Knitting machine

Today I have been mostly knitting Tangled Yoke. I decided to knit up to where the yoke joins the sleeves, back and fronts toether on the knitting machine. I knew garter rib would be slow without a garter carriage, but it was going okay. I started last Tuesday and I am now on the second sleeve.

Unfortunately, the carriage is sticking loads and really slowing me down, and I'm worried that I'm hurting the machine trying to move it when it doesn't want to. I am so tempted to take it all off the machine and start handknitting from here! But if i could just get it working it is so much quicker.

Two more WIPs

As someone who generally only has one WIP at a time, I have found myself battling with one handknit WIP and one machine knit WIP. I knew I had a lot of flying and sitting around for work on Monday, so started a sock on Sunday. I like the yarn and the colour, and the pattern, but I am not so sure about the combination. Here it is next to my beer, in the departure lounge waiting to fly home on Monday evening. The yarn is Regia, colour passion. The pattern is Leyburn socks.

I have also started a Tangled Yoke Cardigan. So far I have almost completed the garter rib on one sleeve. Garter rib is not a good idea on the knitting machine, but I think it is still slightly faster than knitting by hand, and has been good practise for hand manipulation of the knitting. Much of this cardigan is stocking stitch, which will be much faster than hand knitting. I plan to knit by machine until I get to the part where the fronts and back join the sleeves, and then knit by hand. A swatch to check the difference between my handknitting guage and machine knitting guage shows them to be a close match, so hoping this could work out well. I am going to have to knit the front seperately from the back due to the number of needles on the machine.

Hoodie Finished - again

I've sorted the sleeves on the hoody and it's now all finished and with it's recipient. Unpicking everything probably took longer than knitting and putting it together in the first place. I still like the colours and am glad I sorted it out. Together with the bootees, it was a well received present.

I knew it

I knew the baby jumper had been knitted too quickly, and I knew it looked odd, but i'd checked a few things and couldn't work out quite what had gone wrong...

Well a couple of days ago, I figured out that I had forgotten the increases on the sleeves, which is why they are so rectangular and so wrong. The hoody is now substantially un-knitted. The sleeves were carefully un-sewn as was the hood, and the sleeves are now frogged, and the re-knitting has started. I am hoping that the new sleeves can be carefully sewn back in, and the hood sewn back on without disturbing the band around the hood and both fronts.

Luckily Raspy is finished, and I like it. It was worn to band practise and knitting group this week, and raised no comment and lots of positive comments at the two events! It fits well, and I think it is the kind of thing I like to wear. Hopefully I will get a photo soon.

Another baby hoodie... I loved the stripes on the original pattern, and thought that stripes would be a nice idea on my second version of this pattern. However, with this knitted again on the knitting machine, I can only thread the machine for 2 colours at a time, and so larger stripes seemed a good idea. However, with stripes of 4 rows, the yarns floats were too long not to cut, leaving with a million little ends to sew in. All in all, not such a good idea. Hence the plain arms and hood. I love the colours and the yarn is soft. But I am quite worried that the arms are too thin, not sure how that could have happened but they do look a bit odd.

Pattern: Bobbie from Rowan Classic Bambino

Yarn: Sirder Snuggly double knitting; colours 0256, 0260, 0251

Needles: Knit on the machine with settings 3 at top, and 8 on the carriage, I got guage of about 28sts and 40 rows per inch. Pattern should have been 22sts and 30 rows, so that wasn't good, but it looks ok

The bootees are Almost Perfect Baby Booties which knitted up quickly, and I like the result. Not quite as quick as the Mary Jane bootees I last knit but a nice design for a little boy

1 day warning of a finished object....

So what kind of a person thinks that knitting a whole sweater in a yarn that shrinks the first time you wash it would actually be a good idea? My raspless Raspy in Rowan Denim has just gone into the washing machine, on a 60 degree cotton wash, with some spare yarn (barely had any left) for sewing up.

I have made modifications for me being short, which is one of my main concerns for the finished size fitting me nicely. I have also added some short row shaping to the front as I have been worrying that a jumper with a back and front the same height would not be good for me. Also, I started knitting one size, and reknit most of the back to make the smaller size, having seen a lot of reviews that this knit up on the large size. If I had carefully read the finished size and noticed the amount of ease, that would have saved me a lot of knitting.

It has been a nice mindless knit, and I love the fabric that this has created. I just hope the finished size will be okay.

E.T.A. Maybe I should have worried more about all the loose ends of yarn managing to get out of the bag and tangling themselves up in an amazingly complicated way. That's about an hour wasted that I could have spent knitting.

February Already

I've been busy knitting. My Gretel beret is finished. I love this hat, and I will get a decent photo of me wearing it, but for now this will have to do.



I am knitting an ongoing Raspy sweater in Rowan Denim, which is odd toknit with, but producing stocking stitch panels that drape really nicely. I am probably about half way there on that.

Over the weekend I had a break from large sweaters.

The first of the weekend knitting was a Bobby hoody by Rowan, in Classic Bambino, but also recently in a magazine supplement that someone on the Angel Yarns forum was nice enough to send me. The stocking stitch was all done on the knitting machine, which has mostly worked well. After a chat with a nice lady from the machine knitters guild at a stitch n craft show in Sandown a week ago, I removed the needle retaining bar, tried in vain to buy a new one and eventually replaced the dead foam with draft excluder. It has made a big difference to the behaviour of the machine, and i was keen to try and actually knit something.


I wasn't sure of the dark maroon edging, until I added the buttons, which I think are lovely.

I also knitted some Mary Jane style bootees to match.


A good friend had a baby 8 days ago, so hopefully these will go to a good home in the next few days.