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.