Adieu Knitwords

I was saddened last week to learn that my favorite Machine Knitting Magazine, Knitwords, is ceasing publication.

This was a fabulous magazine for machine knitters. It contained fashionable sweaters for all ages and machine types featuring many techniques. It was a labor of love for the publisher, Mary Anne Oger. The love showed in every issue. I have them all, and refer to them every time I make a sweater on the machine.

The limited good news is that Mary Anne plans to be available for seminars. I hope she will continue to design and publish. She has so much talent and so many creative ideas for machine knitting.

Machine Knitters have so few resources left. For magazines, we have exactly two - Country Knitting of Maine News and Views and Machine Knitting Monthly from the UK.

I urge machine knitters everywhere to support the remaining publications. I would hate to loose them too. We need inspiration for the machine knitters today and those to come.

Shade Tree Knitting Machine Mechanics

A very common problem with Brother and Knitking knitting machines is as they age, the fairisle button becomes glued to the thread lace button by old oil and grease. My favorite machine has been suffering from this malady, and with no knitting machine service people in the area, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I thought maybe someone else might benefit from this information, so I am breaking my blogging silence.

Now one thing that does work on this problem every time I am aware of is to remove the carriage from the machine and warm up the center bottom of the carriage with a hairdryer for about a minute, then retry the buttons. Repeat a couple of times if needed.

I have used the hairdryer, with success, on this particular carriage. The problem is that the gunk rehardened and the button restuck, so more drastic measures were called for. My Bulky machine had the very same problem, and I used the hairdryer on it. After nine months the buttons are still working properly, so the hairdryer is the first thing I would recommend.

If you want to try this, you are on your own, I just want to make that perfectly clear. I am not going to accept any responsibility for your results.

Things can definitely go wrong, and if you are not 100 percent confident, then you best leave this for the experts. We still have a handful of folks in the Machine Knitting Repair business, and I suggest you send your carriage to them if you are not mechanically minded.


I have NO Knitting Machine Mechanics training. I have been thinking about doing this for literally months and have studied everything I could find on the subject, including the 930 Service Manual and the one website I found with photos of something very similar on a different machine.




So, if you are still with me, here is how I unstuck my fairisle button:


I used a flat head and Phillips screw driver, a container to hold the screws and parts, a container for some mineral spirits also known as paint thinner, a bristle brush, some news paper, some paper towels, Q-tips and Formula 409 cleaner.

1. I removed the carriage and the presser plate. Then I unscrewed the handle. My machine has a motor drive, so the handle is attached by a bracket. For most machines the handle is held on by long screws.




2. I turned the tension dial to past zero to help line everything up later. I made sure the Hold button was all the way at the left. The release button should be at the left naturally.




3. Carefully, with the flat blade screwdriver I pried up around the center white disk. This disk is held on with delicate plastic feet, and I was very careful with it. If a foot breaks, it will not stay in place and I would be guessing about my tension. I also know a lot of this old plastic is very fragile.
   



4. Next I removed the screw in the center of the tension dial and lift the dial and the small center disc straight off.




5. I turned the carriage over and removed the two screws that connect the cover to the business part of the carriage. On every carriage I have examined these screws are gold colored, but that may not be true always. There are lots of screws here and removing the wrong one would mean a trip to the repair person, so I was extremely careful.



6. Next I poured a little mineral spirits into a small container (I was in a well ventilated area), and applied it to the center area and edges of the carriage. I worked with all the buttons. I let it sit for a few minutes, then wiped off the excess and repeated. I kept working with it, and soon the farisle button button was unstuck! Then using the Q-Tips, I carefully wiped off the gunky areas of the carriage. I did not want to knock anything loose!
   


7. So, all that remained was to reassemble the carriage cover and knobs and switches. There are a couple of tricky bits here. First thing I did was to wipe off the interior of the cover with the Formula 409 and a paper towel, just to get all the sticky residue that I could
   
   
8. Next, the hold button and the release lever go back into place on top of the carriage. Then place the cover over the carriage insides and reattach with the golden screws.
   I checked all the levers and buttons to see if they were working, and found out the intarsia feature would not engage, so I had to take the golden screws back out and try again. The next time everything worked. I have a photo here so you can see the placement of the levers.



9. Next I replaced the tension disc. Since I turned the dial as far as it would go before I started, I knew the position was correct.



10. The small disc that goes under the screw was a little tricky to get back on. The "bump" goes up, and The notch goes at the bottom. The notch will line up with the red line on the center plastic disk when it is snapped carefully back on. I was careful to line up the notch first then gently snap in the disk. I was still worried about those fragile feet!
    
    
11. All that remained was to reattach the handle and I was done with this repair!

I hope that my experience helps someone else. It was not too hard to do, and since we Brother/Knitking People are now on our own, we have to help one another when the repairs are fairly simple.

Mother of Invention

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Well, I think that is true.

I have a love hate relationship with the Design A Knit software program also known as DAK.

Love:

• Original Shaping


• Stitch Designer


• Knit from Screen

Hate:

• the Copy protection that makes it difficult to move it between my computers and makes it impossible to install on a computer with no CD or diskette drive


• the "life" system that makes me dependent on ONE person in the US in case of a life lost


• the expense of the cables. I have many knitting machines and the cable expense for all of them runs into more than a thousand dollars


• the fact that the software does not keep up with the times and has not had a new release in a very long time and every upgrade costs more and more money

I have become dependant on Original Shaping and the Knit from Screen function. I use these for almost everything I machine knit, and I would not be adverse to using it for my handknits. I have a computer that is pretty much dedicated to DAK. It really runs nothing else, so I don't have to worry about losing my DAK "life" from some innocent file cleanup.

Last summer I used DAK to design a little bolero top that I planned to knit on my LK150. It was based on a design from my favorite machine knitting magazine Knitwords. Of course, I planned to use a different yarn, and so a different stitch gauge and also a different machine with no automatic patterning meaning every single row has some sort of manual intervention.

I thought I would just knit the bolero from the Garment Notation print out of DAK. The top was to be knitted sideways with curved front edges so there was a lot of shaping involved. What makes this little bolero is the lacy stitch design. On the LK150, settings have to be changed manually on most rows to make the design.

Normally, I would color code the settings and changes as a stitch design, merge that with the garment design and knit from screen so with every row I could see what to do with each needle on each row. However, I do not have a DAK cable for the LK150 (which has no electronics or anything fancy). I also do not have my DAK enabled computer nearby so that I can see the screen and advance the knit from screen manually. (Advancing manually sounds hard but really is not that time consuming especially since the end result is what you designed.)

I gave this three attempts before giving up. I tried knitting it from the Garment Notation print out, but with pattern manipulations going on every row and shaping on many of them, I got too confused. I tried charting it in a spread sheet with the same result.

Fast forward to Christmas: My husband received a netbook computer - a small laptop with a small screen that does everything wirelessly. It has no CD or DVD drive and of course no diskette drive. It weighs just over two pounds and is ideal for traveling. And, it fits perfectly on the back of the table my LK150 is attached to. However, there is no way to install DAK on it without buying an external CD drive. These are expensive.

So, this got my wheels turning. How could I use the netbook to display the DAK screen from my DAK computer, preferably for free?
Windows Messenger to the rescue! Windows Messenger has many cool features. One of them is Application Sharing with Remote Control. Best of all it is FREE!

I set up an additional Windows Messenger account so I could message between the computers. Next, I shared my DAK session to the netbook and am able to advance the rows remotely with Knit from Screen. I tested this with a sweater which is the first I have ever knit for me on the LK150, and it worked fabulously. Next, I did an Intarsia Design on the LK150 and that also worked really well.

This setup is allowing me to knit things that I would not have tried before on my little simple machine. Maybe I will try that bolero again ....

Hunting Magic

My friend Hillary brought 2 cones of a really beautiful purple boucle yarn to Knit Club last month that she was destashing. I normally can resist yarn since I have a 2 lifetime supply, but not when it is the perfect shade of purple. I grabbed those two cones and brought them home.

The yarn has a heavy boucle, but the carrier thread is thin. I thought at first it was 100 percent cotton. Boucle yarns often present problems with knitting machines, and if the yarn had not been such a beautiful color, I would have left it for someone else to have fun with.

I swatched the boucle on my standard gauge knitting machine at tension 9, and the machine knit it, but complained the entire time. I went ahead and designed my sweater thinking I would knit it on the standard, but when I cast it on and knit a few rows, I immediately started having lots of problems with stitches not knitting properly. The more I knit, the worse things got. The standard machine was not going to work out.

So, I decided to move the project to my mid-gauge machine, which is an LK-150. It is a nice 6.5mm plastic machine designed for DK weight yarns. It will also knit some heavier yarns as long as they are not too bulky. Because it is plastic, I feel it is sort of fragile. You really can not push it with any sort of abuse without running the risk of breaking the carriage. One of these days, I will get a Studio/Silver 860 but for now, this machine is my only mid-gauge.

I swatched at tension 3 on the LK-150. The carriage did not glide, but it did knit without too much complaining. When I blocked my swatch, I determined that the carrier yarn is not cotton, but is a synthetic either acrylic or nylon and the drape after blocking was just wonderful. I became more determined to get at least a sweater out of the purple yarn.

When I started the actual sweater, the LK-150 was still not real happy with the yarn. I knit slowly but every row was a struggle. The machine would knit the yarn, but it was complaining every row, and I was afraid I would break the carriage or the machine if I continued. I almost gave up and would have except that the color was beautiful and the drape on the blocked swatch was just what I like.

Then I remembered a a tip that my friend Carol gave me to lubricate Bond machines. Yes, I have a Bond machine and I CAN knit on it, but it is not one of my favorites. Carol, on the other hand, LOVES her Bond and has knit many gorgeous sweaters on it including lots of intarsia ones. If you browse the photo archive at the DFW Machine Knitters Guild website, you will see lots of samples of her work,

Carol advises using a Silicone Cleaning Rag from the Hunting Department to lubricate both the bed of the machine and the carriage. This really makes the Bond machines knit much easier. Bond owners really should discard the wax that the machine manufacturer recommends for lubrication and only use this rag - it makes so much difference. I think that a lot more Bond knitters would be successful with just this one tip.

I got out the Silicone Gun and Reel Cleaning Rag that I bought at Wal-Mart and rubbed the bed of the machine as well as the underside of the carriage with it. I took extra care to get down into the needle channels on the carriage as well as the bearing surface for the rail. I like a rag rather than a spray because you use so much less. There is no overspray and the product goes exactly where it is needed.

The difference after the Silicone Rag was absolutely amazing! The LK-150 carriage now glides over this difficult yarn without so much as one complaint.

So, I thought someone else might benefit from this little bit of inexpensive magic. Look for this in the Hunting section at Wal-Mart. I know my rag was less than $5 and it will last a long time. Be SURE that the package says "Safe for Plastic" as some lubricants can dissolve plastic machines.

If you have a plastic bed knitting machine of any brand, try this out. I think you will be amazed.

Putting on the Heat

As our knitting machines age, a very common problem for the Brother/Knitking machine carriages is to have the MC button that controls the fairisle selection stuck to the thread lace button below it. These sticky buttons are caused by grease oil and gunk that hardens inside the carriage.

Today, I got out my Knitking Bulky 270 to do a little fairisle on a Christmas Gift and the buttons were stuck hard together like they had been welded. I got out the machine lube and sprayed the underside of the carriage. I turned the carriage upside down and waited a while. When I came back, the buttons were just as stuck as before.

I pondered on this a while, very frustrated. I was ready to knit my project and did not want further delays. Suddenly, I thought about the hair dryer.

I decided to try warming up the gunk to see if the button would release. I held the running hair dryer to the underside of the carriage for maybe a minute to warm all the gunk up. The next time I pressed the button it had been freed!

I am a very happy camper.

Swatch Abuse Takes a Turn with Cotton

Here in Texas, cotton is King. I love to wear it. It is cool and very practical. I live in my jeans and T-shirts for much of the year.

I think one of the nice things about jeans, is that when you put them on out of the wash, they may not be too comfortable at first, but wear them a while and they fit like a glove as the cotton stretches when it is worn.

Knit sweaters from cotton can be a big disappointment. Just like the jeans, you put them on, and they begin stretching mostly sideways until you are wearing a sack, or can not even keep the shoulders where they belong. It does not matter if the sweater is hand knit or made by machine the stretch happens unless you have done something to prevent it.

For years, when machine knitting with cotton, I have combated this tendency by plaiting a thin strand of a more stable yarn - like a 2/30 acrylic - on the wrong side of my cotton sweaters. This stable yarn helps keep the cotton from stretching. However, the plaiting yarn does change the hand of the fabric and also makes the garment less comfy sometimes.

A while back I was reading an old Spin-Off magazine. I have no idea which one, but I think it was from the middle 90's. There was a photo of a handspun cotton sweater and for some reason I stopped and read what the author had written about it. Often I just skip over reading this type of information, but for some reason I did not this time.

The author wrote that her cotton sweaters never stretch out to where she can not wear them. The secret she said is in how the original swatch is treated before the gauge is taken.

She advised knitting the swatch, then stretching it width wise several times firmly. She then washed it in hot water and dried it in a hot dryer to encourage it to shrink all it was going to.

When the swatch has been washed and dried, do not take your gauge yet. Instead, grab the swatch and pull it hard horizontally several times, stretching it as much as you can. Set the swatch aside for a day. Now measure the swatch and calculate your gauge.

I wanted to make the Take A Turn Sweater from Mary Anne Oger's Knitwords magazine. I absolutely adore this magazine, and I think all Machine Knitters should be subscribers to it. Mary Ann is currently offering this pattern for free on the website so you can get a sample of the types of patterns in the magazine.

I went into my stash, and grabbed the first cone that was a color I loved. This turned out to be a 2/16 cotton yarn in a beautiful blue. I decided to try out the knitting with cotton hint from the old Spin Off magazine to see how it worked rather than plait the cotton as I usually do.

I used the yarn triple stranded on my Knitking Compuknit IV standard gauge machine. I cast on 60 stitches at tension 8 and sampled the hem technique used in the pattern. Next I put in some waste knitting and made a standard tension swatch. I put in some more waste knitting and sampled the cable technique used in the pattern. Then I stretched, washed, dried and stretched the swatch as advised in the article. Finally, I measured the swatch and calculated my gauge.

I almost always use Designaknit to chart my sweaters in my gauge, since I never use the yarn called for in the pattern. I decided since there were lots of cables to keep track of, I would create a stitch pattern that exactly fit my sweater marking all the cable crossings. I was really glad I took the time to do this for this particular sweater.

When I laid out the sweater on the stitch pattern, I discovered that the cables were falling off the shoulders of the sweater. I should have expected this, because I had stretched the cotton swatch sideways resulting in fewer stitches per inch than on the original garment.

The pattern called for seven stitches between each cable pattern. On my sweater, I rearranged this to five stitches between each cable pattern to make everything fit. I made three quarter length sleeves, and decided to add some additional cables on the bottom of each sleeve not called for in the pattern.

When I made the sweater, it seemed really long coming off the machine. The sweater pieces were stretched, washed, dried and stretched just as for the swatch. I then assembled the sweater using the yarn from the unravelled swatch. I also used this preshrunk yarn in the neckband trim. I think using unwashed, unshrunk yarn would cause puckers in the sweater once it was washed.

I have worn the sweater now, and I am happy to report that the wide neckline in the sweater does not fall off my shoulders. It certainly would have if I had not abused the swatch prior to taking my gauge. The sweater does not grow and grow and is as comfy as an old sweatshirt. I will be using this technique for knitting with cotton from now on.