Sacramento Area Machine Knitters - Meeting Time Update

Time has been moved to 11-1pm, which actually works really well for our group.  Improves the parking situation.  Now we can park right by the door, which makes carrying a heavy knitting machine better.

Sacramento Area Machine Knitters

Welcome Sacramento Area Machine Knitters Just a reminder...

This blog entry is here to assist the Sacramento Area Machine Knitter's Guild in advertising their meetings on the Internet. I hope you will stop by one of our meetings and share your latest project with us!

Meet with local Machine Knitters. Chat and discuss the art of machine knitting. All machines brands users are welcome, from the Studio, Brother, Bond to the Electronic Passap.

We welcome everyone to bring a knitting machine.  Learn how to use, work on a project or learn how to maintenance a knitting machine and get it up and running.

Sacramento Machine Knitters Guild, meets on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays 11am-1pm (we meet throughout the summer at our normal days and times if there is enough interest).  We also meet the 3rd Tuesday 10am - 2pm.

We meet at St. Andrews United Methodist Church, 6201 Spruce Avenue, Sacramento, CA (off I-80 at Greenback exit, turn right at first street, up about 2 blocks, bear right at the curve and the church is straight ahead).

Contact info has changed as Marilynn (pronounced Mary Lynn) has moved to Colorado.  We wish her all the best.  For more information about the Guild and call Hugh Hall at 916-332-5190.

Hugh's Sacramento Machine Knitter Guild website... http://smkg.nzfreeservers.com/

Lil Punkin Hat... well not quite

Using my bulky Toyota KS650 punchcard machine I tried my hand at making the Lil Punkin hat by Baby Jane Knits.  It's a free pattern if you belong to the "Fun with Big Brother" yahoo group. The group is free too.  So, give it a try.  Look for the pattern under files and look for Baby Jane Knits.

I punched the card suggested, but I don't think the card I have is compatible with my Studio machine.  I had a 1X1 punch card and I lined it up and they just didn't quite match in size and shape. Anyhow the card didn't work.  SO, I decided to use the 1X1.  It still made the most fricking adorable pumpkin hat.

The pattern said it was a pretty small hat and gave instructions on how to make it bigger.  I casted on 60 needles and when it came to the slip rib section I knitted 48 rows.  It still made a pretty small hat.

As luck would have it I was babysitting a 5 year old and was waiting for him to come home from school.  I thought he'd be a perfect model, so I could tell what size the hat should be and how to adjust it.  I was prepared if he fell in love with it to let him have it.

I thought I'd have to coax it on him, because he's all boy ruff and tumble, snip and snails and puppy dog tails.  He's still 5 and instantly fell in love with it and wouldn't take it off.  Made me feel good that he loved it as much as I did.  I did find out it is still a little smaller than I'd like, but for just wearing and having fun it was perfect.

Since I was knitting at someone else's home I didn't have all my manuals with me and as it always is I needed to make an i-cord and didn't know how to set my machine.  I knew it needed to slip in one direction, but I so seldom set my machine to slip anything I need the manual.  I did have my computer and all I could find was how to make i-cord on a brother machine.  I needed Studio.  I came across this handy little video that was perfect and saved the day.  I-Cord by Crystal Sutherland.  It is a manual way of making i-cord using knitting machine needles.  Since I only needed to make a small stem on my hat making i-cord in this manner was still faster than using knitting needles.  I hung 3 stitches from the top of my hat and began.  To get my rhythm going I just remember to always wind in a clockwise manner.

Christmas Project for the Guild

Meeting before last someone in our guild asked about any Christmas ideas to knit.  I got to thinking what a great idea to get started learning something now rather than waiting for December.  I started looking through my binder of free patterns and I came across a Christmas Wreath for the Passap Duo80 or E6000 first.  It looked like something from the 70's, but I loved it.  I don't speak Passap, but it seemed like what they were doing was knitting tubes and braiding them.  Great idea, but not feasible for our meeting.  We'll bring our knitting machines, but we don't bring ribbers.  We only have 2 hours.

Then I found Heidi's Braided Christmas Wreath pattern.  This talks about making strips of knitting and letting them roll in on themselves.  Something we can totally do in our machine knitting meeting.  Comparing the two patterns I decided to do a little something of both.  I really liked the simplicity of the Braided Christmas Wreath, but loved the color combination of the Passap Christmas Wreath.

So, I picked out three punch cards that seemed from the naked eye to be completely different (I really need to do swatches.)  After I got the strips done I thought that 2 weren't as different as I would have liked.  I wasn't sure they'd even look good together, but decided to just go with it.

As I was sitting on my bed manipulating the strips to decide what order I wanted them in.  Quite frankly I was trying to remember how to braid when my son walked into the room.  He talked with me a bit about his day and then as he turned to leave and he said, "I'll leave you to play with your Christmas snakes."  OK I thought it was pretty funny.

As I started braiding I was relived to see that the patterns did actually work together. I had knit 3 strips 30 inches long. I did 335 rows at T3 on my Studio Mod.700 standard gauge. According to the pattern it would make a 13" diameter wreath. Mine was stretched to 12" and I think it is too thin.

I wanted a bow and did a 30 inch strip of tuck with punch card #3 the red yarn. 485 rows T3. I wanted to give the bow a hint of texture. I folded the strip as if tieing a regular bow.  Then I hot glued everything onto a 12 inch wreath frame from JoAnns.

Since the wreath was not looking like something I'd want to hang up or give away I decided it would be my prototype.  Things I would do differently would be not to braid it so tightly.  I would not stretch it to fit a wreath form.  I'm going to use wooden embroidery hoops since they come in many more sizes than the wreath forms.  I'm going to do swatches of my punch cards giving me a better idea of what their finished pattern will look like.