February 14, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day, and the Knit Natters meeting was today, too.

Pat showed us how to make Dorset buttons, and she'd brought along information on their very interesting history.  It brought to mind the history of bobbin lace, women working long hours in dim rooms producing incredible craftsmanship and managing to earn a living.  Pat had brought along supplies and everybody made a button with a plastic ring and wool yarn. 

Barbara showed a tuck stitch baby hat on the Passap E6000.  It's a DM-80 pattern, but she showed us how to convert it for the E6.  It requires no electronics, just uses the buttons and back pushers.

Show and tell was very interesting. 

Mildred had brought several things, including a knitted doll blanket with a fur edge, a crocheted cap she learned at one of Pat's classes (a second color of yarn carried under the first making it look almost like a wound basket, gotta try that), and she also brought Jan, her granddaughter, who showed us a very clever placemat idea. 

Jan uses two placemats, folds one unevenly and sews channel pockets along that, then sews that to the end of another.  Tucked between the mattress and box springs, it holds a TV remote, reading glasses, a magazine.  Super clever.  I've got to try one of those. 

Pat Tittizer showed us her black shetland shawl, lace weight merino wool, probably five feet square, and absolutely gorgeous.  She also brought her knitted hedgehog, and at that point, I pulled out the camera (I know, 45 minutes later than I should have), and here's Tiffany holding the hedgehog.  This guy is made from a kit, and he's felted, which makes him sturdy and his furry hair stand up.

Pat had also made a knitted teddy bear.

Pat made the most creative placemat tote out of two round placemats, each folded in half.  It is heart-shaped.  She lined it and attached a strap. 

Sara Tittizer is getting close to finished on the lace shawl made from Knit Picks Bare that they dyed at the handknitting guild's dyeing day.  She's going to block it hard, and I'm curious to see the pattern with the kinks out.  The whole idea of knitting a large blank, dyeing it, and then unravelling it to make something is intriguing. 

Barbara Deike's been making blankets.  She's made five or six Passap Afghan Lovelies out of different yarns.  She's working on some stash reduction, and these are absolutely beautiful.  She runs the motor on commercials, and manages to crank 'em out. Barbara's making large lovelies until there's too little yarn left in that color for that, and then she'll switch to baby sizes.

Her grandaughter Tiffany's (she's modeling a sweater on our pattern page) show-and-tell was her new, finished bedroom with very pink walls, a loft bed, a pink dresser, and all her cool stuff put away neatly.  She also has an adorable pet rabbit who lives in her room. 

My show and tell was the tool organizer I sewed (I have now made one for the bulky machine, as well), some of my 72-stitch socks, and the baby blankets.  We had a discussion about the local hospital's requirements for charity blankets.  I need to call and bug them again; I had talked to my friend Dorothy, who works for them and was a long-time volunteer, and she thinks what I'm doing would be fine.  I asked her to find the right person for me so I can coordinte some charity knitting for our club.

My husband is sitting here asking me what I put in this blog, and I told him it's only about knitting. Of course, knitting is a hobby and I have a busy life.  I am a full-time nonprofit controller; I have a couple other volunteer projects (I'm very involved with the local CPA professional society, and John and I are helping with a church outreach to the University of Texas), and we are recently empty nesters.  One son is 25, lives and works in Richardson, Texas, and the other is 18, lives and studies in New York City.  So, just for fun, I'll include an off-topic photo.  John and I had tickets to the annual Valentines' Party that our sons' Scouting Venture Crew has, and we went in the evening, after knit club.  The kids put on the party, including cooking and serving serving our dinner, doing magic tricks, playing romantic vintage music, and we had a great time.  It was such fun to sit and talk to these wonderful Scouting friends and compare notes about our sons growing up!  Here's a picture of us, sitting in front of their aloha themed backdrop (it was a cool evening).

February 12, 2009

Like many knitters, I also sew, and when a friend was making cute tote bags out of placemats for gifts, I made some, too.

After the holidays, I found more placemats on sale in various stores, including the dollar store, and gave a bunch of them away at Knit Natters with a challenge to make interesting totes and bring them for us to see.  I had green ones with wild animals on them; ultra suede ones; solid and print ones.  I was a little sorry about some turkey shaped ones on sale after Thanksgiving that I didn't buy - oops, those got away.  We're meeting this weekend, and I'm curious to see if anyone made something interesting.

Here's my placemat project for "show and tell" at club. I took a woven placemat and made a knitting tool organizer by folding it over and sewing some lines to make pockets.  This was probably a ten-minute job.  Those tapestry needles on the right are just stuck through the coarsely woven fabric, and they stay in place quite well.

I've been leaving this laid out against the knit tracer behind my machine.  I suppose when I use the knit tracer, I'll put it on the table beside me.

I'm a very messy knitter, and am unaware of much besides the knitting process.  I've always had a terrible time with absentmindedly putting my tools in little piles all around the machine, and later, it's hard to find what I need.  I'm the sort of person who looks for my glasses when they're on my head.  I've been using this as I knit this last month month, and here it is, still organized with no tidying required before taking a picture.  I'm actually taking tools out and putting them back in the same places.

February 9, 2009

Last night, I tried out some Cascade Fixation, which is cotton and lycra, and found that it's too thick for the 72-needle cylinder. I have knitted socks with this before, on the bulky flatbed, and it was terrific.  It might knit well on the Gearhart 30/60 machine.  Of course, it would be fine on the 36/54 combination on the Legare but I don't want to change out the cylinder right now. 

I also knitted a pair of hot pink socks in Knit Picks wool/nylon.  I have tried a great many sock yarns, but I still prefer Knit Picks wool/nylon, either the Bare version I dye myself or their readymade colors.  The hot pink is one of theirs. 

Yesterday’s big accomplishment was redoing the home page on the website and putting up goodies from Pat Tittizer. 

Pat Tittizer has shared a bunch of her work for the website, including her wheelchair blanket and the hexagon afghan, plus her techniques for thread lace and Swedish weaving on an MK background.  The wheelchair blanket is practical, just the right size, with a pocket in the middle, and made from any worsted weight yarn.

The Swedish weaving is very pretty.  I must have missed that demo, but looking at this photo, I just love the way it looks.  I haven’t decided what I might make with it yet.  Maybe a rug on the bulky?

All Pat's demonstrations are clever.  Her thread lace demo was great; she brought along quite a few projects where she’d used it.

My husband John got me a copy of Microsoft Front Page.  Using MS Word to do website was not an easy thing, and I shared with him my frustration with the project, so this was his solution.  I can’t seem to get hits from the search sites with my Word pages.

Well, John's my hero, because Front Page is easy to use!  I got the new home page for www.knitnatters.com done very quickly, and then started converting Pat’s patterns from Word to web pages.  The pages are easy to lay out, and they load much faster.   Everything looks about the same.  I didn’t want a new look.  I wanted to clean up the home page so it loads faster and be able to update the site efficiently.

One of these days, I’d like to make Pat’s hexagon afghan.  Wouldn’t it be cute kid-sized in leftover sock yarn?  Gosh, I have a great many colors of leftover sock yarn…  This is up in the free patterns section of the site.

February 3, 2009

I’ve been sitting in the den in the evenings sewing up everything in my "needs finished" basket.  It’s mostly socks from my various experiments, but if I take my time, pick up dropped stitches and the like, they’re fine.  I sit there and keep John Grady company .  It keeps me from snacking, too. 

January 30, 2009

My March Knit Natters demonstration is planned!  I am going to show everyone how to make sponge bars using the instructions I picked up at www.knittsings.com.  Incredible!  I made a perfectly good ribber sponge bar for my bulky and cut up enough additional supplies for everybody in the club to refurbish a sponge bar or two.  Total cost - about $9.50 at the fabric store for supplies, that is, a sheet of foam and some fusible woven interfacing.  I already had water soluble glue and packing tape.

The ribber sponge bar works just fine.  This is going to be a blessing for Sylvia, who hasn't been able to find a replacement for her Toyota 787.

January 28, 2009

I made some baby blankets for the local hospital.  Although I was promised some emailed specifications for baby blankets from them, that didn’t happen.  I had to make the blankets, though, because the ideas were popping out of my head.

After i worked these out, I wrote patterns.

These are ribber blankets that do not require DAK.   I went about 24” x 30” on the size because that’s what my friend Dorothy, who works there, told me.  These come out narrow but just a little steaming makes them wider.  I had to crochet around one of them to give it a better-looking edge.  The checkerboard one has a plain edge.

Now I have to bug the hospital again about specifications.

January 25, 2009

The accomplishment of the weekend was cleaning up the den area where I knit socks.  A big part of this was going through all the odds and ends of yarn. 

Unless I make knee-length socks, each sock uses less than a 50-gram ball, so no matter what size I make,  I have just a little yarn left from each ball.  I spent some time sorting out all the interesting color schemes to try to make some composite socks from the leftovers.  Then I made a pile of leftovers where there obviously isn’t enough to make socks, which I will use for baby socks, hats, hair scrunchies and the like.

I also filled a basket with things to sew up.

January 17, 2009

I tried the short butt ribber needles in my Legare (they’re actually shorter overall, therefore, don’t pop out as far and pull back closer to the center).  They worked okay,  but not as well as the regular ones. 

After much fiddling with the rivet, I decided it just didn’t make enough difference so that ribbing stitches consistently did not drop.  I went to large eyed needles and stuck with it.  The rivet fell out at some point, and I’m not bothering with it.

My other project was figuring out how to knit some scarves on the bulky using "railroad yarn."  This was fast and fun.  The colored patches are sparkly, and look almost like beads.

January 13, 2009

Last night I spent some time winding my new sock yarn so I can start knitting it, and getting my knitting papers that have been accumulating off the counter in the kitchen and organized. 

I heard a very interesting idea for Christmas.  My co-worker’s grandma gives each person $100 for her gift, in advance of Thanksgiving so they can hit the sales.  Then she has them over for a Christmas meal (actually before Christmas) and they are supposed to bring whatever their gift choice was, wrapped, and open it in front of everyone.  Grandma gets to see what she got the family, and they have a very good time at the party.

January 12, 2009

Knit Natters on Saturday was wonderful.  Barbara, Pat, Mary, Rose, Sylvia, and Mildred were there.  Everybody liked the lace scarf, and I think the demo was easy enough.  We showed Sylvia some things – it’s so encouraging that she’s already knitted so many good swatches and a nice scarf (lined, with fair isle on each end). 

I couldn’t get over how nice Barbara’s project – a notebook of charity patterns for each of us – turned out.  I had a few more to bring, and we added those.  She had additional plastic sleeves.  Rose and Mary from Marble Falls talked about their church’s charity knitting, and gave us some more ideas.

I talked to my friend Dorothy on Sunday at church, and she said she was a long time volunteer with Seton Hospital and works there now.  Seton needs baby blankets all the time.  Because people have donated blankets that didn’t work, they give out a pattern now and even the yarn.  Of course, the problem is that we want to do MK ones.  I’ll have to get some patterns cleared with them, and maybe another hospital or two.  It sounds like I need about 24” x 30” blankets for the samples – they say bassinette size, and not crib size, but I can’t be sure until I talk to them. 

The current “to do” list for my knitting:

1.        Try short-butt needles in my Legare ribber (why not try them?)

2.       Organize the book mess

3.       Organize the yarn mess from my sock knitting leftovers

4.       Wind my newest sock yarn acquisitions into balls, ready to go

5.       Work on our website

6.       Get my DAK cable working with the 970

7.       Figure out more baby blankets and knit samples to show hospital. 

8.       Make the shawl out of the turquoise laceweight baby alpaca

9.       Another lace scarf out of the other hank of hand-dyed baby alpaca

January 10, 2009

Great Charity Patterns

Charity knitting is the Knit Natters club theme this year.  Barbara made a notebook for each of our regular Knit Natters with plastic sleeves and charity knitting patterns.   She also asked us to find favorites of ours and make copies for the notebooks.  She used the patterns that are on our website to start the notebooks.

I have copies of some to add:

                Great preemie patterns  from www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/my_pages/babywear/

                Lots of fun patterns at our neighboring knit club (Dallas/Ft. Worth)

                see http://mkdfw.homestead.com/Patterns

January 9, 2009

I am still tweaking the Legare to make it rib better on the 72 cylinder.  I played a little with the Stretch from Regia.  It behaves a little differently because it is so springy. 

I took some pictures of recently made socks:

Made with Bare yarn, dyed with Kool-Aid.  To get these stripes, which are about two rounds on the 72-stitch cylinder, I wrapped the yarn around the lip of my 6-foot kitchen counter and made a giant hank, then dyed half blue and half green.  It was a nuisance to wind.  These socks have no ribbing on the top of the foot.

The dark blue pair is the regular Knit Picks 75/25 sock yarn, in their teal color.  I made a short cuff, ribbed through the ankle, so these are lowtops.

The red  and light blue socks were dyed with Kool Aid.  I tie-dyed the hank in three places.  Yes, there’s a second blue sock.

These have the 1 x 3 on top of the foot, as described on January 7. 

The pink, gray, hot pink and brown socks are Paton’s Kroy that I found at Michael’s on sale.  It’s a much heavier sock.  It knitted quite well, though, with my regular gym sock crew style and the ribs down the top of the foot.  I got a pretty good color match by starting the second one part way into the skein.

None of these socks were blocked.  The heels and toes are not flat, but the plump, springy feel of the knitting is retained.  I don’t wash socks before I give them away. 

January 8, 2009

Rivet, Rivet

I still want to use only small hook cylinder needles with the 72/36 combination on the Legare.  I had found that the yarn comes out a little outside the hook and was thinking about a way to pad the yarn feeder so the yarn pathway would move in just a tiny bit.

Last night, John and I found an ordinary sewer’s rivet in my sewing things and he pushed it into the Legare yarn carrier.

The red rivet makes the yarn come out just a millimeter or two closer to the cylinder needles.  The photo shows the small hook cylinder needles (vertical needles) and how they now have the turquoise yarn feeding exactly into them.

It wasn’t deep enough to crimp around the Legare yarn feeder, so it’s on there with a drop of Super Glue.  We can get it off if we need to.

It does seem better!  However, I have cranked a few feet of ribbing and it isn’t perfect.   Especially with some yarns, it drops a cylinder stitch once in a while.   Not all fingering weight sock yarn is alike, and it looks like the fatter ones need a bigger stitch size, higher ribber plate, and a waxing.  I plan to adjust and knit with it a little more and see if I can actually use only the small eye needles.

A box from Webs arrived yesterday!  I’d ordered at their year-end sale.  I snagged some Regia Stretch sock yarn, some Trellis yarn for handknitting scarves, and some stretchy cotton sock yarn.

January 7, 2009

My Best Socks Ever

I started making socks with the 72/36 combination on the Legare and have made my best socks ever.  They have ribbing across the top of the foot and ankle and a long 1x1 cuff.  I’m using Kool Aid dyed Knit Picks Bare sock yarn, 75% wool and 25% nylon.  It’s silky soft and the easiest yarn I have ever used on these old machines.

I have knitted many, many socks with a long ribbed cuff and a stockinet foot.  I really have to think differently to make that ribbed foot top.  When you get to the heel shaping, the drive pin for the ribber comes OUT and the ribber cam gets parked over the center mark.

We were watching TV while I knitted and John surfed the Net.  I don’t think I multitask well, but TV isn’t all that interesting with all the long commercial breaks.  John got sick of the dumb program I was listening to and put on an interesting, recorded Cold Case. 

My concentration went right away, and I forgot to pull out the drive pin at the beginning of the heel shaping.  I pulled the back needles up for short rows, turned to the right, and took the ribber cams with the yarn carrier.  It dropped the ribber stitches across the top of the foot.  What a mess – first the needles have to come out, anything that didn’t drop has to be put on a cylinder needle, the ribber has to come off, all the dropped stitches have to be latched up with a little ribber needle, knitting has to be ripped back, ribber has to be put back on and stitches put back on ribber needles.  That took me about 30 minutes, but I did it and finished my sock with very pretty yarn.

That was very interesting episode of Cold Case.

One the second sock, I got all the way to the toe shaping and DID IT AGAIN!

When I lifted the ribber dial this time, it was such a mess with so many stitches dropped  and such unraveling that I took everything off and unraveled the sock.  John suggested I stop for the evening.  I took that excellent suggestion and walked away.

It’s almost like a curse, being punished by making the same idiotic and frustrating mistake over and over.

Last night after supper, I told John I had to go break a curse.  I went in the den and knitted the second sock just perfectly.

These really are my best socks ever.  And by the way, I don’t actually believe in curses. 

January 2, 2009

I do love to knit on a day off.

For months now, I’ve had some baby alpaca, hand-dyed, fingering weight, given to me by Mary Page.  Mary lives in San Angelo now but drives to our meetings anyway (God bless her).  In San Angelo, she’s met some local folks who have alpacas and other fiber critters and they are spinning this dream yarn.  She gave me some as a gift-for-no-reason, and I’ve puzzled over what to make with it.

Mary’s a woman of faith - charming, positive, and an encourager.  Many times once I’ve seen her make a stranger’s day with kind, appropriate, and sincere words.   

Last night, New Year’s Eve, I set up the garter carriage and knitted a scarf using this hank of yarn.  It’s only 2.2 ounces, but there’s a lot of yardage.

The next morning, I bound off the finished scarf and tried it on.  What a shame – it’s not really long enough (I let the g-carriage run until it ran out) and it’s not soft like it ought to be.   I used too much bumpy little seed stitch.  I unraveled the whole thing and began again with an idea of how to make the yarn go much farther by knitting lace.

This is the finished lace scarf done on the 965i (on my brown comforter, maybe not the best background). 

I got a nice 5-foot scarf out of my little 2.2 ounce hank!  And, it’s silky and soft. 

The scalloped edges are a technique of mine.  One of these days, I’d like to write a lace instruction book.

This is my demo for January’s Knit Natters’s meeting, Saturday 1/10/09.

Blocking it was necessary to make the scalloped edges show up and to get it not to roll.  I pinned it on the ironing board, because it’s long, steamed it like crazy, and left it to dry.  I worked quickly, didn’t measure as I pinned, and that was fine for this project.  Also, here’s a close-up shot of the finished scarf.

December 30, 2008

Christmas:  Meaningful vs. Frantic?

It just seems like Christmas ought to be a lot more meaningful and a lot less frantic!

I was busy every evening from Thanksgiving through Christmas day, mostly doing Christmas things like shopping, packing boxes, wrapping, stuffing Christmas cards.  Even though I tried to be efficient, it simply took that long. 

I have too little confidence in my gift-selecting ability.  I waste a lot of time searching for good ideas and making comparisons.  With my own children, I buy several things hoping that something will be wonderful.  We are affluent and fortunate and nobody really needs anything.  

My son Steve lit up more over some old vinyl classic rock LPs I grabbed at an estate sale than just about any other gift.

My mom and dad adored Christmas.  They had grown up during the depression and were very grateful for what they had as adults.  They had a wonderful time putting Christmas together for us kids. 

Last year, I got the flu and ordered each of my out-of-state siblings the same by-mail, drop-shipped gift.  I never mailed last year’s Christmas cards or last year’s Christmas letter.   

In fact, I often do get sick in the weeks before Christmas.  This year I had unbelievable hives.  At first I only had a few pink spots near my ankles, but on Christmas Eve I woke up with huge dark red splotches.  I had purchased Benadryl cream the night before and smeared it all over the general area where I had itchy spots.  I must have been allergic to that drugstore cream.  When I got in to see the doctor, he prescribed a cream and it started improving immediately.

I truly want to change this.  I’ve been reading articles about it, and plan to do more reading no the subject.  Here are the ideas I have so far:

·         Stick to my master gift list.  Stop overbuying because I’m not certain about a gift.

·         Make a list of essential tasks and do as many as possible ahead – before Thanksgiving.

·         John likes to help.  He shopped for items this year and was a big help, as long as he knew just what to get.  He helped me do the Christmas cards, too, because I maintain a list that prints out on labels.

·         I wish we could have enclosed photos in the cards.  I guess that could be prepared months ahead. 

·         Break down and use some vacation days during Christmas.

·         Keep de-cluttering and cleaning up, because that helps when company is coming!

I do have to give myself credit – John, Steve, and Isabel (Steve’s friend) were here and it got messy.  I did a good job ignoring any messes and not letting neatness get in the way of everyone relaxing.

December 25, 2009

A Christmas Gift Surprise

I would have loved to buy a brand-new, expensive New Zealand Auto Knitter for myself for Christmas.  I saw that Kiwi had a beauty for sale on eBay in blue powder-coat.  I looked at it every day.  Nobody bid on it.  I thought maybe it needed a good home with me, but my husband John thought the price was, well, astonishing.

Months ago, I decided that 72-stitch socks would be very nice – thicker and softer with more tiny stitches than the 54-needle socks.  Also, now that I’m knitting some socks for men, I need to make wider socks.  If Santa would give me that NZAK, I’d put a 72-stitch cylinder in it with a 36 dial and some other sizes, too, compound cylinders for children’s sizes or maybe more slots for hats.

Some months ago, I had decided to get the 72/36 combination working on my Legare 47.  I had some Kool-Aid dyed yarn that I especially liked.  I made an excellent sock with a ribbed cuff on the 72-stitch cylinder from tye-dyed blue Knit Picks Bare.  Unfortunately, on the second sock, even after many attempts, occasional cylinder stitches dropped during ribbing.  I mended the dropped stitches and finished it so as not to waste my yarn and effort.

I mended that second sock and finished it.  It’s wearable, but far from my best work.  I was disgusted.  I decided to take the 72-stitch cylinder off the machine and go back to my happy experiences with the 54.  In other words, I was giving up.

John and I had extra days off during the holidays.  He began to change the cylinder out for me, but in his usual cheerful tinkering way cleaned and greased the cams while the thing was apart and encouraged me to try again.  I decided to take one more crack at that 72 cylinder, practicing on ribbing tubes.

I had a few days off for Christmas.   Working a few minutes at a time in between other activities, I analyzed and experimented with it.   I figured the timing was perfect.  The timing screw is pretty much fused in place, and I knew it has always been fine and unlikely to move.  That leaves the ribber plate height, the yarn carrier height and distance to the cylinder, the cylinder and ribber stitch sizes, and the needles.  I tried this and that and finally on Christmas morning (while the “young adults” upstairs were sleeping in instead of rushing downstairs at the crack of dawn to open presents the way they did as kiddies) I realized that the yarn carrier was a itsy bit too far from the needles and sometimes, the yarn didn’t catch in a hook. 

Legare’s yarn carrier is a single piece of metal, not adjustable like an AutoKnitter.  When we first got the machine, John bent it a little to get it closer to the needles.  If we were to bend it any more it would rub in various places.  I experimented with putting a little pad on the carrier to hold the yarn a little closer, which I believe would work if I got it just right. 

Then I got out my large eye needles, swapped them for the cylinder needles, and suddenly, it knitted beautiful ribbing.  The larger eyes are wide enough to catch the yarn even if it’s slightly farther from the cylinder.

The large cylinder needles are not my preference for regular sock yarn.  They make a machine harder to crank because there’s more strain pulling the stitches over the bigger heads.  I still want to come up with a pad to bring the yarn a little closer to the needles.

I realized on the spot that having my beloved Legare knitting on 72 was almost like getting another sock machine!  I’m cranking! 

December 20, 2008

Selling Knitting Equipment

We are becoming empty nesters, but we have a terribly messy, cluttered, crowded nest!  Just before  Christmas seemed like a very good time to sell a couple of knitting machines, among other things.

Knitting machines are hard to sell.  Locally, there aren’t a lot of MKers, so the Internet is one’s best option.  You’ve got to pack and ship them, and pray they arrive undamaged.  I’ve read plenty of horror stories about sellers and buyers dealing with dropped machines.  They’re long, heavy and awkward, and prone to being dropped on one end.

I decided to sell a Knitking Compuknit 5 Star (same as Brother 965i).  I had bought a local lady’s machine when she downsized thinking it would give me a terrific spare to maybe use with the garter carriage, but shortly afterwards, I got a chance at a Brother 970 and bought that.  The 970 hasn’t even been set up due to space issues.  Obviously, something had to go, and I put the 965i on eBay.

I also sold an antique Auto Knitter that isn’t the whole complete antique set with the box and accessories but knits well.  I actually had three antique CSMs purchased because I couldn’t resist, and I can only knit on one at a time.  Selling it involved taking lots of photos of it working because it seemed to me that its main value was not antique but in knitting socks.

The economy is tough.  I didn’t expect to get great prices, but I think I did okay.  The buyers did okay, too, and I made some space.  My dad used to tell me that the only good transaction is one in which both parties are satisfied.  The money certainly helped us with Christmas expenses. 

I haven’t heard a peep from the KnitKing buyer other than notifying us it arrived.  I suppose everything is fine.  We spent an entire evening building the main package before we shipped it.

The AutoKnitter buyer is a nice lady, out of state, and has never used a sock machine before but has used flatbeds.  Boy, am I nervous about this tricky antique finding its way to a beginner!  Sock machines have a huge learning curve, and I don’t know how to teach something so very visual over a long distance.  I sent her some tips and hints and am hoping it goes well for her and she can find some local helper.  I also sent her information about the Yahoo group.

The AK was packed tightly in bubble wrap and double-boxed.  I had needles in it and a sock hanging from it.  It arrived with a few needles sheared off, which means it had to have been dropped in shipping.  We mailed her more spare needles.  I worried that such a drop might knock some adjustments out, after I had it adjusted perfectly, but John says it wouldn’t.  

I sent her instructions the other day on how to find videos on www.youtube.com.  For some reason, I was browsing there and was amazed at the increasing stock of circular sock machine videos.  I suggested to her that she search for “circular sock machine” and watch those, then for “NZAK” and watch the New Zealand Auto Knitter lessons.