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Sunday, January 16, 2011

When Your Knitting Machine Gives You Lemons...

Make a pillow. How lucky was this? I had enough rows to make something out of this ex-scarf, rows that had the correct patterning. First I counted rows and marked off the same number for "front" and "back" with strands of red yarn. If you click on the picture it should enlarge and you will be able to see better where the red yarn markers were stranded through.



Then I stitched across where the red yarn markers were---twice---and surgically removed the messed up snowflakes. Pinned front to back...



With the sewing machine, right sides together, I sewed three sides shut. Turned it right side out, stuffed a pillow in and hand sewed the final seam shut with the main color yarn. Here's the front:And the back...Not perfect, but at least it didn't end up in the landfill, nor did an old pillow no longer in service.

My good friend Candace came to my rescue with suggestions as to how to get along better with my SR 860, Silver Link 4 and DAK.
* My pattern of 140 stitches and 578 rows (80,920 stitches) was too large for the system to handle. (My Brother 970 wouldn't have blinked an eye, but o well.) Solution: download and knit a pattern this size in several sections, like 4 or 5.
* Knit really slowly so that the signals have a chance to get through. She said she can actually hear the row changing. Not the click that you hear when you've gone far enough with the carriage, but a different sound. Will have to try to listen for that.
* Turn off any screen saver or virus program that is likely to come on and interrupt.
* Get a laptop with Windows 98, 2000 or XP and use it exclusively with DAK. No internet. (Probably won't happen soon since we have too many computers around the house as it is. Unless I find a really good deal....) 98 is supposed to work the best.
* DAK was designed originally to work with Brothers, so the adaptations for Silver Reeds are not perfect. (Ha.)
* Check out Knitwords 30 and 31 for articles titled "Messing With Matthew" where Mary Anne Oger talks about the Silver Reed systems and DAK. (Matthew would be Matthew Bragg, creator of DAK.)

Thank you, Candace. I really appreciate your help and maybe these suggestions will help someone else.

I think I might need to move on from the 860 for a while. Not fun to have to work so hard on a project, but I guess it was worth something because I learned a bunch.

11 comments:

Lynne said...

Thanks for sharing. It was very interesting to follow the trouble you were having and the successful pillow. Looking forward to seeing what you make with the tips for DAK.

Mar said...

Thank you for commenting. I think I need a vacation from that machine for a while so I don't hurt it (or myself). ;-)

Sheryl Evans said...

Glad you managed to salvage something from the days work. The pillow is great.

Mar said...

Thanks, Sheryl. Would any of what I learned help with your setup?

Sheryl Evans said...

There are a couple of things that I did not know, like turning off the screen saver & anti-virus features. I hope you don't mind but I copied the suggestions that Candace made & printed them out for use with my machine. I don't have any computers left that have XP but do have a laptop that I can use with 7. When I get the time I will try it & maybe will have better luck. Thx Sheryl

Mar said...

That would be great if the suggestions worked for you! One more that Candace sent was to program in two blank rows at the bottom of your design. After you download the pattern, push that carriage release button and run the carriage across twice. Then start the knitting as normal. Seems to help assure the pattern is in there!

Sheryl Evans said...

I did know about running the carriage back & forth when you're starting your pattern. I'm thinking maybe I was knitting too fast & that is why the 'carriage going wrong way' error. Sheryl

Jos (sshsbv on ravelry) said...

Maybe I'm a little late reacting.

I would like to know what the problem is with a 578 row pattern as DAK is upposed to be able to handle that and the SilverLinnk 4 also.

Knit slowly is not required, the SilverLink 4 can handle 600 needles per second. The turn around time (time between hitting the second point cam and arriving at this point cam again) can be an issue, but if you see the carriage in DAK at the other side, you can knit the next row.

I would like to make the suggestion to run with DAK 7.19.00 which was a vast improvement.

Jos

Mar said...

After this scarf ---->pillow, I updated to 7.19.04. (I did have the prior update installed, though.) I haven't tried again to do a large pattern so hopefully the latest upgrade solved some of my problems. I'm so used to the Brother system, that's part of my problem, I guess.

Jos said...

If you have any problem left knitting with SL4 and DK7, I would like to know and see whether we can get it fixed.

FYI: in case you didn't know, the SilverKnit group on Yahoo now also deals with SilverLink 4

Mar said...

Thank you. I'll be interested to join.