"I've Got A Quick And Easy Project For Us To Do Bonnie"

Famous last words right.  My friend Bonnie and I were getting together at her house to do some machine knitting.  No real plan in place.  I decided to bring some yarn and a pattern I got at Stitches West.  I knew Bonnie had bought the same yarn for the same pattern.  Maybe she'd want to do the pattern with me?  She did.

So, while I got started working on the pattern she started rolling up her yarn.  First thing I noticed was I brought the wrong machine.  I, of course did a big no-no and didn't read the pattern first.  It said clearly use a standard machine.  I was going by what the shawl looked like.  I thought bulky.  It's done on every other needle on a standard.  Whoops.  Bonnie to the rescue!  She pulls out a standard brother machine for me to use.  I don't think I've ever used a Brother machine, but how hard can it be I just need to do stockinette.

The brother machine wasn't hard to use, but it did have one crucial step that my Studio doesn't require.  It's a bad habit of mine that the Brother repeatedly reminded me I needed to stop.  I leave the yarn feeder lever open.  I call it "the gate."  When changing yarns often on the Studio I leave it open no problems.  On the Brother if you leave the feeder lever open big problem as the yarn doesn't knit and whatever you're knitting falls off.  After about the 4th time I got into a rhythm change yarn color... "CLOSE THE GATE!"  Yes, I literally had to say it out loud.

The next problem was just the yarn.  Called Gene B its quite lovely in color and feel, but the texture is difficult to knit.  Gene B is very slippery, clingy, knotty, splitty and not one of my favorite yarns.  Gets caught on something nearly every row.

So, I did get my shawl finished before I left Bonnie's house, but I was there so long her husband ended up making a dinner run for us.

The pattern for the hand knit version can be found free on Newton's Website.  It's called "Two Color Spiral Wedge Shawl."  I got the machine knit pattern for free with yarn purchase.  Contact Newton's I don't know if the machine knit version is free without purchase of some yarn.