Sunday, 26 October 2008

The kindness of strangers

And a stranger's just a friend you haven't met!

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!

2 comments:

Christina said...

Wow, that's pretty awesome. Aside from the secret project, what plans do you have for it?

Elizabeth said...

Christina, I'd email you directly but I can't find your address.

I'm planning to make sock blanks. Using two strands of sock yarn at a time, you make rectangles, and then dye the rectangles in unique ways. Then you end up with two identical strands of sock yarn, for making paired socks!

Haven't done it yet, though. I'm still working out the best way to split a single ball of sock yarn down the middle.