New machine, new items, new expectations...

Today I want to talk about all that happened with my knitting lately, yet again sorry for no pictures but the camera broke again, I really should consider buying a new one.... but anyway, I can still write so, here's the news:
As you may know so far I have two knitting machines, both Knitmaster standard gauge machines, a 302 and a 321, with the first one, the 302 that I bought a couple of years ago I made some things such as a cardigan and some pairs of socks but it was always plain, because although it had a mechanism that enables you to make diffrent stitch patterns, it would never work, plus I wanted a ribber for it but on eBay it was never available so in November 2007 (the 302 was bought in August 2007), I decided to buy a new machine, I wasn't looking for a particular model, just a new-to-me machine, and I found on Ebay an auction for the 321, and another auction for a SRP50 ribber, so I bought both of them, and they were very cheap except for the postage that always rises everything because of being in a diffrent country.
With the 321 I must say I had lots of fun, I made wonderful sweaters, never using written instructions, always using the Knit Radar, I loved it, plus I had the ribber and it was such a blessing and again it made diffrent stitch patterns and the PUNCHCARDS made them, depending of how you set the carriage(s), so it was a great machine, and as you now I had a lot of accessories for it....
But the only problem is the yarn, you see here were I live the is only one yarn shop and it sells mainly hand knitting yarns, so finding finer ones that were usable on the 321 was always difficult.

So, about three weeks ago I decided to buy a bigger gauge machine so that it was easier to find yarn for it, so I decided for a Bond, didn't know the diffrence between the ISM and USM, but I decided to buy an ISM anyway and it was very cheap.
It arrived last Thursday and IT IS my salvation, it knits up beautifully and IT WORKS WITH ALL THE YARNS I CAN FIND IN MY LOCAL SHOP, YES!
So, since last Thursday I made three items, a Simple Shrug and a Tuck - Lace Wrap from the Bond America site and a Simple Hat with a pattern written in the pattern book that came with the machine, I am soo happy, really I never knitted so many thing in such a little time and also that easily!!

Today, I'll cross my fingers as I'm going to start on my first sweater so, wish me luck.

Bye for now,

Samantha

Finally a come back

Well, it has been some time, I must apoligize myself for that, in my excuse I can say that it has been a tough year a school, very stressing really, so that's why I nearly forgot about the blog. Still, I'm here now, and I'll try to blog more often, espescially now that it's summer so I should have more time to post.

Now let's talk about what this blog is about after all, knitting, since last Semptember a lot of projects have gone by, some finished, some still in progress and some just started.....

This is what I'm planning to show you in the next posts:

MACHINE KNITTING:
-knitted man's sweater in dark red with a tuck pattern from the basic set punchcards.

HAND KNITTING:
-Knitted striped work bag in various colours and patterns.
-Woman's basque in autumn colours

CROCHET:
-Fine thread cotton dolly

VARIOUS WORKS WHICH ARE IN PROGRESS:
-HK- Colourful single bed cover in various colours and patts(19 pieces made,23 to go)
-C- Crochet double bed cover with nut patt. White 4-ply. (1 & a half made, 11 to go)

There will be photos of course, unfortunately it was too dark to take them today.

Bye,

Samantha

Finished items -1

I'm writing today because I wanted to show you all the things I've knitted since last post.

As you may know I have a KR6 Knit Radar for my Knitaster 321 but somehow I never got round using it because I couldn't get the hang of using the graph instead of using written instructions.
I was inspired by Susan's videos about using the Knit Radar, once I understood it now thanks to her I think I'll always use the Knit Radar.

This is my first Knit Radar knitted pullover:

It uses punchcard number 4 from the basic Knitmaster set, in tuck stitch, (don't get angry Susan if I copied it), here's how the pattern looks like:

It's in hot pink, it has borders made in a 1x1 rib. It was fairly easy to make, I got into trouble for the neckband as I had knitted it but I didn't know how to put on the neck with no mistakes, it wasn't easy sewing it either as I'm not an expert on sewing needles, but I got through it. It isn't 'perfect' but it's all right for me.

I also made a pair of socks,I knitted them by hand using 4 needles, (I hate using 5, I never made socks on 5 needles), here's how they look like:

I used a set 4mm sock needles, using 4ply they were obviously knitted in the round with no seams. The have a 2knit-2purl rib:

The cuffs are actually turned over as the leg portion is longer, I wanted them like that as I can leave them long like they are if I want or turn the cuff over and make them shorter, here's how they look with the longer leg portion:




That's all for today, but I do have 2 more finished items that I want to show them to you tomorrow.

Bye for now,

Samantha

Who needs a chunky machine!

On Saturday I decided to go yarn shopping, this time I decided to buy some DK as I never tried it before on the Knitmaster 321, well the seller sold me the yarn as DK but it really was chunky, so I thought, what do I do with it now, it didn't want to bother knitting it by hand.

Then I took a look at the manual of the Knitmaster 321 and read that you could actually knit chunky on the machine by knitting the yarn on alternate needles, so I had a browse on my magazines, and found the pattern for a Teenage sweater knitted on alternate needles at tension 8*, at the weekend I so far knitted the back:

My digital camera wasn't working properly, that's why there haven't been much photos lately on the blog, well, I got it fixed now. That is the back, it is striped, I used light blue, brown and dark pink, ten rows for each colour. It has raglan shapings, you can see it better here:

I'll start the front as soon as I have some free time....

Bye for now,


Samantha

Finished project

On Saturday afteroon I decided I should knit a new sweater from a Modern Knitting magazine, so I used a cheap yellow yarn that I had and on Tuesday morning I had finished it.
Now, the finishing part is taking more time than i thought it would take. But as soon as I finish making it up, I'll post a picture.

Bye for now,

Samantha

Man's sweater picture - 2

Here I am posting again after a week, yes I know, I should do this more often but I don't know it's like everyone in my family has to get sick, in fact after me, (I got the flu a couple of weeks ago), my son got the chickenpox, he said that he must've got it from two or three classmates of his that also got sick.
On Monday, I should've knitted the back of the man's sweater but I didn't have time, I actually found time today for doing this.
Here's the photo, but really it looks exactly as the same, so:

I'm off as it is time for medicine for my son!

Bye for now,

Samantha

Man's sweater progress picture

Remember, that I told you that I would make something with the pnchcards I tried a few days ago? I did and I decided to make a Man's pullover, which I'm not sure I'll make the sleeves for it.... we'll see.
It was done with the knit radar, it was the first time I used it. I decided to make a cut ' n sew neckline, but what I didn't think is that I'm not to good at that, what to you know, is it difficult, if someone of you tried it and know how to it could you give me some instrucions please....

Anyway so far I made the front with a diamond pattern, the back will have the diamond pattern too.
The welt was done with a 2x2 rib.

Here's the photo:



The back will be knited tomorrow.....


Bye for now,

Samantha

English rib- instructional video

Here's the video made by Susan, (see previous posts) which shows how to do english rib with and without the SRP-50 ribber, (many thanks to Susan), although in the video is mentioned as fisherman's rib, english rib and fisherman's rib look the same.
She's uses diffrent instructions but either you follow hers or mine, you'll get the same result:



Jennifer, I hope you'll find it useful!

comments on my posts are appreciated!

Bye for now.

Samantha

English rib on KM 321 and SRP-50

Jennifer, here's the instruction that I use on my ribber when doing english rib:



I'll put up a post where you'll find a video which shows how to do English rib with and without the ribber soon.

Talk to you soon.

Samantha

Finished item and a new one

Today I finished the hat I made on Sunday, I intended to finish it yesterday, I had a sudden school meeting, I wonder why that happens when you already have plans.
Today I decided I would start on this project, it's done in fisherman's rib, I never done this so, that's why I'm gonna try it:

I'm doing the man's which is supposed to be the larger size (30-inch bust, that's not a very large size is it?). So far I made the rib which is a simple 1x1 rib and then started the fisherman's rib, only made 21 rows!

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about how fisherman rib is done on my machine although Susan and I have the same machines, we do fisherman's rib diffrently, made there's something a little bit diffrent about the ribber, although I don't think so, as if they were diffrent they wouldn't fit the same machine model, they do look alike anyway.

Bye for now.

Samantha

Knitmaster 321 accessories

You remember, when yesterday I talked about the accessories of the Knitmaster 321, the ones I had and the ones I still have to buy? Well, today I'm going to talk about them.

• Knit radar, (KR6): Everything I buy for my knitting machine, comes from eBay, and the KR6 was the first accessory I've bought after the SRP 50 ribber, the knit radar enables you to knit garments, with no need of written instructions, the only thing you have to do is a tension square and choose the pattern paper from the ones that come with it.

Here's a photo of it:

• Liker, (SC1): the liker, enables you to cast off automatically by turning its handle, it also sews up garments, (straight edges on a sweater) on the knitting machine, actually I didn't have much luck with it, because although I think it was attached to the machine correctly, it was stiff to move across the needle bed, so it dropped the stitches and didn't cast off anything! Anyway, I'll try again, I don't surrender that easily.

Here's a photo of it:

• Handy punch, (HP1): the handy punch, is used to punch out blank punchcards and it allows you to create you own stitch patterns and motifs.

Here's a photo of it:

And now what I have to buy:

• Rib transfer carriage, (RT1): it is used to transfer stitches from the ribber to the main bed, but since it can be done with a double eyed transfer tool, this carriage simply makes this action faster to do.

And now I'm going to tell you what happened to me the other day, I was checking my mail and I found an e-mail from eBay which said that an eBay member contacted me, I wasn't selling anything so I was wondering why would a eBayer contact me, but anyway I opened the e-mail and it said that the same seller of the SRP 50 ribber, was wondering which machine model I had because he had a YC1 colour changer, that would fit the Knitmaster 321, at the beginning I wasn't sure so I e-mailed my friend and and she said that at such a low price, (£10), it was worth buying it, and so I did; it should be here, at the beginning of next week.

That's all for now,

Bye,

Samantha

My knitting, my machine and me

This is the first post on my blog, I was convinced by a friend to start one, because aren't a lot of machine knitting blogs, (that's true), so decided I should have given it a try.
In this blog I'll talk about:

• Machine knitting and everything that involves knitting machines.
• Hand knitting
• Crocheting

I've bought my first knitting machine from eBay, and it was a vintage Knitmaster 302 from the mid sixties, it is a standard gauge knitting machine and to create the patterns, it uses push bottons and dials. It's one of the first machines that didn't need to hand-move the needles, to make a pattern. A ribber was made for it but I didn't have it.

Here's a photo of it with0ut the ribber:

My second and current machine, is another of my eBay buys: a Knitmaster 321 from the seventies, I also got for it a SRP 50 ribber. I even bought some more accessories although there are some more I have to buy....

Here's a photo of the 321 and the SRP 50 ribber:

The garments I make come from the patterns in the Modern Knitting magazines that the friend I talked you about at top kindly sends me to time to time.

I hope I wasn't to dull, but,

until next time,

Bye.

Samantha