More Machine Knit Bunnies

We all love this machine knit bunny.

This year though I think I'm going to try machine knitting this bunny.

I'll give mine a pom pom tale like the purple bunny.  Can't wait to give this idea a try.  If you'd like to see many examples of this project check them out on Ravelry.  To date there are 362 of them.  They sure do multiply fast.

Something To Do With Your Scraps

Yarn bombing potholes?

Machine Knitting Gone Crazy

Yarn bombing goes main stream.

Still Knitting, But Mostly Crocheting

Sorry for the long time between posts.  After my ribber gave me heck I needed to take a break from it.  I had an afghan I had been working on during football seasons the last couple years.  Since the 49ers were doing so well this year I had it nearly finished when they didn't go to the Super Bowl.  OH well, the 49ers played a great season and I couldn't be disappointed they didn't go to the Super Bowl.  With that great attitude and not caring who won the Super Bowl I decided to go ahead and watch it.  I wanted to see if I couldn't get that last 10 inch done on my afghan.  I didn't finish it during the Super Bowl, but I was close.  I kept crocheting until it was done.

Now if I can get my poodle to share I'll get to enjoy it. :)

What I did machine knit was a bust, BUT it opened my eyes to new possibilities.  I've been wanting to make a Dead Fish hat for several years and the pattern just looked too complicated for me.  What I found out was it was difficult to understand, but not complicated.  Using my trusty Toyota Bulky, sans ribber, I went to work on the machine knit pattern for the Dead Fish Hat.

Why was it a bust?  Well, the decreasing and increasing to get the fish shape happen on both sides of the knitted piece.  EXCEPT when you fold it in half to sew up your fish hat all the increases and decreases end on one side.  One ends up with a wonky fish hat.  One ends up with one straight side and one curved side.  A knitter on Ravelry solved this problem by moving the face and fins to center on the straight side making it the top of the fish.  The curved side was now it's belly.  Though it looked like it worked out fine for her.  I really didn't like the idea of the fish lips (can't believe I just said fish lips) being on the sides of the mouth.

What I did like was the yarn.  I decided that trying to make this work wasn't something I wanted to do.  I decided to frog it.  I'm going to make it in 2 pieces.  That way the BOTH sides will have increases and decreases and my fish lips will be in their proper places!

Day 15 of Completion Challenge

My hands are gray and my face is smudged and still no worky.  What I have been doing the last couple days is trying to figure out why my Toyota KS 650 bulky machine and Toyota KR 350 will not do ribbing.  I've done a lot of ribbing on this machine.  It's always worked great.  Suddenly, it just won't work.  I can do stockinette, but I have a hat that needs ribbing.  I hate mock rib.  That's not an option for me.

This problem has gotten me really worked up and after much thought I figured it's in combination with the holidays.  Just too much on my plate.  So, I decided that I need to suspend my challenge until after the holidays.  I feel like I can do no more in regards to getting this machine up and going at this time.  It needs to simmer and I need to talk to a few expert machine knitters.

This is what I have done...

I've rechecked my ribber and carriage setting time and time again.
I've checked the needles for bent needles.
I've checked the carriage for non-working parts.
I've wiped the whole knitting machine down with oil.
I've defuzzed it.
I've wiped the machine and yarn down with a dryer sheet.
I've printed out and checked the ribber bed adjustments.

I'm feeling burned out.  So, I'm going to focus on more fun things.  My upcoming ski trip.  Christmas with my family.  Christmas with DH's family and New Years.  I've wrapping to do.  I've got crochet projects to finish.  Never without anything to do around here.

Day 14 of Completion Challenge

Getting behind on my posting of what I'm doing.  On this particular day I bought fabric for the lining of one of my machine knitted bags.  I needed to bring the bag with me to Hobby Lobby and find a fabric that would match.  During the summer I had purchased a fat quarter that I thought for sure would match and it looked terrible next to the bag.  One doesn't want to spend a lot of time making a beautiful bag only to have the lining make you not want to use it.

Day 13 of Completion Challenge

I wanted to finish the stocking challenge from my guild meeting.  I had made a pitiful stocking at the meeting, but I knew I could do better in the quiet of my home.  I don't do things well when people are talking to me.  I tend to lose my train of thought or place in a pattern in that case.  So, in the quiet of my craftroom I attempted the stocking again.  This is when I encountered trouble with doing 1X1 ribbing.  The carriage just wouldn't do it properly.  While trouble shooting I hand knitted from the left and machine knitted from the right.  I needed 12 rows, but after 6 I really wanted to move on and see if the carriage would knit stockinette in my effort to trouble shoot the problem.  Of course it knitted stockinette just fine.  Decided to finish stocking and further trouble shoot when I got it off my needles.

Here's my beautiful stocking knitted on my bulky.  Came out just the size I wanted!

Again in the quiet of my craftroom I kitchenered the toe from the purl side as I like to do and it turned out perfect.