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!)