April 22-28, 2024

Join us for a fun time with a select number (up to 10) of machine knitters for a week of fun in a restful, woodsy environment. Camp Agape, near Raleigh, NC (OKAY it is really sort of near Fuquay-Varina) has a comfortable lodge that we rent for a week of machine knitting and conversations.

Private bedrooms and bathrooms, shared kitchen (just for us), a large room for our machine knitting, and even a loft area for more machine knitting.

Bring your machine and join us in a fun week (or less).

Each bedroom (with private bathroom) has a queen bed and a bunk bed. Bring a friend!!

Email Rita for info. ritamcelroy24@gmail.com

We share the cost of the building rental, so the cost depends on how many people are coming. Our estimate of cost per person is $500 (or less) if we can get 10 people to come. Right now we have 7 or 8, so there is still room for you. Please contact me before March 30 so we can decide how much each person should pay.  Thank you

 Oh, my, it has been ages since I posted anything on this blog!! I have been busy machine knitting, hand knitting, and offering advice and help on Facebook to many machine knitting groups. 

I have been attending our twice a year Knit ins at Camp Agape in Fuquay, NC about 45 minutes from Raleigh. I will be at the Carolina Fiber Fest in Raleigh on March 8-9, 2024 where our Triangle Machine Knitters will have a booth to demonstrate machines and machine knitting. 

I have entered each of our NC State Fairs each October for years and keep winning ribbons for my entries. Between times I encourage members of TMK (Triangle Machine Knitters) to enter the fair. I have been successful in getting quite a few of them to enter, then they turn around and get better ribbons than I do!! those backstabbers!!<G> I am so proud of them. 

The TMK is again having a Knit In at Camp Agape, April 22-28, 2024. Because of dwindling attendance, we have opened the registration to other machine knitters. Last fall we had a delightful knitter from Tennessee stay and knit with us. It is a joy to meet other knitters and learn from them. 

Here is info about our knit in.

Twice a year we members of Triangle Machine Knitters group in Raleigh, NC, rent out a building at a church camp for 5-6 days and hold a Knit In. We bring our machines and yarn and patterns. We bring our bedding (sheets, or sleeping bags) as pillows, quilts, and blankets are provided. We bring food to share. We bring our personal items (clothes, toiletries, shampoo, towels, etc.)

In the past we have had about 12 people staying for the Knit in. But lately our number is dwindling, as we knitters get a bit older and health issues arise. As of today we have 6 knitters who plan to attend for at least part of the “week”.

We would love to open our fun activity to machine knitters living in nearby states. Each bedroom has a queen bed and a bunk bed. After discussion we have decided we can double up in the bedrooms a bit to free up 2 bedrooms to those not part of TMK. Some of us even prefer to sleep in the lower bunk!

This would allow 2-4 new people (don’t you love being called a new person!!) to attend.

Our next Knit In is April 22-28, 2024

We need a head count by March 30 to tell the camp people. The sooner you let us know, and pay the $100 deposit (this is not the total cost of the knit in, which depends on how many people split the cost of the cabin rental) the more likely you will “make the cut” and be in the 2-4 new people we approve to attend. (Ha, sort of like sorority rush??)

It is a very nice facility with a big room where we set up our machines and enjoy each other’s company and knit whatever our hearts’ desire. It is fun to see the various machines and to be able to ask each other for help when we need it for our personal projects.

The Retreat House, the building we rent, also has a full kitchen such as in a home. There are 8 bedrooms surrounding the big knitting room (which also serves as the dining room). We sign up on Sign up Genius to take turns preparing the meals.

Each of the 8 bedrooms has a queen bed and a bunk bed, so they could comfortably sleep 3 people (if one climbs to the upper bunk) and a private bathroom with a shower. We sometimes share a bedroom (2 people) and sometimes there are not that many people attending, so we get a single room.

The facility is Camp Agape in Fuquay, which is sort of near Raleigh (45 minutes away).

Here is a link to the Retreat House, the facility we rent at Camp Agape. You can click to see the various rooms and the floor plan. (The pool is not open at this time, but the hiking trails are!)

https://agapekurebeach.org/camp-agape/facilities/retreat-house/

We would love to have you join us.

Contact Rita ritamcelroy24@gmail.com

or Mary Karnes (our treasurer)

Check my blog for April 2018 where I wrote about the knit in and posted photos of my room.

Another 100 hats knit!

 Hi All,

I have been on another hat knitting binge! Just finished the 100 hats I will send to Country Knitting of Maine this year. Since we spent some time in Florida I had to hand knit hats while there.

The character hats were from kits. The pink ribbed, blue ribbed and others in this photo were hand knit because I had no machine or possibly the yarns were too thick for the machine. I am very adaptable in trying to turn yarn into hats!

 I had taken all my machines to my home in Raleigh, NC. After a while I was having withdrawal symptoms from being away from my machines. So...…. I purchased a Sentro plastic circular knitting machine because it was so cheap! I then tried to use up some of the leftover yarn I had with me in Florida. 

That was a lot of fun and a lot of learning!

• Yes, there were a lot of mistakes such as dropped stitches or tucked stitches as I learned what yarns work best on this machine which is so different from my brother, SR, and Passap machines!

Well, as time went by we returned to Raleigh in March and I left the Sentro in Florida, on purpose. 

I knit a few hats on my brother electronic machine at the Knit In in April. Then I was back at home finishing those hats with long floats (some of them I did in Ladder Jacquard and others I finished by sewing over the floats with my sewing machine) and doing more handknitting. 

Here are the hats with the long floats I made from Gini Woodward stitch designs. She had used these designs on sweaters but I made them into hats. 

When May and June arrived I cleared off my Passap and knit my favorite Fisherman's rib hats (about 24 of them!) 

I also used my garter carriage to knit ribbed hats while I read books or watched TV <G> 

But, I was missing my Sentro, so I bought another one...Hey, there was a sale and it cost less than $40!!

I do love churning out tube hats while I watch or listen to the TV. That plastic machine knits very quietly! Yes, some of these might already be posted above. I have a lot of yarn here in Raleigh so I was using quite a variety of them in these hats. Some did not even have labels!! I had gotten some fur pom poms last year, so I was happy sticking them on the top of some of the hats. I have even ordered more to use on future hats. 

My newest Sentro works better than the one in Florida. It is possible that because of my inexperience with this type of fragile plastic machine that I caused damage to the plastic gears of that machine. I now know to be more gentle when cranking out the hats. In fact my latest hats are knit without unexpected tucking or dropping of stitches. I don't even need the weights (those clamps you can see in the first Sentro photo) I have even experimented with using 3 cones of thin yarn at the same time to make a marled effect. 

I have finished the 100 hats for this year, and am starting on the 100 for next year! 

Our latest Knit-In

 Hi Everyone,

I have just completed a week of machine knitting with my friends at our Knit-in at Camp Agape. It was a wonderful time, even though our number of attendees was way down. There were 7 of us there for a few days. Two of those commuted from home but the other 5 slept over in our private rooms at the camp. Three of us were there for the whole 7 days and even spent the night. 

We each brought our machines and knit whatever we wanted. Carmen used her brother plastic bed machine which was dual gauge (4.5 mm and 9 mm). She had even brought her Sentro, the plastic circular machine. (I had purchased one of these when I was in Florida in January and had quite a time knitting hats on it!)

Harriet also brought a plastic bed machine which I think was the LK 150 (sometimes I forget just what others were using). Mary brought her 970 and knit a whole sweater....she is quite a prolific knitter. 

Cindy, with the help of her sons and husband, brought her big Passap e6000 with a motor! She is a detail person very concerned with doing the most perfect knitting and getting it to fit exactly. She was working on a double bed jacquard jacket which she has been working on for a while. She was trying to work out the sleeve shaping by using the built in Form program but the machine and program were not co-operating. So she changed her focus to knit socks for herself and her husband. That is a project which she excels at and boy did she turn out beautiful socks in a short time. What a sense of accomplishment she had. 

My approach to machine knitting is different from Cindy's. I usually knit without as much planning...and when I have mistakes I try to mend or cover them up, rather than starting over. 

Leslie was using a brother standard gauge machine and trying out double bed jacquard, I think. I know she then switched to a tuck stitch with a cotton yarn to make a lovely scarf. After blocking the pretty scarf with pastel colors, she gave it to Kyle, our contact person with the camp who checked on us daily and took care of our problems. Kyle knew it was for his wife, but was a good sport and modeled it himself for us!

Julie brought her SR860 midgauge with ribber. She was translating a hand knitting pattern with a lace edge to be knit on the machine. This was in cotton yarn, quite a challenge for a fairly new machine knitter. She even used her ribber for practice but discovered when she wanted to use the full bed with the long ribber comb that the comb was too long and would not fit between the brackets holding the ribber to the km! I remembered that I had 2 combs at home which were purchased to fit my 860 midgauge, so I had her stop at my house to pick them up on her was to the camp. She was one of the commuters. WELL, although my 2 combs were slightly different in length from each other and from her comb, they were ALSO too long. I am wondering if these were really designed for the 7mm machine instead of the 6.5. I am also wondering if there is any chance of finding the correct size ribber combs for these machines. Julie did succeed in knitting the front of a sweater, with hand transferred lace on the bottom!

I had spent 2 weeks preparing and planning for the knit-in. We sign up beforehand so that each of us brings food to share during the week (or for as many days as we attend). We also must bring our sheets, towels, etc. if we are staying over. Of course we must bring machines, yarn, patterns, etc. which we hope to use while there. My car was packed up to the windows!

I brought my 965i, ribber, double bed color changer, transfer carriage, linker.....hey, I have had these for years and thought it was time that I really learned to use some of them! I also had my laptop and the DAK cable in case I needed to download a different pattern to the km. Yes, I did eventually do just that!

Of course I was knitting hats to donate to the Country Knitting of Maine hat contest. I had searched my patterns and decided to knit various fairisle designs from my Gini Woodward usb drive which I had purchased a few years ago. Yes the designs were shown on sweatshirts or as sweaters, but a 24 stitch design is a 24 stitch design so I figured I could use them for hats. I had also been wanting to try ladder Jacquard, the type of double bed work which does not use all of the ribber needles but does control floats (floatless fairisle). 

I ended up knitting about 9 hats (still to be finished/sewn up). Yes some of the designs have very long floats but I plan to take them to the sewing machine and sew them down from crown to brim. One attempt at ladder jacquard resulted in a nice hat, but I had many dropped stitches on the ribber stitches. I learned on the next one to use the slip button on the ribber so I knit only every other row on the ribber (still every 3rd stitch) and the stitches did not drop!!

Yes, I did use the color changer as those hats used between 5 and 8 different colors each! That was quite a job of getting up to change the colors in the masts, as I had room for only 6 colors. Keeping track of the colors and changing a fairisle pattern to dbj format (knitting 2 rows with each color) was something which strained my mind! <G> I had spent a lot of time at home deciding which patterns to knit and gathering the right colors for each of them! I put a printed pattern and the yarn for each hat in a shopping bag, so I had about 4 shopping bags organized for these hats. 

I did use the transfer carriage, which I had used in previous years, to transfer the rib part of the hat to the main bed for knitting the fairisle top. I even learned that I could selectively transfer only every other needle IN WORK to the main bed so I could quickly go from 1x1 to 1x3 (or is it 1x4?) for the ladder jacquard. 

I just practiced on a swatch to see if the linker would bind off the stitches. That should work on a different style of hat rather than the gathered top hats I am making now. 

We did spend a lot of time socializing and complimenting each other on the foods we each provided. Some of us even managed to get in a bit of exercise outside through walking. Well we had to do something to use up some of the calories from that good food. I changed my outdoor walking from years past. In the past I had walked the trails (up and down hills through the woods and over tree roots and rocks) but this time I drove to the camp entrance and then did my walking on the paved road just outside the camp. I walked past farmland and lovely big new expensive homes. People waved at me too!

Oh, there were a few glitches this year. The electric outlets in the floor of the main knitting room did not work, so the electrician provided extension cords to connect us to the walls or even to the private sleeping rooms so we could power our machines and knitting lights. 

The main room heating also did not work this year, and boy did we need it the first 2 days and nights! Kyle brought us space heaters and also built a fire in the fireplace. 

Our Knit-ins are always fun and challenging. I look forward to the next one in October! Also I hope to post photos later, at least of the items I have knit. 

By for now,

Rita in Raleigh (or near it!)

 Every summer I try to urge my friends to enter the NC State Fair. Usually I can convince them to do so. This year many told me (publicly even) that they were going to enter and beat me, so I would not get a good ribbon (first place....my goal always). Then we had problems signing up for the contest and getting our entry tags through the mail.....would you believe they sent the entry tags in UNSEALED envelopes!! One friend got an empty envelope!!

Anyway, their plan worked. I really upped my attempts to knit projects I liked that were completed to the best of my ability. 

There were 7 potential categories for machine knitted items:

    Clothing: Adult garment, child garment, and accessory

    Household Items: Afghan (including baby blankets), full sized afghan (to fit a bed), tablecloth or placemats, and one of the afghans or table linens enhanced (something not machine knitted added to the item). 

I filled out the form to enter all 7 categories. I finished 6 items. I won 6 blue Ribbons (first place) and also got the Triangle Machine Knitters award for best of machine knitted clothing and also the Triangle Machine Knitters award for the best of machine knitted  household items. Each ribbon or award came with its own small monetary award. 

So I am tooting my own horn about my winnings <G> Here are the photos. 3 are garter carriage items, One is a Passap afghan lovely, the green blanket with the lighter edging is double bed racking enhanced with crochet edging. The baby sweater is my favorite from Bramwell Baby book, which I have knit 3 or more times with different colors over the last 20 or more years. 

The last 2 are the same blanket (Passap Afghan Lovely) to show its size (almost King Sized) and its texture. 

I am glad I did my best work for this event. Yes I should have started before the last 6 weeks before the fair, but I do best under pressure <G> 

By for now

Rita

 Yes, I am still machine knitting. I did complete another 100 hats for Country Knitting of Maine Hat contest and sent them to Maine in September. My favorites this year were my garter carriage hats, I mean those knit by my garter carriage. I used both the punchcard machine and the electronic brother machine. On Facebook I even found a pattern by Anita Cornell for a gc hat which was written from start to finish in one DAK pattern, so I knit one to donate this year and one to enter in the NC State Fair 2021. That hat won a blue ribbon (first place). 

I did a few in fairisle. 

I did my usual ribbed hats too and some of those easy bucket style hats. Here is a pile of the hats. 

There are even some fisherman's rib hats. I still love doing stripes!

Sometimes I get on a roll and really churn out hats<G> It is a lot of fun and by donating them to charity, they keep a lot of people warm. 

By for now. 

Rita

Still machine knitting

 We are lucky here in Raleigh, NC in that some of our machine knitters are knowledgeable about using zoom to set up our zoom meetings. So we have been able to continue our regular monthly meetings, now on zoom, and sometimes even an in-between meeting just for socializing and encouraging others to keep on knitting. Thanks to Phyllis in our Triangle Machine Knitters group for setting up our zoom meetings and helping us to learn how to use this medium. 

I have a friend who volunteers at an animal shelter. She loves working with the kitties and let me know that those kitties need small blankets to cuddle with and sleep on. I finally got my act together and found a pattern for animal shelter blankets at https://annsroost.wordpress.com/animal-shelter-blankets/  

The size my friend wanted was not exactly the size Ann had written up so I adapted it. I knit the width of the 12x12 blanket but used the 20x20 inch length. I have not taken these to my friend yet, but others I donated were close enough to what they needed. 

I like the double bed slip stitch pattern, as it makes the blanket sort of stable and not so floppy. I have been using up ends of cones or balls of yarn or even the unraveled yarns from false starts I have had with many projects. The yarns are all acrylics but some are 2/24 (which I use double) or up to British 4 ply. I wind similar weights of yarns into balls, just tying on a new yarn when the old one is all used up. I have found that I can USUALLY knit right through the yarn knots! 

I say USUALLY because sometimes the machine balks and drops the stitch where the join is. If that happens I just keep on knitting. After the blanket is off the km I latch up the hole and fasten it with a short length of yarn (not necessarily the same color!) and weave in the ends. Neither the cats nor the workers care if the blankets have mistakes or funny colored sewed up holes!

My animal blankets are ending up approximately 12x20 inches. If all goes well, then there are only 2 ends to weave in....and I just thread them through the fabric between the front and the back of this double bed fabric. 

These are fun to make and I love getting rid of those mistakes and bits of leftover yarns. 

The purple blanket was knit with 1 strand of  pink and one strand of lavender knit together. They had been stacked so one fed through the other. In that photo you can see the design. In the multicolored blankets I can see the colors in waves (the result of slip stitches) but I cannot see the design. Also sometimes I forgot to set the carriage to slip, so I ended up with full needle rib instead of a slip stitch design. It all works for the kitties!!

The blanket above with the many colors and the thin aqua strips on the pale aqua.....well the yarn I was knitting with grabbed a loose thin strand of aqua and just knit it in!! Anything goes with cat blankets!!!