from Uppinghams, weighs 348g. Knitted at T3 on the Brother KH950i, pattern mod - left needle three on edge of ruffle out of work, to tame the curl.


Charity hats made from leftover marble chunky


Charity tee from Colinette Lasso.

FO: Cowl

100_2329
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

This is Kriskrafter's pattern. More details and a link on Ravelry. Made on the Brother KH950i with the KG93 garter carriage. Uppinghams baby acrylic 4ply, T7.

FO: Brown v-neck jumper for the Cog

Finished this on 20th November - hope it fits him!

Garter carriage in action

gc_in_action
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

I also videoed this but it's not a very exciting video. This is what is currently beavering away on my Brother 950i.

Still no further forward with the Passap E6000 (well, I managed to change the program, but not to get past error 200). I'm taking the hoover to it tonight, and then also checking the cable to see if it is damaged.

FO: sparkly shrugs

Blue shrug with lurex thread - knit side



Blue shrug with lurex thread - purl side



Blue lurex shrug

As always, click through for a bigger picture.

Back on the horse

Well, from a week or two of feeling as if I'm drifting aimlessly, to finishing three projects (almost) within one day. Actually, the parts for one of the project were all finished on Saturday, Sunday was mostly sewing up by hand.

I also made two shrugs (from the Bill King "All in One" pattern that appeared in MKM June 2011). The plan had been to make some sort of sparkly shrug - the kind of thing you wear over an evening dress - as I attended a works dinner last week and realised I really didn't have anything suitable to wear over my rather summery dress.

The first shrug was made with one end of Bramwell Artistic, and one end of a black/silver lurex thread. I think there should be another 2 rows added at the start of the pattern, because the collar looks a bit uneven to me. I discovered the perils of not using a yarn twister, when I was already half way through - I got a lovely sparkly shrug, but it's sparkly on the WRONG side. Oh well, at least it's reversible.

The second shrug was made with a leftover cone of lurex, already plied. Not the easiest thing to knit with as it's quite stiff. As the yarn was thinner, the shrug came out a little smaller.

I still have more of the black and silver lurex, I am wondering whether a little black shrug might be just the thing.

Photos when I have some.

FO: Socks (Lang Jawolle)

100_3718
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Also for me, love the colours. Knitted on Passap E6000 and ribbed by hand.

FO: Socks (Colinette Jitterbug)

100_3719
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

These are for me. 2x2 rib worked by hand, rest of sock done on Passap E6000

Selfish socks

Spent a few hours last night making up some socks on the Passap (I skipped Knit Wits because I have a sore throat). I figured I'd dash a few pairs off, and barring the sewing up, they'd be pretty quick. Boy, was I in for a surprise (this always happens when I get arrogant).

First up was the Colinette Jitterbug. It played havoc with the machine - it's well spun and is probably slightly too thick for the "Easy Passap Sock" pattern that I use. But I'd forgotten, it had been knitted up into a CSM tube ages ago. I'd planned to make a simple tube with an afterthought heel. The sock came out too wide so the whole lot was frogged and rewound. So the yarn was pretty kinky. I usually keep all 4 masts threaded up on the Passap, but I had to take some of the other yarns out when it got rather too friendly with the Jitterbug. So, lots of knots and tangles (and I'm not sure, but I think this Jitterbug may be unbalanced). Got to the rib section and although it was knitting off, it was incredibly hard work. I decided to scrap it off on waste yarn and add the rib by hand. Discovered a dropped stitch in the heel, too. So much for a fast sock!

So, I thought I'd give myself a break and knit with the Lang Jawolle I picked up at Ally Pally. It was much, much easier - it knitted up like butter. This yarn has slow colour changes (like Mini Mochi or Noro Kureyon) - in fact, this one is a very similar colourway to Mini Mochi, but being superwash, I'm hoping it might actually be useful as a sock. The mini-mochi sock shrank immediately and I'm left wondering who I know with size 3 feet, 'cause it's no good to me. I don't have time for handwash socks! So anyway, I scrapped the Lang Jawolle one off on waste yarn so that again, I can knit the 2x2 rib by hand.

Because of the way the Passap E6000 is designed, once the yarn is threaded up, it's impossible to remove the knitting from the machine without breaking the yarn. Unlike a Japanese machine, the yarn is fed through several closed loops on the tension mast, and finally a black bobbin-like yarn eyelet. There's no way you could pass a ball of yarn through there unless you wanted to unwind the whole lot through the machine. So the yarn has to be snipped, which means two more ends and a knot to deal with. Ah well, such is life!

Finally I decided to tackle some "Fyberspates Dream Sock" yarn. This one is in lovely summery colourways (I think the colourway was "Hannah's Summer"). It knitted off fairly well, except at one point where there was firstly a rather thick bit, and then a section when presumably it snapped on the winding machine, and there was a rather ratty metre with two "spit splices" in. Once I got past that bit, all was well. This one was ribbed on the machine, so is now sewn up and complete, and is just waiting for a mate.

Who am I knitting all these for? Well, I'm not sure (I really want the Lang Jawolle ones though! Rainbow/slow variagated colours are my fave!). It occurred to me last night, when I was rooting around for a jumper, that I have rather a lot of knitwear, and only one body to put things on. I spend time making garments to cover my curves, when I (a) don't actually need them and (b) could get smaller garments done in less time. I think I need to have a good sort out - I wore the "Clarisse" tabard to work on Tuesday, and have had a trail of angora following me ever since. A lot of my knitting is like that - it seems like a good idea at the time (or I don't realize it's angora, in the case of Clarisse), but when the garment is finished I (a) don't like it or (b) rarely wear it. Being a process knitter, it's just for the challenge. The finished garment is almost just a bonus, an annoyance almost, because now it's done the fun and challenge has ended.

So I came up with a plan this morning - I'll just knit things that interest me, not particularly in my size - and keep them in a bag. Once there's enough, I'm sure there'll be a charity that would like them. I've done this before, but only as a side project. I need to have a good sort out of my knitwear, for a start, because there are some nice items that I'll probably never wear, that could benefit someone else. Julie, one of the Knit Wits, always knitted for other people, and we begged her to knit something for herself just once. I have the opposite problem it seems - I'm a selfish knitter who occasionally knits for others! I'm not saying I'll never knit another item for myself (I'm part way through a sweater dress that is definitely going to be mine!), but I need to seriously rethink what ends up being a permanent resident in my wardrobe.

Either that, or I need more room to store all this knitwear! :)

Sock-tastic and fiddling with fine gauge

So I've been pretty busy lately with other things, but I'm desperately trying to make time for xmas knitting too. I made a second pair of red and white fairisle socks this weekend, with an all-over snowflake pattern of my own design. I went up a number on the tensions. On last week's prototype, the short-rowed rows tucked a lot - turns out I was knitting too tightly. I was beginning to wonder if I'd used the wrong ribber clamps, because I seem to have an extra pair of the square-edged Knitmaster S clamps (the Brother clamps have radiused edges I believe, although I may be wrong).

Of course, although loosening the tension (and adding 4 stitches) means that the sock now stretches enough to be put-on-able - it also made it longer. Yes, I need to knock about 12 rows off the length to make a size 7. I asked the Cog to try on the first one - before washing, it measured 28cm, which shrank to 26cm after washing. He tried it on and immediately claimed it (he is a size 9). You could have knocked me down with a feather - this is the man who eschews New Maine jumpers because they have a tiny sailor's wheel logo embroidered on them. This is the man who always wants navy blue or black jumpers, and they are always very, very plain. Not even a cable in sight. They weren't actually intended for him, but I guess it is a success of sorts. I'm loathe to take them off him, put it this way. He's already dropping big hints that he wishes I'd darn some of the socks I've knitted for him in the past, despite the fact that the leftover yarn is long gone. If I darn them, it will be with a primary coloured sock yarn - he said that was ok, but he might not like it when he sees it!

I also finished knitting the second sock (Sirdar Crofter pattern #7). They fit ok and would be great under wellies (if I owned any) or for around the house.

Both of these endeavours required that I remember how to graft (aka Kitchener Stitch) the toes. I used to have a little bookmark somewhere that had the instructions. I copied the instructions from the back of someone's book on knit night, but I was also talking, so the grafting wasn't entirely successful. It also needs very good light, which is only really available at my dining table at home.

Once I recalled Kate of Knit the knit's foolproof Kitchener instructions, and realized that occasionally I was accidentally catching the yarn and making a kind of blanket stitch, I was away. So I present for your information, Kate's foolproof Kitchener stitch principles.

Basically, each stitch to be grafted needs a "catching" stitch and a "finishing" stitch. The "catching" stitch is always worked in the OPPOSITE direction to the stitch being worked. For example, to catch a KNIT stitch, you sew through the stitch PURLWISE, and vice versa. The stitch remains on the needle after the "catching" stitch.

When working the "finishing" stitch, the needle is worked in the SAME direction as the stitch being worked. So a purl stitch is sewn in a purlwise direction, and a knit stitch in a knitwise direction. After each finishing stitch, the worked stitch is dropped off the needle.

So, working from right to left (I am right-handed), work a catching stitch on the purl side, a catching stitch on the knit side, * a finishing stitch on the purl side, drop stitch, a catching stitch on the purl side, a finishing stitch on the knit side, drop stitch, a catching stitch on the knit side, rep from * to end, ensuring both end stitches have both catch and finish stitches worked through them.

I don't know about you, but it's easier to think of it with this system for me. Well, I am easily distracted! :) I will post pictures of the socks as soon as I remember to take some pictures and unload the camera, haha.

I also made a start on a fine gauge knitted tunic. I have a lot of 2ply cornflower blue lambswool on cones - I'd actually call it a slate blue, but the label says cornflower. I tried swatching it on the standard gauge, two ends together, but really didn't like the fabric produced (this could be my over-tightening tendency). The wool didn't bloom in the wash - it felt as if it would make a hard-wearing fabric, but not a particularly nice fabric. So I made swatches on the fine gauge, and it was like some sort of magic - a lovely soft handle, just what you would expect with lambswool.

I've designed a simple knee-length tunic using Knitware, it has raglan sleeves and a cowl neck. Yes, you read that right, raglan. This baby has 600 rows. What was I thinking? I managed to get as far as doing one side of the neck, on the front, before I had to stop and give my eyes a rest. The daylight was fading. I will finish it - and to be fair, the front is the most complicated piece - but talk about not doing anything by halves! I probably should have started with something a bit smaller. I probably ought to get a better light in the knitting room, too!

PS Kate - hope you are well! Your blog is looking kind of abandoned these days!

Onwards and sideways...

I spent a few hours last night trying to make a flat fairisle sock. My first attempt started at the top of the heel - went ok until I tried to cast on the width for the ankle, and realized that trying to start fair-isle wasn't really going to work.

The second attempt I started with a ribbed top, scrapped off half of the sock on waste yarn when I got to the heel, and then knitted heel-sole-toe-top of foot. That one came out ok but needs sewing up.

Around 10pm, I realized I could have ditched the waste yarn and just held one side, thus making a sock with only one side seam. Yeah, I'm not the brightest of sparks, am I?! Serves me right for not planning it better.

My machine SK840 doesn't really like knitting with two ends of 2ply lambswool. I'm pretty sure the Brother could cope with it though. The SK840 just seems a lot tighter, somehow. You want a firm tension for a sock, ideally.

---

I've got the CSM (Circular Sock Machine) on the back seat of my car today (the large suitcase it's in does not fit in my diddy boot). The manager of the bar where we meet has asked for a banner - nothing like a last minute challenge - and I got talked into taking my machine in. Hopefully someone'll bring some green yarn for the background. I've also brought some pompom makers. It might end up a bit kitsch!

---

To the lady who commented on an old post about crochenit, I must confess I got the special hook and some books on it, and have done nothing. I don't have a lot of DK yarn in the house and I've a terrible habit of buying these gadgets and then not using them. I am a serial gadget and book collector. I'm sure there is probably a crochenit group on Ravelry though, you might have better luck there!

I will try to get playing with some of my redundant tools this Christmas - I've a table loom begging to be warped up too. Too many hobbies, not enough free time.

Addendum: finished sock above - needs a few more stitches in the leg area because it's a bit tight, and I need to design a smaller snowflake pattern I think.

Bags of bags

I've been having a go at making bags lately. Seemed a nice change from garments that can have fitting problems.

So far I've made the following:



Take an old bag shopping (Knitwords 44)

This went ok, except I suspect two ends of cotton wasn't enough (and I didn't twist it, either). Love the tuck lace pattern, found the picking up of hems and picot hems a bit time consuming. Lots of ends to weave in, which is why it's only just been finished.



Susitna

This is a great pattern if your knitting machine knits circularly. Alas, my SK840 does not like to knit in the round, without much help. I also made the handle way too short (I admit it - I couldn't face 200 passes of both P carriage and main carriages), but the bag came out really long and I wasn't sure I wanted to make it much longer. Looks thinner than it actually is. I'm wondering now if I haven't somehow got the machine mounted using Brother ribber brackets, not Knitmaster ones, seeing as I seem to have a spare pair of Knitmaster brackets hanging around.



Drop stitch mesh bag

This works ok too, although I think I would like to make it a little larger and longer next time. Made on the LK150. Hard work to drop stitches in Peaches and Cream cotton.



Simple bag (my own design)

This is a very simple eyelet bag made on the LK150. I will post the pattern when I've taken a photograph of it. Pattern now written up, with variations!

I'm tempted to design a few more, using elements from the ones I've already tried.