Marzipanknits!

Found this video on You Tube this morning. Since I use Marzipan as my moniker, I thought it appropriate to share this creative gal's crafty use of marzipan with you.

Free Machine Knitting Pattern

I recently purchased a Silver Reed 860 knitting machine with ribber and the Silver Link 4 to work with DAK. I've been knitting simple things just so I can get used to the machine and we can make friends. I've gone through the manual and tried almost all of the stitches. So far, my assessment is that it's more fiddly than the Brother machines, knits nice ribbing, the gauge has a nice hand knit look, the link to DAK is touchy, and good or bad I'm glad I bought it.

Thought I'd share a simple fingerless mitt pattern that I came up with. It knits up in short order. Might make a good gift for someone for Christmas. If you don't have a ribber and have to latch up the ribbing by hand it won't go quite as fast. One size fits most adult women. If you need a smaller size, you could tighten the tension. Left and right mitts are identical. I keep typing "mtits" instead of "mitts". Wonder what that is all about! Anyway, here's the pattern:


Machine: 6.5 or 7 mm midgauge. Ribber for bands or latch by hand
Yarn: Lion Brand worsted wt wool, Ocean Prints, 1 skein (2 1/4 ounce) 143 yards
Tension: 3.5 st x 5 r =1”
Directions:
Cuff--Cast on as per your manual over 34 needles. RC 000. Rib for 20 rows at T 7/7.
Hand--Change to main carriage if using a ribber. T 8 (knit 5 rows, increase one stitch both sides). Repeat from parenthesis one more time. Knit plain to RC 35.
Shape thumb opening: Carriage side bind off 5 st, K1 row 2 X.
Ewrap cast on 5 stitches at beginning of next 2 rows. Hang a claw wt on the ewrapped stitches. Knit to RC 44.
Change to ribber carriage, T 7/7 knit 6 rows. Knit one loose row at T 10/10 (or knit a loose row by hand). Transfer stitches from ribber to main bed. Chain cast off from right to left. Leave a 12” yarn tail for sewing up side seam.

Finishing: Make the purl side be the public side. Sew side seam leaving the opening for the thumb. Fold the cuffs down at the tops. If you start the yarn in the same spot for the second mitt, they should look the same. If you don't care, start anywhere!

Machine knit Minnesota StateFair entries

I just realized that I never posted my entries to the Minnesota State Fair in the machine knitting category. Not to brag or anything, but I entered 6 items, got 3 blue ribbons, 2 red and one white (3rd). Only spent about $200 on the yarn and won about $40 for the prizes. Um... I guess one doesn't enter for financial gain. Was some tough competition this year.

Here's my little gnome entered in the toy category. (Blue ribbon, yea!) I bought Alan Dart's Tomten pattern and converted it to machine knit and added my own Norwegian sweater to it. I've made two so far and thought I'd like to make more for Christmas to have sitting around. I kind of fell in love with him.
Reminds me of that children's story of the trolls under the bridge...clip clop...who's that walking over MY bridge? Is it a Scandinavian tale? I used to love hearing it over and over. Strange...
If I get ambitious, I'll post pictures of my other entries.

Machine Knit Lace

September is almost over and I've not posted to my blog once this month. Hopefully I'll reform here sooner or later. I have been knitting, but mostly trying out new things and doing swatches.

I decided that the lace patterns in the Stitchworld manual look a little different than when knitted in person. So, I'm making a notebook. Have just 4 done so far:


I'm working on a lace edged "shawlette" that will have about 4 inches of lace at the bottom. It needs a scalloped edge so I was looking for the most exaggerated scallop I could find. I won't be able to block it very much since the fiber content will be cotton, so I'm thinking the more scallopy the better. I guess I'm leaning toward the last swatch. It's a combination of normal lace and fine lace. In fine lace the stitches are transferred but there is no yarn-over type of hole left behind. That would be the straight stitch up the middle of the motif. Haven't done that before. I am not advanced enough in programming lace into the machine so I'm going with the patterns in Stitchworld II and III. I've learned that the lace holes pull up on the knitting and the stockinette stitches push downward. Some of the lace patterns make a straight edge, some have this natural wave. They're all pretty, though. It's hard to decide!!

The multi-colored swatch is the yarn I'll actually be using. It's pale green, but I plan to paint it with Dylon dye, as I did the swatch. Not sure of the colors I'll use, but something like this.

Some things I've learned about lace: 1) you can't program lace into the Brother 970 machine. You have to enter it as a fairisle pattern and then know when to run the knit carriage 2) If you enter a pattern into DAK and then from DAK to your machine, DAK can screw up things. Since DAK has been told it's a fairisle pattern, it flips it sideways. You have to flip it back to make it work. Your machine might be very unhappy knitting the pattern backwards. Found that out the hard way. 3) Even weight on the knitting is a must.

Mary Anne Oger figured out a way to use the ribber comb to weight her lace knitting evenly across. You cast on with waste yarn, every other needle, push the teeth of the ribber comb up between the stitches, push through the wire and let it drop. Hang the necessary weights, push the other stitches back into working position. Knit a few inches of waste yarn and then do a permanent cast on with the main yarn. It works like a charm. I haven't had dropped stitches since using her method. If you haven't already seen her blog, it's a great resource. Needles to say....

Once I decide on the lace pattern, it won't take long to knit my "shawlette". I've already charted out the shaping. More on my progress later...

18" Doll Clothes

Husband thinks I've gone off the deep end to be making doll clothes. Don't know why I'm doing this, even though there's no grand daughter to knit for, but it's fun. Sometimes you just need a mindless project that goes quickly. There's the urge to knit, but not ready to do something substantial.

This outfit is for the American Girl Doll-sized doll. I nabbed a copy cat at the local Michaels and only paid $10 for her with my 40% off coupon. The skirt pattern is available in an earlier post (June 10, 2009) and it's the same doll. The shell is improvised. I measured the doll, did a 7st x 10row gauge. The only nifty thing I did was to come up with easy edgings for the neck and armholes. I hung the armhole/neck with the RIGHT side facing me, knit 8 rows reducing the tension from 6 to 3 over those rows then bound off. It looks like a garter stitch but is really just reverse stockinette. It rolls a little, but with steaming is presentable. Might even look ok on an adult sweater. Here's the schematic if you want to knit one in your gauge: These dolls have kind of an odd shape---heads are huge so you have to make the neck opening really large. I did a shrug for her in the current issue of Knitwords, if you happen to be a subscriber. It's the same shrug that is in the June 9 post.

Other than this, I haven't done much knitting since the MN State Fair stuff. A friend and I delivered our things plus a friend's items last week. I think there will be a better showing for the Machine Knitting category this year. Stiffer competition too! If you live in the area, be sure to check out our display. It promises to be a good one.

Daughter and boyfriend just left after a week's visit. They saw friends, did a lot of interesting things, helped us around the house. It's always a big adjustment when they leave. Wish they didn't live so far away!!!

The garden is winding down. Nights are already cool to cold and some plants are not happy with that. I have 3 mini tomatoes on the vine. Planted too late this year. You'd think I'd know better after all these years of gardening. With the cooler weather, the urge to take on a bigger knitting project will overtake me I'm sure.

Short 'n Sweet

Hard to keep up with a blog when there are so many summer things to do.

I had a short 'n sweet trip to Colorado to visit my sister. She is a newbie on the Brother KX 350 midgauge, and not having even seen someone knit on one before became a tad frustrated without any help. We managed to slip in some knitting along with trips to Denver to eat at a new restaurant called "Boa" and a great lunch at Chataqua, attendance at her nice church among other things. Here is the sweater we worked on. It's called, oddly enough, "Short 'n Sweet", a pattern by Mary Anne Oger in Knitwords #28. It's a size 4.
It's very feminine and dainty. A bit of a challenge for a beginning knitter, but I always think that taking on a challenge gets you to a higher level faster than just plugging along at the basics all the time.
Here's a closeup of the neck and you can see the neat rope-like edging.


My sister is now finishing up a matching size 8 sweater for her other grand daughter. I hope they appreciate all the love and hard work that went into these sweaters!

Our Machine Knitters Guild of Minnesota members are busy knitting entries to the great Minnesota Get Together (the state fair). We didn't have a lot of items in the machine knitting category last year. Afraid that they'll do away with the machine knitting category, lots of us are knitting up a storm and will enter several items. I have completed a few, but won't be able to show them on the blog for a month or so. Talk about raising your knitting to a new level! Everything and every detail of your knitting is scrutinized, so you have to try hard to do things correctly and neatly. Not so easy. But it's fun and I can't wait to see what my friends are submitting.

Got my copy of Knitwords #50 in the mail yesterday. Check out the website---lots of nice stuff and good articles. http://knitwords.com/ click on current issue


It appears that our Minnesota summer is also going to be remembered as short 'n sweet. The nights are cold and the days are cool, a scarcity of rain. Not so great for the garden. Maybe we'll have a nice mild and extended fall. One can only hope.

Summer has arrived in Minnesota

Sorta. It's been the most cloudy and dreary spring and summer that I can remember. O well, can't complain about what you have zero control over. Seems to be an occupation---complaining about the weather---that humans like to indulge in.

I've been gardening some. This is my main garden. Reduced from days of yore, more manageable for me. Looks probably the best now that it will look, although photos are always disappointing. I struggle with deer, shade and tree roots being so close to the dense woods. My favorite flower---for lots of reasons, is dahlias. Here is one of the first whose tuber was saved from last year. The color is yummy. Upon recommendation from my sister, I bought some SpraynGrow. Haven't used it yet, but hope that does well by my roses (other side of the yard). Hers are out of this world and I don't expect to ever have roses that fine. I'm jealous. I'm thinking the lighter pink one is as close to perfection as is possible. Reminiscent of Georgia O'Keefe.


Have been knitting up a storm too, but can't show pictures yet because the items are going in the MN State Fair.

PS Windows Live Writer crashed my computer, so I'm back to the regular Blogger software. grrrrrrrrrrr is all I'll say. Didn't want to recommend it after all.