The Machine for Handknitters
I’ve been a hand knitter for over 35 years, and I know that a lot of hand knitters don’t like knitting machines. That is why I need to let everyone know how much and why I love my Ultimate Sweater Machine, sold by Bond America. Here it is, set up out on the carport today. I wanted to knit where I could see my two-year-old playing outside, my husband working in the garden, and the flowers and the lovely spring day.
Anyway, the USM turns out stockinette stitch in a hurry. Any fancy stitch, like cables or stranded knitting or intarsia or lace, has to be hand-manipulated, and therefore takes longer. You can knit many hand-knitting yarns on the USM, directly from the skein. I have even used hand-spun yarns on the USM.
I have often knitted the stockinette stitch part of a sweater on the machine, then taken it off to do the fancy knitting by hand. I find knitting stockinette stitch to be dull, so the USM does that for me whenever possible. My knitting time is so limited that any hand-knitting better be stimulating and fun.
If you have hand pain or suffer from carpal tunnel, a machine like the USM lets you make the most of your hand-knitting time. The machine is also great if you’re designing or teaching, and you need to do a lot of stockinette-based swatches. Have a look at my post of April 3, 2005, where all the Fair Isle swatches are USM-knit.
The USM’s strength is stockinette, so I use it almost exclusively for stockinette-based sts. I find cable knitting on the USM to be a bit of a strain, and since cables are fun to knit anyway, prefer to do those by hand. Lace is possible, but I like knitting lace by hand, too.
I have used the USM since the early 1980’s, when it was called the Bond Knitting Frame. It’s a simple machine, and easy to learn (comes with a video these days), but you do have to spend some time training yourself. So there you have my testimonial for the Ultimate Sweater Machine.
How did it go, knitting outside today? I didn’t get very far. My little Ella didn’t like the machine hogging my attention. She wanted to sit in my chair. After she went to sleep, I took our floor lamp outside and knitted under its light, to the tune of crickets, night birds, and the occasional flapping of sleepy swallows.
Design Workshop: Composition
The knitted embellishments are done, with a few alterations from last post’s plan. You’ll see I made two new orange coral pieces. The lighter one just didn’t look right. Sometimes you can’t tell until you knit it and put the pieces together. I decided against knitting more of the sponge-like balls.
For me, the details of a piece often don’t become clear until I’m composing.
With the pieces done, I made two different arrangements. In the second one, I included the ‘rocks’ made from the background colors. I haven’t made the fish yet, so I cut a fish from paper to help me visualize it.
Tuesday night, I’ll post the finished sample. Then it goes up to Indiana for Lea-Ann’s trunk show.
Sneak Preview
Here’s a tantalizing preview of one of the samples I’m knitting for INKnitters. The yarn is Berroco Lullaby. It looks like unspun nylon filaments worked into a tape. Thank goodness, the tape does not unravel from the cut end.
I like the colors, but the tiny fibers catch on every little rough spot on the hands, during and after knitting.
My friend Hazel Stansfield from the Hallamshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers in Sheffield, UK, gave me this hint or something very like it to get rid of rough spots: Mix sugar and olive oil. Scrub your hands with the mixture. Rinse, dry, and knit!
Taxes Done, Back to Knitting
For the first time in many years, I finished our tax return by the first deadline! I’m very proud of myself, and will reward myself with unbridled knitting, if I can stay awake. The Salt and Pepper Jacket is just a couple of hours away from being finished.
I did get some knitting done during these fine spring days. My little one and I sit in the shade under the carport. She plays and I knit. I got a good sample done for my next INKnitters article. Only several more to go. I like to illustrate with lots of samples.
As I said, we are having beautiful spring days here in Texas. The sun is warm, the breezes light, and wildflowers are everywhere. Texans are proud of their wildflowers. I’m no exception, so here are some photos. In this one, the white earth to the left is our driveway. When you back out, you have to watch out for that barbed wire fence, or as some of us say around here, “bob wahr fence.”
These are pink evening primroses, aka showy primroses. They’re my favorite.
ReKAL 2005
Following the link for ‘random choice’ on web rings is the most fun. That’s how I found Knit Nana’s blog, which led me to ReKAL, for knitters who recycle, reuse, renew. That’s me!
Here’s a close-up of my grocery bag rug. It is about 24 x 36 inches, and used around 200 plastic bags from the supermarket. I cut the bags into strips five to six inches wide and knitted on 1/2″ diameter needles. It feels great underfoot!
The cupboard under my sink was beautifully empty for a day or two, before the new bag accumulation began.
I also recycle sweaters and other knitting into new garments or artwork using TextileFusion techniques (sewing, quilting, embellishing). See some of them at the Works link in the menu above.
Recycle projects planned for 2005:
- figure out something to knit with a former favorite pink t-shirt, which is already cut into knittable strips
- experiment knitting and crocheting with baling twine (red and white plastic string used to tie big round bales of hay)
- cut up and sew several more thrift shop sweaters.
Great Time with Dallas Knitters
It was good to be back among knitters last Tuesday night. I have talked to the Dallas Guild a few times, so was glad to see people I already knew. And I was glad to meet new knitters, too. My program went well.
April Mills, a machine knitter, designer, and teacher from Seattle, was in town for a workshop, so she came to the meeting as well. She showed several of her Scandinavian-inspired cardigans. One was 100% alpaca and everyone wanted to hug it. My favorite was a purple and white cardigan, inspired by knitting motifs of Latvia. She made it after attending her son’s wedding to a Latvian woman in Latvia. Gorgeous! Here’s her web site.
I enjoyed show and tell, where the trend was toward finishing old projects. Could this be an earthly consequence of some cosmic shift? I like to contemplate all the possibilities. Anyway, the productivity and creativity of knitters is amazing. Some showed crochet projects, too.
One of the drawbacks of living our isolated life in the country is that I don’t have a large population of knitters to meet with. In fact, we don’t have a large population of any kind of people around here. The consolation is that knitting groups are just a few hours’ drive away in a couple of different directions, or a click away on the internet.
Habu Textiles in Chicago This Month
I first ran across Habu Textiles at the Quilt Festival in Houston last year. Habu imports Japanese yarns, which are unlike any yarns I have found in the US or England.
Habu will be at booth #1753 in the International Quilt Festival in Rosemont this month. If you’re close, it’s well worth going just to see their booth, and the great bonus is that you will get to see the quilt exhibits, too! My TextileFusion Cherry-Picking Vest is in the Small Wonders exhibit. Yay!
Here’s what I bought to experiment with:
Starting with the red, and moving clockwise:
- Red: 100% linen shosenshi paper with viscose sizing.
- Dark gray: 100% bamboo and oh, so soft and smooth and cool to the touch.
- Beige: 1/10 paper moiré, 50% linen and 50% ny core. I’m guessing ny means nylon. The core is spun very firmly and very thin, and it has tiny strips of linen paper spun into it. Close-up below.
- Light blue: ladder tape yarn, 70% silk and 30% cotton. Close-up below.
- Variegated with black thread wrap: tsumugi silk combination, 100% silk. The yarn feels like it has a rectangular cross section. Close-up below.
- Shiny stuff on the spool: fine silver wire.
- Blue with white flecks: 100% polyester eyelash yarn, and the eyelashes have little white flecks on them. Looks to me like some kind of sea life in miniature. Close-up below.
Read more about Habu Textiles here.
Fair Isle Talk Tuesday Night
I’m looking forward to Tuesday night. My parents will take the kids while I go to give a talk to the Dallas Handknitters Guild. I always enjoy going to their meetings, because they are dedicated, enthusiastic, productive knitters. If you’re in or near Dallas, please come by. DHKG welcomes visitors and new members.
My talk is about using color in Fair Isle knitting. Color is one of my favorite knitting subjects. The photo is from another workshop I do, called “Color Cross Training,” but I will be bringing the Fair-Isle samples pictured there (and more!). And I’m bringing a big bag of yarn, so we can design some colorways right there at the meeting.
I’ll also bring some of my knitted, embellished quilts. You can see them here at my web site.
My husband is out of town, doing archaeology, or else the girls would stay at home with him. (I saw that there’s a web ring for Digging Knitters–archaeologists who knit.)
Latest INKnitters
The spring issue of INKnitters mag arrived today, and I couldn’t put it down until I read it through. Beyond-beginner knitters, if you want information, inspiration, and interesting patterns, INKnitters is the magazine for you. It is truly a feast for the eyes and brain!
I’ve been writing for the mag since it started, but this is the first issue that I was able to get my daughter Eva involved. She drew the original which inspired this rug. Instructions are in the magazine.
My own article “Knitting Around the House,” features ideas and tips on knitting for your home, including a kitchen rug knitted from plastic grocery bags. Here are a couple of the ideas, illustrated:
Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe! (So I can keep my writing/knitting job!)
Update: It’s 2016 and INKnitters has been out of publication for several years. You may be able to find copies on Ebay.
Book Tapes and Sleeping on the Job
Last two nights, after everyone else was in bed, I worked on the Salt and Pepper Jacket, accompanied by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, read by Stephen Fry. The package says he is the Potter-perfect reader, and I agree.
The weather has been chilly here, so I covered up with a down blanket and one of my husband’s quilted shirts. It wasn’t long before I leaned my head back, just to close my eyes for a moment. The moment stretched into more than an hour. Somewhere in there, the tape player clicked off at the end of the tape. Side 2B may be worn out by the time that jacket is done.
Luckily, two-year-old Ella is at the point where I can sit outside and knit while she plays. The jacket progressed much better outside today, until she wandered out of my sight. I heard “Maaaaaaamaaaaaa! Maaaaaaamaaaaaa!” I jumped up and ran toward the sound of her voice, catching the yarn around my ankle, and dragging the jacket front along with me.
She had stepped into a stickery patch and wanted me to carry her out. We have a lot of sand burrs here.
Anyway, back to book tapes. I think they are the best invention ever for people who love to read and knit or do any other kind of craft. I’ve been listening to books on tape since the early 1980s, buying a few abridged ones, renting from a mail-order company, and checking them out from the library.
I was very spoiled when we lived in England (1996-2003). The library had a large selection of tapes. The readers are usually good, sometimes great. I loved the detective novels, and my favorites were by Ngaio Marsh. I loved the stories about Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse. And believe it or not, the Sheffield libraries carried Westerns, including recordings of books by Zane Grey. I’m not sure I would read Zane Grey, but I enjoyed listening to the stories of cowboys and ranchers, love and honor, etc.
I’ll try to work on the jacket again tonight, maybe with a cup of coffee nearby. Back and sleeves are done. Left front is almost done. Need to decide about buttonholes before I start the right front.
