Blending Yarns to Get Another Color

Hugh from the Sacramento Area Machine Knitter's Guild was showing me a knitted scarf he likes to make. This particular one he used a blended yarn technique. He said he didn't particularly like the color of either of the yarns on the cone. He had bought them fairly cheap from a thrift store. So, not to let them go to waste he knitted both colors simultaneously. Blending the yarns made his scarf have a beautiful rose color. I may have taken the photo a bit too close to get the real beauty of the blend. I was fascinated. I will definitely use this technique in the future to get unique colors for something. Don't know what yet, but it's coming.

I conquered it!

Remember the big yarn mess? My daughter took the semi neat skein and gave up. I wanted to throw it away, but I couldn't bring myself to do. When she gave it back to me it could best be described as a rat's nest. Oddly enough this made it easier to work with. Didn't have to worry about keeping it neat. Just start a ball and kept winding it back and forth, in and out of the rats nest. It sat on my lap many a night as I watched TV. I've been trying to watch less TV, but for this project I gave myself permission to watch what I needed until I got it all unraveled. This mess had many ends in it. I'd just get a ball going and it would come to an end. Finally the 2nd to last ball got quite big. So, big in fact I finally had to cut the yarn myself. It was turning into a big yarn mess trying to weave a giant ball of yarn in and out of the rat's nest. The rest rolled up into one last ball.
I took the largest ball and used my yarn winder to wind it into a ball I could use on my knitting machine. I want to make a trick or treat bag. I better hurry up!

Big Yarn Mess

It's laying on my bed looking all innocent. Ready for winding. Not a tangle in sight right? Not the case. This skein has turned into nearly something of my nightmares. I've had many a tangle skein that within an hour or so was finally rolled into a big manageable ball. Not this skein. I show 2 ends in the photo, but right now we have 4 ends. I say we as in my daughter jumped in on hour 2 convinced it wouldn't be that hard.

I have my arms slid into the skein and she weaves the small ball in the making in and out and round about the skein. Not one round has just freed itself easily. Every round is a puzzle. It reminds me of computer cords or stereo or even TV/DVD cords. Someone is out front pulling on the cord. Someone is in back looking and feeling for the wiggle, so they know which cord is in need of help. That's the way it is with this yarn. I feel the pull on my arms and guide my daughter as she untangles each and every wrap of the yarn. Some knitters I have spoken too think I have knots. Nope. Not really any knots just yarn woven so intricately around itself that one cannot get it to unwind with out a fight.

I personally had decided once hitting hour 4 and still having one ball of yarn about the size of a ping pong ball to throw the whole thing away. The skein was given to me. It cost me nothing. It's very cheap yarn not good enough to make something wearable, but I was going to make some knitted Trick or Treat bags. It's a gorgeous color of jack 0 lantern orange.

My daughter caught wind of my plan to throw it away and she vowed to get it untangled. I said I'd throw it away when she was at school. She begged me not too. She said, "Mom you don't want to enlarge your yarn footprint!" We both laughed. I would really like to recycle this yarn that was given to me, because someone else didn't want it. BUT life's too short for tangled yarn too. We'll see. I'll give it a little more time.

Welcome Sacramento Machine Knitters

This blog entry is here to assist the Sacramento 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 Brother, Bond to the Electronic Passap.

Sacramento Machine Knitters Guild, meets on the 2nd & 4th Thursdays 10am-noon (we meet throughout the summer at our normal days and times if there is enough interest).

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 Marilynn (pronounced Mary Lynn) Wright at 916-331-2309 for more information about the Guild and upcoming training topics.

08/13/11  Sacramento Machine Knitter's Guild is still going strong.  Come join us.

Using my punch cards

I really had no idea how to use the punch card mechanism of my knitting machine. Usually using the manual I can make anything work, but had trouble with the very simple manuals that come with these pretty complicated knitting machines. I knew my friend Julia could get me up and running if I brought it to the knitting meeting. What I didn't know was our new member that had only been to one previous meeting had my exact machine and loved it. She knew exactly how to make it work. I was knitting this swatch within minutes. AND there was an instruction that wasn't in the book. Carolyn the fellow Studio 700 owner said you had to run the carriage over the needles and back again before knittting to get the machine to read the card. She called it the "free pass." She asked herself several times "Why do I know that?" It wasn't written in the book. Once it was done everything worked great. I spent nearly 2 hours just using different cards and making a really long swatch. I had SO much fun. I felt SO creative.

Here is a picture of what I was doing. At the top if you notice the stitches are singles. Down below they are doubled. Same card just a flip of a switch that elongates the pattern you are already doing.

Marilynn showed us how to switch colors while using a punch card to make a picture in your knitting. She got this pattern from an old English Machine Knitting magazine. SO CUTE. She gave me the swatch to take home.

I am really looking foward to doing more experimenting with punch cards with my machine knitting!

Machine Knitting Stand Issues!

Here is the underside of my machine knitting stand. There are 2 round pads for the clamps inside the legs. My problem is that the space between my clamps is about 19 inches. The pads to the machine knitting stand is 18 inches. That one inch causes a huge problem. It was suggested that I use the ribber clamps as they are in a different places as the bottom clamps.

But as one can see the ribber clamp spot is exactly lined up with the slot for the bottom clamps. All three of my machines are too large for this stand. In the immortal words of my husband, "I'm screwed!" hahaha OK I just need a larger stand. I have used a tilt stand at my Machine Knitting friend's house that works great with my bulky so I know it would work with all my machines. Now I either need to find another stand online, which is proving to be challenging. Or figure out a way to beg, borrow, buy or otherwise wheedle the tilt stand from my friend. hahaha Are you reading this Julia? Don't want to tip you off to my evil plan.

I found a tilt stand on ebay, but when I asked the seller to measure the distance between the legs they sent me a link on how to set up a knit stand. OK thank you that could be helpful if one didn't know that. What I really need is for you to get a yard stick and walk over to the tilt stand and measure the distance between the legs as I asked for to begin with. No response to 2nd query. I guess they must have enough customers. The search goes on.

The Garter Carriage

I really don't have much to say about this as I don't know really anything about it. I just know it was really cool. Amy a very experience machine knitter brought her garter carriage to our regular meeting. She wanted to show how it worked. She was in the middle of making a tank top for herself. She demonstrated how to make a ribbed edging for the neck line. She also demonstrated how to get a V-shaped neckline. I really enjoyed watching the whole process even though it was a bit over my head right now.

Here she hung the neckline on the knitting machine.

Here is a picture of the ribbed neck line after a few passes with the garter carriage. Amy said she doesn't like using a ribber and does everything with her garter carriage. In order to get the ribbed look she did need to do some hand manipulation, but it was much. Then the garter carriage did the rest.