Christine Linfeld’s shawl as a poncho

ridelikethewind’s PONCHO

Check out her poncho on Ravelry in her projects.  Hers is much prettier than mine, I'm afraid.  She used worsted weight yarn on a midgauge so her gauge is larger than mine, that is less stitches and rows. She was inspired by Bill King's waterfall sweater. She kindly helped me get my head around the construction and once I caught on, it was easy and went fast,

I used mohair from Cindy Schmatz when she had a yarn sale.  I used about 10- 50 gr hand knitting skeins I think…   Wound onto cones.  Unfortunately, I lost track!  Used my  LK 150 at T 4.

There are eyelets down center front and center back only, not also over the shoulders as in the original Christine Linfeld’s shawl. Also, the original shawl has 4 points.  This has two: one in front and one in back.

Overview of construction:

Start with waste yarn several rows and 1 row ravel cord over (110) needles.  On last row of waste yarn, transfer to the needle setup of lllxlllx….  Add extra stitches at each side which will be neck and bottom edges.
 Start with straight section and knit (72) rows. CAR.

Begin short rows: Set machine to hold. At the opposite side of the carriage, Hold 3 needles, knit 4 rows.  At the same time, short row at the neck (left side) 3 additional stitches and wrap end n every 8 rows.  (didn’t do enough the first time see note at end)
Finish short rowing:  Opposite the carriage put 3 N in work, knit 4 rows until all N are in work.

Straight section: Knit the same number of rows as you did the first time.  Front (or back) completed.

Repeat the whole thing for the other side of the poncho.

End with one row of ravel cord and  then several rows of waste yarn. You will be joining at one shoulder.  Kitchener stitch the seam.  It’s kind of awkward kitchener stitching because of the needle out of work loop.  Try to stitch 3 st to three st so it looks continuous but lies flat.  Truly it takes much longer to seam this than it did to knit it,  Run in any yarn tails.

Additional comments:  I recommend using a highly contrasting waste yarn color to help you find the stitches for kitchenering.  I have put my measurements in parenthesis because you will want to use your own number of stitches, hence rows.  I am rather fluffy these days so mine is XL, which is comfy for a poncho for me.  Because I didn't short row the neck enough, the neck turned out huge!  She ended up with 22 ridges, I have 27.
 Attempt to tighten neck because I didn't want to rip out the whole thing!!!:
3.25 crochet hook, yarn DOUBLED.  Chain stitch (not sc) around starting at shoulder picking up every other knit stitch x 9 then skip 2 knit st for the 10^{th  chain}stitch. Row 2 chain in each chain st.

Mine ended up with these measurements:

32" seems like a lot for the neck, but it really isn't.  I prefer to not have clothing tight around the neck.  This sits nicely on the shoulders.  The neck doesn’t look so puffy when worn so I’m not that unhappy about it.  Next time:  short row  # ????  Will need to experiment.  Did leave the bottom edge alone even though it curls a little.

Close up of eyelets:

 Red is super hard to photograph, especially with this cheap phone camera of mine. Plus the halo of the mohair doesn't show. As always looks much nicer in person.  I hope you have a good imagination because this pattern really is a gem.  I think it will be good to wear this in spring and fall and also in the house when temps are below zero outside. 

Garter Carriage Running Again

I bought my garter carriage years and years ago.  Used it to make a few things, put it on the shelf and forgot about it.   Kind of dumb to let a piece of equipment go unused, right?  Judging from members of my mk guild, it's common to NOT use it.  People are a little intimidated.  So, not having used it for a good while,  I took a refresher class from Cindy Schmatz sponsored by our mk guild and got the thing going again.  It's an 89 version with a new motor.  She tells me it's exactly like the newer versions but will not cast on automatically like the newer models do.  I can e-wrap just fine.  So I'm happy about that.

After a couple of mishaps (the main one not getting the carriage seated properly on the bed and it made a terrible clanking sound) I had some success.  The first thing I made was a baby hat.  Not so many stitches and rows, so it went faster than some other projects I hoped to make.  I shoulda/coulda wiped out the partial stars on the seam edges, but just wanted to see if it would chug along correctly.  No dropped stitches, feeling pretty good about things.  This baby hat wouldn't be warm enough in a Minnesota winter, but under the hood of a snowsuit would be ok. 

The rib looks ok (better than the picture shows) but I coulda/shoulda done that part with the ribber in 1/10 the time.  (Next time.)  The pattern is large snowflakes from a Brother G carriage book.

So- gaining some confidence, I programmed in another Brother G carriage pattern (073) adding 2 x 2 staggered edgings so it wouldn't roll.  I love this design.  My friend Sandy I. has made gorgeous baby blankets with it.  I made it long--- the length is the width worn--- and have worn it doubled since it wouldn't be super warm with a single layer using this particular yarn.  Since this cowl is 127 stitches and 372 rows it took maybe 16 hours to knit! I kitchenered the first row to the last but that's all I had to do other than hiding 2 yarn tails.   Here's a screen shot of the DAK pattern:

And a picture of the cowl folded double:

I have read that one shouldn't steam garter carriage stuff, so I didn't.  The picture doesn't show the texture as nice as it is in person,  Nice! I like it.

I have some  wool that would be warm enough with a single layer, so I changed the middle pattern to half.  Same Brother pattern.  Haven't knit it yet, but it's on my to-do list.  This is a screen shot of that pattern:

Being 68 stitches it will go a little faster.

Here's the original 24 st punch card pattern from Brother that I manipulated in DAK.

 If you have DAK and would like any of these patterns emailed to you, write to me and I'll send. 

It's getting cold here already so the extra winter wear is welcome.

How to knit mk hats---- lightening fast

I posted this on Ravelry in the machine knitting group, but some people may not belong.  So I thought I'd repeat my post here hoping it will help someone. I should give credit to my friend, Bruce, who taught me this trick.
Some people have asked how I can make hats “in minutes” on my knitting machine. Here’s how.

1. For my charity hats, I used a midgauge which requires less stitches and rows than a standard. Sometimes I had to double the yarn. A bulky would even be faster.

1. The trick: Buy a metal rod that is the length of the width of your knitting machine. (Very cheap at hardware store.) Should be substantial in weight.

-Pull out every other needle for the width of the hat and knit one row main yarn. (no waste yarn)
- Hang your cast on comb BACKWARDS making sure each loop gets a tooth of the cast on comb.
-Pull out the rest of the needles so they will knit.
-Knit 2 times the length of the hem.
-Bring out every other needle all the way.
- Hang onto the cast on comb with your left hand pulling down slightly
-place the metal rod mid way, horizontally.
-Pull up the cast on comb up over the rod, hang loops so that each needle that is all the way out gets a loop. Takes some practice at first. Remove cast comb by tilting it so that the stitches land properly. If you miss some, use a single transfer tool to hang them.
-The rod is still in the hem and acts as an even weight throughout. Set the cast on comb aside.
-Knit the height of the hat and transfer every other stitch to its neighbor. Push out of work needles to out of work position so they do not knit but you don’t have to move the stitches inward.
-knit one row and take stitches off (I try to plan so the last row goes left to right because I am right handed) with a double eyed needle and enough of a yarn tail to sew the seam. Remove metal rod. It will start to fall down anyway. The stitches at the top cinch in just fine, especially if you are going to attach a pom pom which hides the opening. Seam the side.
The inside of the hem is not especially beautiful, but show me a kid who cares.
7 minutes knitting time! (Works with any machine) Sorry I don’t have pictures or a video. Hopefully my words are clear enough. Write to me if questions.  PS  I used the free pattern on my blog here and pictured below.

tools: watch, ignore...reply to thread

Challenge Completed! 113 hats for charity

As I posted a few months back, I said I'd post pictures of my 104 hats.  They were done as a guild challenge, which was to knit 104 hats for the year, approximately 2 per week, for charity.  I finished them plus 9 more a while ago but hadn't photographed them.  Not easy to get decent pictures of so many hats.  They are mostly going to an elementary school near where we have our meetings.  Some will go to a group home.  That must be a lot of yarn used up, but why is my stash still so huge? Ha.  I used the midgauge pattern here on my blog in case you need an easy pattern. Varied the sizes from about age 5 to 16 and some for boys, some for girls.  I tried not to make the same hat more than once, but sort of ditched that idea. I got so fast at it---took me 8 minutes to knit one hat, then another 15 to do the pom pom and seam. Made our cruel winter go a little faster.

So anyway.......... voila'.  Here they are in two pictures:

and...

Educats and Edudogs

I'm pretty proud.  Mary Ann Oger has used my Educat and Edudog baby blanket patterns a few times for gifts.  I designed it with DAK and used my Brother 970 machine to make them.  The pattern was in a Knitwords issue (can't remember which one).  I suspect her preferred machine is a Silver Reed standard gauge machine.  Somehow translating it to a SR from a Brother created some issues.  Or, it's just the way SR machines work.  I dunno.  She shows how she dealt with it on her blog:  http://knitwords.blogspot.com/    Still  pretty cute patterns, if I do say so myself!

DAK 9 update/upgrade

If you are a DAK user, no doubt you have heard that there is an update available.  Reading the description, I was not so sure about it.  But I admit, I haven't seen all the possibilities.  I'll upgrade anyway. It isn't so expensive, as software goes, to upgrade from 8 to 9. I have this feeling we should support the businesses that are involved with machine knitting or they will disappear.
One nice thing in the upgrade is that the lace module is included.  That should be fun to work with.  I opted not to purchase it last time.
If anyone already has it, I'd love to hear what you think.

It warms the cockles of my heart

I haven't the faintest idea where that expression comes from and it's 90 degrees F here as I write so I don't need any warming.  But needless to say, I'm pleased.

The picture on the left is my grandson about 4 years ago and the picture on the right is his little friend who has a Peppa Pig themed birthday party coming up next weekend.  He passed along the Peppa Pig sweater I made him and it looks like it is in good shape still.

It probably didn't get worn much since California is not especially conducive to warm sweaters (or the other way around).  I still have the DesignaKnit pattern I worked up for the Peppa design if anyone wants it.  Just write to me.  I used an iron on nylon interfacing for the motif on the back side and it worked wonders to keep all the floats hidden and in line. It was knit on my 970 as a large motif so the patterning would be easy.

You know how many times you give yourself a B+ and wish you had done something differently?  Well, this time it was the drop shoulder.  I should have done a fitted sleeve or a raglan.  Those little 3 year old shoulders are just too small.  O well.  Live and learn.

Our knitting guild is participating in a challenge where we knit 2 hats  for charity per week ending up with 104 hats to donate for the year.  There are 9 people participating and many of us have done lots more than 2 per week so I imagine we'll end up with close to 1,000 hats.  They'll go to the charity of each person's choice.  There is a needy elementary school near where we hold our meetings so that's where mine will go.  So far I have 110 hats but haven't photo'ed them yet.  Last winter when it was so blasted cold I just stayed in and knit my little heart out.  It got kind of addictive and felt good to be getting that yarn stash down a little.  I found I could knit about 9 hats from one cone, so the stash is still there.  I mostly used the yellow hat pattern with the doubled brim, free on the right side of the blog in case you are interested. I did pom poms on all just because I like them.  Some members have made ear flap hats, some have made doubled so that there are 4 layers over the ears when the brim is folded up.  I just made sure the area over the ears was at least doubled.  Otherwise, they are useless in our extreme winter climate.

So that's all until next time. I hope to take a picture of those hats one of these days...