Sacramento Machine Knitters Guild Meeting 12/11

Great meeting today.  Very busy meeting today.  We had 4 new knitter's come to the meeting.  3 of them brought knitting machines.  There was Sabrina and her mom Nellie.  Each had a machine that Becky helped answer questions for, because she's more acquainted with Brother machines.  There was Michelle who brought in a Studio machine she inherited from her Grandma.  Julia answered her questions since she's more familiar with Studio machines.  Then there was another gal and her name escapes me.  She and her itty bitty very patient daughter watched the goings on.  She just bought a machine and is waiting for it to come.  I hope to see everyone again in the new year.

Our knitting theme was big surprise Christmas knitting.  Marilynn brought in a pattern for mini ornaments.  She knitted a mini stocking.  I was so busy knitting a stocking of my own I never took pictures of this full room.  Every table was covered with knitting machines.  7 knitting machines in all.

I completed my stocking on the machine and just had hand work to do.  Pictures will follow in my Completion Challenge post.  Big thank you to Becky for helping me to understand what (8-11-9) meant in regards to knitting a heel.

Day 9 of Completion Challenge

I've been wanting to make a beanie on my knitting machine for a long time.  That's what my daughter wants.  "Nothing fancy just a beanie."  I wanted to make a beanie with a fitted crown.  Not the typical gathered tops I have done.  They just don't look like beanies.  This is based on a hand knit pattern in the round.  I knew I couldn't do it in the round on the machine just yet, but I knew I could do it flat.  That's OK one of my strengths is the mattress stitch.  One can hardly tell there is a seam from the outside when I do it.

I found this beanie pattern on Ravelry it's called "Regular Guy Beanie."  The first example of it I found the gal had knitted it on her knitting machine.  No written conversion, but I decided it was time to quit thinking about it and just give it a go.

I looked up how to do 2X2 ribbing in my manual.  I read the written pattern for the hand knit version to figure out when to do decreases.  What I really liked about this hat was the spiral chains on the crown created by the decreases.

With my plan written on the back of a recycled envelop I dove in.  I am very pleased with how it turned out even though there were problems.  I also forgot to so some plain knitting rows, but it still fits quite nice.

Only thing I kind of don't like, but will keep to myself when my daughter wears it is the row of holes where the ribbing attaches to the stockinet.  I've been told to next time pick up the purl bump on the stitch next to it to avoid the hole.  There were 2 set ups for doing 2X2 ribbing in my manual I'll have to try the 2nd one and see if it makes a better transition.

**Written pattern for the machine (knitted circularly) can be found here.  If you want it on the mainbed only click the link above to the hand knitted pattern.**

Day 8 of Completion Challenge

Wow I can't believe what a big baby I can be.  I fought the urge to put off finishing several parts of this project yesterday.  My attention span I've found can be quite short the minute I want to do something else.

First it was the visor to the cap, but fought through and finished it before I started the scarf.  Next I wanted to take the scarf off on waste yarn and do something else.  I found knitting the scarf until it was 60 inches long to be kind of boring.  Again I fought the urge to move on to something else.  I did this by just knitting a few rows and then taking a break to say do laundry, cook dinner, watch a TV program, play my poodle.  Before I knew it was 60 inches long.  I wanted to add some fringe and once off the knitting machine I wanted to move on again.  I answered this urge by picking up a ruler, scissors and the scarf.  Within a half hour I was completely done with this project.

What a great feeling to have a project done well ahead of Christmas and not up on Christmas Eve hunting for scissors and weaving ends in.

Day 7 of Completion Challenge

I jumped quite a hurdle regarding the making of the hat for my mom.  I had it all done except for the stabilizer for the brim and sewing the ends closed.  I thought "ahh I'll do it after I finish the scarf."  There I was putting off something, so I could do more knitting.  I then told myself no more knitting until the cap was completely finished.

So, I not only finished the hat this morning, but drew a pattern for my smaller brim.  I have been redrawing it each time.  Not a biggie, but saves time having the pattern ready.

With cap done I began the scarf tonight.  It's easy doing the wave pattern, but doing it until my scarf measures about 5 feet is going to take some time.  I got about a foot done tonight.  Will continue tomorrow.  If anyone is interested the scarf pattern is included with the Hollywood Swag Cap pattern.  Not my pattern, but when someone makes a great pattern I want to make sure everyone knows where to get one.

Day 6 of Completion Challenge

Working on completing my Christmas gift for my mother.  I'm making her a Hollywood Swag Cap.  You've seen me do several of these already starting with this one.  The link to the pattern can be found here.

I've done a couple things different things with this hat.  Rather than e-wrap to begin I did a few rows of waste yarn and then hung my hem for the hat band.  Was it easier?  No.  Did it look any better?  No.  In fact for some reason I had the most difficult time getting my weaving cast-on to work correctly tonight for the blasted waste yarn.  E-wrapping would have been easier.

First hat I made larger brim and no slouch

I added an extra row of the wave pattern before starting the decreases.  I wanted the hat to have a little slouch to it.  I really do like the extra room it gave.

Hat with extra row to add a bit of slouch

Again I shorten the brim on this one like I did my last one.  I like the shorter brim.  You can see pictures of my last hat and the shorter brim here.

I also decided that I wanted to do another cast-off other than the latch tool bind off.  I didn't like the look of the bulky edge under the brim.  Although once the hat is on I've found it's not a factor.  It's only bugs me when it's in my hand and I can see it.  I decided to use Diana's Lesson 12 Loop Through Loop Bind Off.  I really liked the simplicity of this bind off, but it didn't necessarily give me a smaller edge between brim and hat.  The thing it did do that is going to be inconvenient is both tails of yarn are on one side.  I need these tails to sew up the ends of the brim.  Not a biggie, but something to think about.

Finally, I need a lesson in short rowing and when to wrap a needle.  I'm ending up with some bulky loops and I'm afraid it's because I just don't know when a hole will be formed and when not.  I think I'll need to experiment.  That will be a good lesson for my completion challenge.

Day 5 of Completion Challenge

I am still kitchener stitching a little each day.  What I've found is I'm really good at it.  When I complete the seam the stitches look like the knitted ones.  I'm finding it is not as difficult as I made it out to be.  Diana Sullivan says to practice it, but I'm not one to make swatches and just stitch.  Having these UFOs is proving to be great practice for me.

Day 4 of Completion Challenge

I don't have any photos yet of what I'm doing.  I've been kitchener stitching.  Also referred to as grafting or weaving, joins two sets of live stitches.  A hand knitter would sometimes have live stitches on needles.  As a machine knitter my live stitches are mostly held together with waste yarn. 

I did a purse handle, a hat and a slipper.  Originally, I was going to get started on some purse linings, but that's when I saw I hadn't kitchenered the purse handle and thought I may as well do all the kitchenering I could find.  I'm sure there is more, but that's all I've found so far.

Digging into my boxes and bags of knitted items I'm finding some real treasures.  I'm not going to kick myself for putting things off.  For the next 25 days I get a free pass.  I'm looking forward to either using them or giving them as gifts.  The recipient doesn't need to know how long I've held on to it. :D

Here is a list of links to "how to kitchener stitch" I've been looking at.  I thought I really would have to reteach myself.  I found though that I remembered more than I thought.  In Diana's video she has a chant as she stitches.  I find that I do myself and it really helps.  "New stitch, old stitch, new stitch, old stitch."  It keeps me on track.

Techniques with Theresa
The Knit Witch
Diana's Lesson 22 Kitchener Stitch Seams