Img2track Cable is in the House

I've been wanting to play around with hooking my computer to my Brother 930 for years.  I finally have an up to date computer and I bought a cord to do this.  I have 60 stitches to play around with and see if I can get it working.  When I get it working I can buy a key from the makers of the cord DaviWorks to increase the width to 200 needles.

I've added a link section to the blog for "img2track" useful sites and info.

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/

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 10am-noon (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 upcoming training topics call Hugh Hall at 916-332-5190.

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

Iris Bishop Kaleidescope Project

I was really pleased how this turned out.  The pattern look complicated, but it was easier to figure out than I thought.  I thought it should be made on a standard gauge machine.  It turned out kind of small, so I think I'll do another one on my bulky machine.

I made only one swatch.  It has purple scrap yarn on each end since I had a lot of it.  I had used a little for the smaller stripes.  I decided that I didn't like the purple stripes.  After talking to a machine knitting friend she said she didn't like the purple edging.  Since its the scrap this gave me the idea to to fold it under and look at just wedge.  It took the purple out of the "definitely no" zone. 

I Am Still Machine Knitting!

Admittedly, I don't craft as much since getting fit.  Staying active became my main focus in 2012.  I had a lot of weight to lose.  I got it off and I've kept it off!  What losing weight did was reinvigorate my desire to knit clothing.  I often felt nothing would fit or look good on me.  This steered me to making accessories and toys.  Don't get me wrong I really enjoy making hats, bags, shawls, scarves and toys.  I think they may get used more often than a garment, but I'm looking forward to making some clothing for myself.  I have a couple patterns planned this year.  Sometimes getting the pattern and yarn matched up takes some time.

Right now I'm working on something that I wonder if I could take to the machine.  First I have to figure out how to hand knit it.  You know I'm not very good at hand knitting that's why I machine knit!

This is a Dragon Scale Mitt.  My scales are already upside down and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.  I have an email into the pattern maker.  Hoping she's seen this a million times and can get me straighten out.

This is a cocoon scarf again I knitted it by hand, but it made me think like the Sashay yarn I could do it on the machine.  Instead of 4 hours I could do it in maybe an hour.  It wouldn't run through the regular carriage and I can't think of what that other carriage is called?!  It will come to me as soon as I post this then I'll come back in an correct it.  What I want to do is put this on the standard gauge.  I would knit 2 stitches between each cocoon as I did by hand; then flip the whole thing using the garter bar.  When I did the Sashay yarn on the machine like this it worked like a charm.  I would get into a rhythm.  I often didn't even use the carriage of which I can't think of the name.  I am seeing the letter "I" though.  It's coming to me.... Intarsia!  I have two more skeins of the cocoon yarn in gray and would love a fluffy warm scarf to go with my long gray coat.

Well, I'm off to take another look at the scale maille knitting and see if I can figure out what I'm doing while I wait for Collette to email me back.  Things sometimes look easier in the light of day.

"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.

Knitting Again with the Knit Leader

Felt so good to machine knit today.  It's been a very long time.  Our Sacramento Guild was having a lesson on Knit Leaders.  I've seen them used, but have never used one.  I have one built into my machine for gosh sakes I should find out if it works and find out how to use it.  Carolyn gave a great explanation.  I didn't know I had to have a swatch, but we decided to use her swap and pretend it was mine.  That way I learned out to measure it and how to use the stitch guide, the rulers, the patterns, and the built in knit leader.  I should look up in my manual what exactly everything is called.  I brought the wrong manual to class.  Fortunately, Carolyn has my exact machine at home and knew how to use it.

Here I am all set up.  I just did a small portion of the pattern to get an idea of how it worked.  I did from about 2 inches below the arm hole shaping on up to the neck line.  It really worked out great.  Not a lot of thinking needed to be done with the knit leader in action.  It told me where to decrease and what needles to do it on.  I found it quite fascinating.

Here's my little sweater experiment armhole.  I was quite impressed.  I also loved this little gizmo Carolyn's husband made her.  I'm talking about the board that is under my knitting.  It is a piece of wood with a piece of sandpaper glued to it.  It was too terribly rough, but had enough traction that when you lay a swat or in this case my sweater experiment it holds the knitting out rather than it rolling.  I liked that I could see what was going on without having to block it.  It's just an experiment and I will be unraveling it.

It felt so strange to be knitting.  My cast on and cast off skills were definitely week, but by hour 2 I was feeling like a pro again.  Time to knit myself a sweater.