Yesterday I received a gift of a Brother KH-710 knitting machine from a Londoner on Ravelry who unfortunately is moving out of the country. She wanted it to go to someone who would get use out of it. I am really grateful to her, because I've been intensely curious about knitting machines for a long time but had no idea where to start or what kind of investment would be needed.
Here's a photo of my first properly-cast-on project, the details of which I can't go into detail until after Christmas:
Shortly after taking this photo, unfortunately, I was merrily knitting along when disaster struck. I'm not sure how, but it appears that an entire row of stitches didn't take, and just left a string of yarn in *front* of the machine. When I started moving back the other way, the stitches promptly knitted onto thin air and the entire thing began to curl off the machine! I caught it about a third of the way across and eventually managed to restore order (triage with a lifeline and then painstaking work with various hooks and needles). Fortunately I was close enough to the end of the project that I was able to improvise and repair things. It was really weird though, and didn't happen until I was several hundred rows in!
You know what this machine really means though? I can try knitting up sock blanks for dyeing! I probably won't get to really go into that till after my craft fair, but I'm looking forward to it!
