Jacquard for all

I got a YC2 double bed yarn changer a while ago and couldn't think of a use for it. In fact I didn't even try it. Everything I read lead me to believe it was obsolete and essentially useless. Then I ran across a YouTube video of someone using it, or trying to, or something. I can't really remember and I couldn't find it again when I started to look. Anyway, I looked up some stuff on double bed jacquard and it seemed like a totally cool thing to do with a knitting machine, even with my yarn changer.

I hooked up the yarn changer last week and it seemed to work fine. Damn naysayers.

Unfortunately there is hardly any info on the web about DBJ. I thought about it for days, spending countless meetings doodling and trying to figure it out. While I eventually grasped the basic concept of how it worked, when someone recommended the book Jacquard for All, by Wendy Damon, I snapped it up and it was money well spent, my friends. It not only deciphers what's happening, it tells how to punch the cards properly, and even more revolutionary, how to do single stripe backing and even solid backing!

Inspired by the cover of the book and several swatches, I set out to chart the interlocking circles pattern. We shall not discuss how long this took and where I did it. And while a normal person starts with something simple to master the technique without driving themselves batty, no - not I. Jump in with both feet. (Also, I only have two punch cards left so I wanted to make the most of them.)

Anyway I charted the pattern onto graph paper (the centre block is the graph, the rest are just copies to make sure it lines up)

Then drew it onto the punchcard

Then I tried it. While I followed the directions pretty carefully, I got stripes on both sides the first two times. Eventually I clued in that I might have started the pattern on the wrond row, and sure enough, I backed the punch card up a row and the next time, tada! Not perfection in any charting sense, but it worked! (Squint a bit and it looks better.)

Colour me pleased.

I might be buying a new machine. Maybe. One I REALLY need.

Self-employed is the new buzzword

Ah spring. The turtles are out at Riverdale farm


As are the monkeys



Spring also seems to have brought out the critters from the online dating woodwork. The new code word for the day is "self-employed". By throwing this out, you no longer have to make a commitment until the last moment, keeping your options open. God forbid you set up a date with Suzy and then along comes Cindy, who seems much hotter and easier. This saves you the akwardness of cancelling with loser Suzy to bone Cindy. Brilliant! Add this to "average" as a classic.

CrustyRUs

Lazy Saturday

It's true, alcohol is the root of all evil. At the least, serious procrastination. Fortunately this particular indiscretion was cured by a diet coke, a pot of coffee, two tylenol and a lot of sleep.

Despite this handicap, I have positive things to report:

I did my taxes! I am legendary for completing all of it except one tiny step, then waiting MONTHS to finally finish. This time it was only weeks. Nothing like the promise of a pile of filthy lucre, direct from the government, to make one complete it.

A sent my camera in to be fixed! After years of nagging my children to put the wrist strap on before they started using it, especially over water and sand, I managed never to have a serious incident with my old camera. The new one? *I* dropped it, lens open, into the sand. Einstein. But I took it to the fabulous Sun Camera for repair and they anticipate it will be done on Tues. That's efficiency for you. (I haven't got the hang of this one yet - my pics tend to be blurry and the colour is weird. I hope I find the other one. I hope I start looking soon.)

I ripped out the gigantico arms of my cable swing cardi and they are progressing much faster now that they are 3" narrower. That's some effed up sizing. I rechecked the back and it seems to be fine so hopefully I'll find a way to merge the sleeves with the armholes with about a seven-size difference in stitch count. It hurts my head to think about so I'm ignoring it for now.

I've knit both the toys in the KBOY - the octopus/squid twice. No pictures since they are still on my defunct camera.

Jack is five, Calvin is big enough to be physically helpful, sassiness seems to be abating (am I jinxing myself or what?) and all is right with the world. I'm still fat though. Some things are a constant in my life. What - coffee and Nutella taost isn't a healthy breakfast? Not even *part* of a healthy breakfast? I'm shocked.

I'm contemplating the logistics of buying actual BOLTS of fabric. Maybe I should get on with the attic.

ABC of peeves

A is for Assholes who run around on their partners
B is for Bell Canada - how do I hate thee?
C is for Cunts - you know who you are
D is for Deadbeat dads everywhere
E is for Expectations which are unreasonable
F is for Fat - why does anyone care?
G is for Girls who let themselves be doormats
H is for Heathers everywhere
I is for Idiots - stay away from me
J is for Jilted, well related to A
K is for Karma, one can only hope it gets those who deserve it - I can't tell
L is for Lavalife, scummy and vile
M is for Manners, where have they gone?
N is for Nanny-nastiness - treat her well or you'll pay!
O is for Obnoxious people
P is for Patience. I have none
Q is just Q
R is for Rage. I have too much.
S is for Slippery, Slimy, Scuzzy steve.
T is for Tit
U is for Unfortunate incidents everywhere.
V is for Violence
W is for Wimp. Grow a spine
X is for Xs. Just go away.
Y is for Yellow, colour of barf.
Z is for Zed, not Zee.

Steps towards craziness

Yes, that's a knitting machine. Not just in my bedroom, but attached to the bed. And a cat.
It's official: I have no life.

Clean sweep

It's January 31st and I am preparing to usher in the new Knitter's Book of Yarn (KBOY) Year of Knitting. I would like to say I have cleaned house, organized my stash, completed all my outstanding FO's and picked all the yarn for my projects but that is too much like organization for me. Some things have happened coincidentally, so we will say they are in response to my bold knitting plan:

One night I was so tired I took 1/2 a Percocet night to put me in my happy place and ensure a good nights sleep. I wanted the warm fuzzy feeling but it didn't happen! I was most disappointed. I guess, like most bad relationships, I was in love with the idea of Percocet, rather that the reality. Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back until my next serious injury.

I've swept my colon. Our house was ravaged with the tsunami of stomach flu - we all had it. Eight hours of purging from both ends x three people. It was a full upper body workout and I lost a few full days of sleep. Oh well - it's over and we all survived and my pants fit better. I'd like to say I'm taking advantage of the kick-start to drop a few pounds, but my bad habits are already creeping back. Oh, and I broke my favourite glasses. It was my own fault and I wasn't even cross at the time but I am very sad. Bring on the laser eye surgery. Oh, except I had to cancel my appointment due to the barfies... feh.

Organized my Ravelry queue! (Man, I could give them some pointers about drag and drop, but I ain't no IT professional). All the KBOY projects are at the top and in their own queue. First project: the Diamond and Pearls Shawl. That should be amusing.

Also - I watched Start Wars ( I don't have a clue which one - the prequel) and I LOVED it. I thought they did such a good job of introducing all the characters and most of them were damn perfect. Leonard Nimoy looks like he might be dead and embalmed already, but he made an appearance.

Let the madness begin!

Rage against the machine

I am officially on the mend! See all that fuzzy bone? Doesn't it look strong enough to lift plywood?

I have spent a few evenings now trying to MacGyver a new sponge bar for my SK120 bulky knitter and ribber. Very trying. When I first got the machine I set it up and couldn't get it to knit worth beans. Well, to tell the truth I can't actually remember the knitting, but I know the ribbing didn't work. So I stuffed it back in it's box and left it alone for a while.

Fast forward a few months and I am itching to get this working. I pulled it out again and removed the sponge bar from the ribber. I figured if I totally effed that one up at least I could still use the knitter. I took out what was there as sponge - a piece of felt folded in half and wedged in with a piece of yarn - and contemplated my options.

First I tried weatherstripping. I cut it a bit wide and I couldn't for the life of me wedge it in to the narrow and deep channel (5 x 10 mm). I got some round weather stripping, thinking I could sew a case for it and pull it through the channel. HA. In theory it was a brilliant idea but in reality I couldn't get it more than an inch into the bed.

Finally, today I cut a narrower strip of weatherstripping and jammed it in with a bunch of kiddy glue (for easy removal when it totally doesn't work). I glued a pretty piece of ribbon on top and now I am too scared to put it in my ribber. I am fairly sure it will be a disaster. To complicate things, I managed to bend the sponge bar into a most interesting shape in my manipulations - it sort of curves and bends in several different planes so that should complicate the reinstallation. I shall save that joy for tomorrow.

(See the wine? That's an important supply for this job.)

Anyway, while that mess was drying I set up the knitter, gave it some Balistol and it knitted pretty much like a charm. I am optimistic about that, but in the process of setup I did find a picture of the original retaining bar - it had about as much padding as the metal on the bar (e.g. 10 mm) so long-term, I don't think the 2mm of fluff left on the knitter sponge bar is going to cut it. Ah well, at it's worst it performs better than the awful Bond so for that I am grateful. I hatz me some Bond.

I leave you with some lovely pictures. I have developed a small felting addiction:


Above, slippers before. Or should I say "galoshes"?
Below, the Magic Washer. Very cool, very effective.



Below - finished mary-janes. Knitpicks pattern which is easy as pie but could use some tweaking. They're too wide even for my bricks.

Above - felted Galway hat with made-up pattern. Lurve it, but could use some tweaking.
Below, Lamb's Pride bulky hat with flat top and turned up brim - at least that's the plan. Obviously still unfelted.



God, I'm so beautiful I almost can't stand it.

Back on track

Well, blogging has been pretty sporadic lately, but I have a plan. Inspired by the fabulous Miko and Julie and Julia, (the book, not the movie) we are going to knit our way through a book. In our infinite wisdom we have chosen The Knitter's Book of Yarn.

The first pattern in this book is a cabled tea cosy which I have , on 2 separate occasions, tried to knit with no success. I think that may be an inauspicious start, but WTF. Go big or go home. Also - there is lace in this book. Danger, Will Robinson!

I don't know why I think this will improve my blogging. Perhaps avoiding knitting will increase my output. I have no deep philosophical reasons to do this. I just think it might be fun, and definitely a challenge. I think Feb 1 is the start date, and I plan to knit as much of this as I can from my stash. Especially the poo-cle, mohair, and anything in pink.

One Book. Forty patterns. One serious lapse in judgment.

my mastercard moment

Number of times i thought about jumping to my doom: 2
Number of times i should have thought about it: at least 3
Speed at which a hefty body falls to the ground: amazingly fast and involves math i am incapable of while medicated
Force at which upper arm hits crossbar on the way down: unspeakable
Number of thought that went through my mind in the execution of this fall: 2
Number of attempts required to repair shattered arm: 2
Place i arrived when i woke up from the second attempt: heaven
Number of staples required for said repair: 25 (i think)

Number of people dependent on me: 2

My social safety net: priceless

Hindsight: 20:20

Just because...

Today warrants a blog post, fueled by hormones and people's general stupidity.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I'm old. I just am old. Ditto on being a dork.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I'm going to be ultra patient waiting 6 months for you to ship me something. I pay for it, I want it.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I'm willing to knit acrylic crap for the love of it.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I'm going to knit you stuff.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I'm psychic and can divine what was in the mind of the arithmetically-challenged crack whore who wrote that pattern, abusing cut and paste like it was crystal meth.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean you can not return my phone calls about said acrylic piece of crap and it's delusional pattern.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I have lots of free time.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I'm patient.

Just because I'm a knitter and you're a knitter it doesn't mean that we have to like each other.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I have to love everything I knit.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I have to look good in the things I knit.

Just because I'm a knitter it doesn't mean I have to want to knit all the time. I sew too, you know.

Now back to our regularly scheduled radio silence.

What is going on on the shelves while you're not watching?

I'm sorry, but should animal crackers really be doing this? Where are the chaperones?

You bin a long time gone

Doing fun things.



I'll try to do better.

Car of a thousand clowns

My little Toyota Echo is like one of those VW Beetles that expels a thousand clowns, much to the amazement of the onlookers. I went to an auction tonight and impulse-bought a drop leaf table for my kitchen. Of course, my friends with big cars were not there so I had to figure out a way to get it in my car. And I did. It's like magic. I think the table is bigger than my entire car but it fits inside. Go figure.

BTW, I am a chickenshit. The little log ride at Ontario Place scared the crap out of me. And I almost wet myself on the water slide. Seriously - those are for kids??? I swear we hit 60 km/hour down the water slide, in the pitch dark, and the G-force was extreme. Not for the faint of heart and their four year old son.

Work in progress

All sorts of yucky stuff has happened since I last posted, but it's all turned out A-OK, so I shall ignore it and carry on like it never happened. My apologies to all my dedicated readers.

So, I finished the fateful Buttercup. As expected, it is too small, but I think I can find someone it will fit. The bias is another thing. I blocked the snot out of it and it's still pretty bad, but it might be wearable... WTF, it was fun to knit. I might try it again, on slightly thicker yarn.


I broke down and bought a garter bar forn my machine on eBay (I will NEVER buy from anything other than a reputable vendor on eBay again. It's become a haven of scammers misrepresenting themselves and their products and I feel dirty just being on there. That being said I bought the garter bar from Sunny Choi, about whom who I have nothing but good things to say. Too bad the bad brings down the good.) and now I can (in theory) transfer multiples of stitches at the same time so I can do proper shaping without driving myself mad. Can't wait to try it.

My Dye Version Bamboo socks are almost done. I am knitting toe up since I want to use up ever scrap of yarn. As usual, I weighed the ball, divided it in two by weight, but for some reason not that I'm two inches or so from the top they are wildly different weights. I can't figure out why. Admittedly, the heels get turned separately, but they look the same and I can't see that making so much difference. There must be some weird sock black hole where the extra yarn just disappeared into. The toe up heel-flap heel rocks. I tried the Widdershins method, but I have a different stitch count and it made my head hurt trying to do the math. I found a much better version at Forward Motion. I had to suspend my disbelief, but I did and it worked, much to my surprise. The lycra in the yarn probably helps but these socks fit so well. Much better than the short row heel, simple though it is.

And machine knitting? I love lace.

I had to fix the lace carriage. I had a good look at it and there was something seriously weird going on with the back wheels.
They have a million trillion pieces that all work together, but the one of the bottom plastic thingies was out of whack on both wheels. I took my handy dandy dissecting kit and jimmied it back into place and now it seems to work fine. I don't know if that was what was responsible for the disaster I had before, but I decided to do what I should have before and start from the first lace card and move on. I started with fine fine acrylic and it kept etting hung up on the gatepegs - like it didn't quite transfer enough. I switched to fingering and it was MUCH better. Got hung up a few time, but no much. I'm not sure if the missed holes are due to the gatepeg issue or something else entirely - I don't know how to determine that but I'm sure all will be revealed in time.



Lucky Jack - a whole new binky.

Here's three generations of mummy-made binky. All the same yarn. Try not to be too grossed out.

And a few words about my new office. Not to gloat, but it's better than I could have imagined. It's improved my concentration, my productivity, and my ability to block at work :)



Hey Elvis - I bet it you take a few days off it'll fix you up so you don't have that weird look on your face. On second thought, maybe you need three MONTHS off.

Self-flagellation

101 reasons for my "cool" neighbours to stay away from me:

- I'm fat and wear ugo clothes and don't look like a supermodel
- My kids behave like WWF wrestlers, not princesses
- I'm single
- My house looks closer to Kentucky than House & Home
- My car is cheap and economical rather than glamourous
- Absolutely nothing about me is glamourous
- I practice free-range (aka neglectful) parenting rather than hovering
- I swear too much
- I drink too much (though really, I don't think that's a negative in our 'hood)
- I'm too negative

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Reading is good

I read like a maniac when I was a kid. I could read in grade one and didn't really stop voraciously devouring books until I went to university, where reading was temporarily replaced by drinking. My father was everlastingly grateful that my passion for Harlequin romances stayed behind when I left home. In truth, boy fantasy was replaced by the not so romantic reality of drunken encounters with the opposite sex, but I'm sure he never clued in to that.

Motivated by Crazy Aunt Purl I give you my favourite childhood books, in no particular order: I started with 10 but it grew...

Susannah of the Mounties and a few of the sequels. This was apparently written in 1936! but it had horses, the cool Mounty uniform... I adored it and wanted to be a Mounty (riding side-saddle, no less!) for ages.

Misty of Chincoteague and the related ones. Horses, yum. Again, written in 1947. What was up with that?

Black Beauty. 1887!!!

The Black Stallion 1941. I must have read that a million times and I think there were a billion spin offs that I read even though they were progressively worse and worse.

My Friend Flicka series. (1941 - it must have been a good year for horsey novels). Again, I adored the original and after a few they seemed to deteriorate. I don't know why I'm surprised - how many plotlines can there be about horses in the mountains? This series suffered from the fatal flaw of introducing romantic relationships - I dropped them like hot coals when that happened.

Nurse books. I seemed to read such old fashioned books! All the nurses wore caps (ah, the ritual of graduating from nursing school and having your cap pinned on) and were reverent and deferential to the doctors. They must have been 1950's vintage. Again, eventually they all seemed to fall in love and I became disgusted and stopped reading them.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Loved the first one, lost interest after a few.

Every single Laura Ingalls book. I even tolerated her getting married but I didn't really like it. I wanted her to stay Pa's little girl forever. I wonder how many school pictures show my hair in braids like hers? Lots. Now that TV show was awesome since they didn't follow the books, just made up episodes (at least as far as I could tell).

A Wrinkle in Time. I ADORED this book, though I can't remember why. I should read it again.

Watership Down and Jock of the Bushveld, which my dad read to us. I saw the movie of WatershipDown with my dad and it was the beginning of my disenchantment with movie adaptations of books. One's imagination is so much better, I think.

Enid Blyton, the Fabulous Four, the Fantastic Five, the Secret Seven, Mallory Towers - anything to do with British kids having adventures, going to boarding school, riding horses or - even better - both. They all blur together but I could not get enough of them.

Nancy Dew and the Hardy Boys, though I definitely preferred Nancy Drew. I'll still read these if I come across them. Ned Nickerson was the biggest sap in the universe, and combining Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys into one TV series was a tragically bad idea, although by then I thought Parker Stevenson was cute.

Stubby Amberchuck and the Holy Grail. From my dad, about WWF wrestling, being a lesbian... odd things. But I love it. Still have it, and the note my dad wrote to me when he gave it to me.

And every single harlequin-type romance published between about 1980 and 1985.

Acquisitions

Cheap - eight sock blockers in my favourite style for 25 cents. Two pairs are slightly rusty steel (?) and two pairs are zinc. They must be rust resistant as they are in better shape. Some of these are going to need good homes...


Not so cheap: 4 yards of assorted Riley Blake fabric for $24. Very pink. I wonder what was up with me that day?


Both totally worth it.

And she sews some more...

Talk about instant gratification.

Miko was wearing this really cute top on Friday and I vowed to steal it and copy it for myself (as it was last years model, of course). She kindly gave it to me at breakfast yesterday and I made the pattern that afternoon and sewed it today.
























Miko's is on the left, mine on the right. It has a few translational errors, but in general it turned out pretty well.

The way I look in it is something else. I don't care though. It's cool.

Karma

When I was a teenager, I dyed some white pants blue in our backroom sink. Hanging above the sink were some white clothes. My mom came in, saw what I was doing and beat the living crap out of me.

I was so angry - I hadn't even got dye on her stupid clothes. There was no way I deserved that and I couldn't understand her rage.

Until now.

The boys were painting in the kitchen. I turned around and they had created an unholy mess of water and huge quantities of paint. It wasn't a big deal, but why do they think they can do this at home when they wouldn't even consider doing it at daycare? Whatever.

I'm giving them breakfast when I notice my new bag (yes, the one I finished last night) has muck-coloured paint splattered all down one side. Nice streaks where the volume was adequate. I scrubbed and scrubbed with all my pent up fury I'm not allowed by law to nleash on my children. I couldn't get it all out.

Suddenly I understand my mother's rage a lot better.

Ah, summer.

Is it here? Will it ever get here? Will it stay more than 30 seconds? Inquiring minds want to know.

We took advantage of the absence of forecasted rain to go to the beach today. I forget how lucky we are having the lake in our back yard. I was whinging how I would love a cottage where the water was nice and shallow and I could just let the kids do their thing... Lake Ontario is even better! No three hour drive, absolutely free - even parking, no groveling to certain people about whether we can use the place. I'm always shocked at how few people go there. OK, there's a fair amount of garbage on the beach, but the water is the same old water that people vacation in all over. A few bad e. coli days here and there but hey, our days usually involve e. coli in some way, shape or form so I'm not complaining. I vow to go more often.I know McDonald's is evil, but this time it tried to eat my child. I almost barfed when I saw what happened, but he barely even cried. I would have been shrieking and I'm supposedly grown up.



Don't try this at home folks:

Sitting on the DVP for a hour, knitting AND taking picture. Officer friendly? Really, I can knit without looking.














And my piece de resistance, another knock off bag, somewhat modified for ease of construction. This one only took an hour, and it would have taken less but I had to recut a piece. I went to town on this and cut from the CENTRE of the piece of fabric, gasp. What would my mother say? It was worth it though, the pattern was perfect there. I am quite pleased.


Please ignore the copy of Breaking Dawn on the table. I am mortified to be caught with it in my possession.

Is a promise different than a threat?

I was going to post about my great long weekend, how productive it was and how decluttered my house is, but then the kids came back and I lost all the zen feelings I had. They didn't list to a word I said all evening until I said:

Fine. I shall unplug the TV until Friday and if your behaviour improves you can have it back and if not, I'll give it away.

I take that as a promise but it's probably a threat and I don't care - it's the only thing that worked.

Anyway...

I love surging. I want to surge up the universe. Here is evil sheddy Wonderwoman cape before:


And after: MAGIC.



Buttercup. The word for this garment is CRAZY.

A. It's going to be tiny due to major miscalculations. Gauge fine, my brain, not so fine.
B. Almost drove myself crazy with hours of math followed by hours transferring stitches on the machine. Gave up eventually and took it off the machine and will handknit the rest.
A. The pattern has very few stitch counts. As i am knitting it upside down, I have to do the reverse math and it's driving me bonkers not having any reference points.
D. Reading a pattern in reverse is difficult.
E. Damn cotton is biasing like a bitch. I guess you get what you pay for. Anyone know a lop-sided twelve year old who'd like Buttercup?


(for you non-knitter out there - you know who you are - biasing is when your knitting leans in one direction, rather than being straight up and down. Very attractive having your side seam crawl across your ample belly...)

OMG! I just had a machine knitting eureka moment. I had one or two of these in hand knitting - grafting was one and there was another even more blindingly revolutionary but I've forgotten it already.

I have terrible trouble transferring stitches onto the needle beds - whether I am rehanging the knitting or switching from hand knitting to machine knitting. The stitches never want to behave and the loops go everywhere except onto the machine needles. Meanwhile the rest of the garment has gotten itself snarled it the other needles. I never understood how machine knitters could be so cavalier about rehanging, like it was nothing. If the knitting is on waste yarn sometimes I can manage to pull the waste upwards while pulling the fabric down to make a nice loop to stuff on the needle but it's hugely awkward and I practically go blind. I think MK has been mainly responsible for the decline in my vision over the last few months. (Shut up. It is NOT old age.)

Today I was reading the Knitsings blog about knitting a handknit sock on a machine (I tolerate short row heels but they're not my fav so I was all over this) and she said:

No doubt, this is the hardest, most stressful part of the pattern for me. You are going to rehang the sock and pull needles through the side slipped stitches of the heel flap, just as you would with its hand knit cousin.

PULL the needles through! Of course!!! Instead of trying to stuff the stitch onto the needle, just poke the transfer tool though the stitch, grab the needle and PULL IT THROUGH THE STITCH!

Seriously, I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree. Of course this might be one of those items that works really well in my head and not at all in practice but we shall see…

In other news…

I taught Calvin to set things on fire with a magnifying glass. I adore fire and everything to do with it. I used to take candles out into my snow forts and hang out in the candlelight. Make little mini-bonfires and hope not to get caught. He is such a cautious kid he'd never set anything on fire. The first time it worked and he saw the leaf do its little mini-flame/smoke burst, he almost wet himself. Stop, mommy! Stop mommy! Like I was going to set the world on fire. Then he got totally into it, although way more cautious that I ever was. While I am outwardly horrified about him burning bugs, I sort of recall I may have done the same thing myself. A proud parenting moment passing my pyromania on to my child.

The cottage. I shall certainly reevaluate the plans for next year. Let me summarize by saying one night I lay in bed plotting who to kill first in my mass family homicide. I shall not discuss any further. My rage has died down and I do not want it to rekindle.

Surly, eh?

February Viking Sweater is finished! It was a positive pleasure to knit the torturous gull lace pattern rather than dwelling on the situation around me while at the cottage. If you think the pattern is more monotonous than watching paint dry just remember - there are worse things. It acted like a sort of white noise for me and probably saved some lives. Maybe I'll knit another one next summer.

I got two cones of cotton from Le Village months ago - about fingering weight, lots of twist. Sort of like tons of blue string. I had no idea what I could make out of it but it was $3 a cone (~700g each) so I couldn't resist. The other day I realized it would be perfect for Buttercup, so I knit up a test swatch. As I was knitting, I smelled a really musty smell. I hadn't used my machine for at least a month, so I though maybe there was some wet cardboard around it (it's right by a window) but I couldn't find anything. Eventually I realized it was the cone of cotton that stunk so badly. Yikes. Anyway, I washed up my swatch and the water was pretty damn filthy. Hung it in the sun all day to dry and it still smelled. Hmmm. It was much improved though, so I'm going to hope for the best. It does make a really nice fabric, though it biases like mad so don't be surprised w hen I hate the end result. In theory I was going to knit the top (increases, lace) by hand and then transfer it to the machine for the boring part, but it's so tiny I don't think I can stand it. I cast on upside down and might knit the whole think upside down and see how that looks. So little commitment with a machine. I love that.

Also - I bought a new knitting machine. I don't need it and it's not worth knitting with but it's so cute.

I have spent so much money on Etsy lately - all fabric. I am addicted to making little drawstring bags. I shall make as many as I can stand and then decide what to do with them. I think the most pleasing part is my little Lilo tag stuck in them. I'm so vain.

Also spending my entire GDP on junk on eBay - TWO Buzz Lightyears, although they won't play with both it's not worth the initial meltdown buying only one (also - I might have accidentally bid on two and won them both) and two batman video games. My kids are spoiled. Maybe I'll save the games for christmas.

Also - in my hate-on with cancer I have nothing but good news to report. My neighbour got her biopsy results back from her thyroid and is A-OK! (Biotch is moving, but that's another story). And Patrick's being sprung from PMH - I could not be more pleased.

(Of course I will now be struck down with a super-malignant strain of cancer that will leave me fat and bloated in death for daring to declare victory...)

I'd like to say I'll be better at blogging now, but I have a bag or 20 to sew…

Happy long weekend.

I swear this is the last mechanical post.

My machine is done - clean, assembled and functional, but not with out some measure of hardship.



I finished cleaning all the needles and then started putting the needles back into their channels. As I was putting them back in the needles pushed out more little balls of fluff, which I duly cleaned up. After I'd done most of the back (main) bed, I got to a spot where the needles wouldn't go though and *gasp* at one point pushed up a piece of the spring! I stopped immediately as I live in terror of breaking it.

I had a look to see what the trouble was. As you can see in the picture below, you can see though the channels to the other side. The two channels near the 60 are clear. that's because I picked all the fulff out. They were JAMMED with fluff. You couldn't see through at all when I started.

Good picture, eh? You can even see the spring!

That's what the spring is supposed to look like. However, in another twist, once I cleared all the fluff out (about 8 solid hours, picking with a 0.85mm crochet hook - can you say obsession?) and started putting the needles back in AGAIN, I realized the problem was with the spring. In one place it's sort of kinked, and doesn't push the needles down like it's supposed to. What this means (I realized once I had it together and clamped down) is that the needles don't stay in working position but fall back to out of work. Feh.

So I removed the needles from the offending area, and used them to fill in the channels to the right. Fortunately it was pretty far off to the left side so a large usable space still remained. One day I shall figure out how to remove the lower rail and clean it completely and get a new spring. But for now, it seems to work great!
Cast on in fingering weight, 1x1 ribbing, tension in steps from 5 to 12, and back to 5.

Socks, maybe?

Attention

Some things require a lot...

and some things do just fine on their own.

Happy I'm-almost-on-vacation day.

My new baby

I recently bought this knitting machine from a woman in King City knowing absolutely nothing about it except that it looked cool, it was old, and it was a knitting machine. It had lots of bits and pieces so I figured, how wrong could I go? It was $50 - a bargain, I thought.



Turns out although labeled as a Singer it's a French-made model 360-2 Superba 5 mm fixed double bed machine - 1950's or 60's best that I can tell. No adjusting, all double all the time, although you can knit flat - even U-shaped if you need the full 360 needles wide. The indomitable Patrick swears they are the cats pajamas and he seems to be the all-time expert on them, hosting the Superba Knitting blog dedicated to them. Unfortunately Patrick is unable to walk me through the resuscitation of this machine (damn cancer) so I have to fumble though by myself.


Forgive the terrible picture, but maybe you can see that the needle in the upper position leans towards the peg on it's right. This = bad. It doesn't run smoothly in its channel and thus the carriage won't run smoothly either. Also,most of the needles were really sticky. Many of the latches wouldn't open or close without substantial help and that's just no good.

I bit the bullet and removed the needle retaining bar (yeah, I had to order a copy of the manual from someone and it came and it's in colour and it's beautiful and more to the point it's MY model. She's the only one I found who had the same one.). Then, starting with the fucked-up needles, I removed them a-la Patrick, with pliers. I only had to cut the latch hook off one, but I did snap the butt off one trying to get it out. Some of those suckers were wedged in there!

The rest came out by hand. Interestingly, the needles on the back bed were the mangled ones, and overall much harder to get out than the front bed. Maybe because it's used more? Who knows. Anyway, when the needles came out of their channels they brought with them little balls of felted fluff. Black felted fluff. Almost cute, but yet not.



Into the bath of methyl hydrate. (It was all I could find at Home Hardware. I guess I could go get IPA from the drug store but I can't be arsed.) The little bits of black crap on my table cloth is from the butts of the needles, which were by far the filthiest.


Out of the bath and polished lovingly by hand with a lightly oiled rag to remove the residual gunk and hopefully smooth out the corrosion a bit. Some are worse than others. I'm separating out the worse of them and we'll see how many we have to work with when I'm done. I find it strangely Zen polishing 8 million little latch hooks. They look so lovely and work so well when you're done.



Maybe that's why I like machine knitting so much. I get the creative stuff but I also get to indulge my mechanical side. It's a lot like owning a VW van again, but without the subzero rapped knuckles and the gasoline in your hair.

25 or so down, 300+ to go. Let's see how long it takes for the novelty to wear off. Or the skin on my thumb and forefinger - I'm betting that wears out first.