Whoops, more Hand Knitting

I do hand knit when we ride in the car on trips. I love knitting hats. Using Bernat Alpaca yarn on these hats in the car was really easy, but then I found out that my favorite place to send charity hats (Country Knitting of Maine, News&Views hat contest for Warmth for Maine) preferred acrylic fibers, for ease of laundry. I can't fault them for that preference, but what was I to do with these lovely hats??

Along came the Hats for Syria project, introduced to me through the All Crafts for Charity group on Yahoo groups, to which I belong.

So I rounded up my hats which were already knit and the little balls of scraps which were leftover. I used the leftovers to knit more hats. I just love stripes in hats!

Here is the result, which I sent out in late July.

I put tags on them for the washing instructions. These hats felt so soft.

Charity knitting

Our local km group, the Triangle Machine Knitters, is making knitted items to donate to Interact," a private, nonprofit United Way agency that provides safety, support, and awareness to victims and survivors of domestic violence and rape/sexual assault. "

We are giving our items to be part of the Christmas presents given to those who need it.

I knit a few fisherman's rib scarves on the bulky machine and on the standard to include in this group donation. Here is the photo of the scarves.

These scarves were fun and quick to knit. In fact the fringe took longer than the scarves! Some fringe was knit on the knitting machine and some was added later using a rug making latch hook. 

I also "cheated" and hand knit a couple of baby sweaters. Again, these were things that the hand knitters had been talking about and I found the pattern on Ravelry. 

As all the handknitters said, these are fun, fairly quick, and very addictive!

Machine Knitting Entries in NC State Fair 2014

Each year I have high hopes of entering each of the machine knitting categories of the NC State Fair. They have now expanded the categories to 7! What a challenge to enter each of the 7 categories. Well, this year I succeeded in getting all 7 items finished!!

Well, here they are. 6 of them got First Place/Blue Ribbons, and one got Second Place/Red Ribbon. Of the First Place items two also got Best of Show (meaning best of the machine knitted garments, and best of the machine knitted household items).  The state gives a small money award for each First, Second, and Third place winners, which ranges from $25 for an afghan to $9 for a clothing item. Also our Triangle Machine Knitters provides the prize money for each of the Machine Knit Best of Show items....so I won $25 for each of my Best of Show, besides what ever the State gives me. I am just rolling in dough....hahahaha!

 The lady's top, above, is a lace and garter carriage item done from a pattern by Danis McWest.

 The white blanket with the pink ruffle was made with one strand of 2/24 yarn in a double bed tuck pattern on the Passap. The ruffle was two strands of 2/24 done on the brother 965i, using a pattern from Enchanted Edgings by Diana Sullivan.

 The Minion hat was an original design. Okay, I browsed Ravelry in the hand knitting department and adapted what I found from various sources. I knit this on my brother 260. For the eyes I followed the pattern for knitting flowers! I made many of these hats and have sent the others off to charity. Some of my minions have only one eye, which is crocheted.

 This red and white afghan was done on the Passap, using one of Michael Becker's Passap afghan patterns. It spreads out very wide after taking it off the km because it is knit in a double bed tuck stitch pattern. That afghan is spread out on my fake king sized bed (two twins together). I need to remember that when I download a design from DAK, the colors get reversed! I meant the background color to be red and the design to be white! Oh, well, it looks fine as it is!

 My toddler's pullover was a basic shape done in stockinette on the 260. I shaped the sleeves because I like set in sleeves. I made sure that the neckline would go over my head, just to be sure that it would not bother a pre-pr
eschooler. The stars are just buttons, which add more color and dimension to the sweater, as does the white-blue-white stripes on the sleeves.

 This blanket-buddy has a story behind it. I had knit a baby afghan with the gc on the 965i and it was very soft, but boring. I needed something to enter in the "machine knit household item enhanced" category. I had been browsing on Ravelry and saw many hand knit or crocheted blankets with a stuffed animal head attached. These are for toddlers to hang onto for comfort....or to drag around. So I searched for how to knit a bunny head, and found one for handknitting, on Ravelry. I knit the head while riding in the van coming back from the Fingerlakes Machine Knitting Seminar in NY. I realized that the blanket needed something to tie the head to the general item, or to unify it in color, so I decided to crochet around it. I tried many styles (okay just two!) and settled on this one. I crocheted the edging while we were on a cruise in the Caribbean. So this machine knit blanket is enhanced with hand knitting and with crochet.
By the way, the crochet looked really rough and uneven until I steamed it to block it!

Front and Back of Table Runner shown below.

My Table Runner was made of Wool Crepe Deluxe and Skinny Magisty , both dress yarns. I did this on the Passap e6000 with one of the built in designs. It might be a mosaic or maze pattern.

I had fun creating these items for the NC State Fair. Next year I hope more machine knitters enter. These were definitely not perfect, but I tried very hard to cover my mistakes. The judges found only some of them!

Another e6000 for sale

We have some busy people here in Raleigh who like machine knitting but do not have the time to use all their machines.

My friend Manju wrote this to me:

My Passap e-6000 is back up for sale. A lady in South Carolina wanted to purchase it before the end of Sept, but she is undecided until she returns from her trip abroad. 

I would like to sell this ASAP and am negotiable on the price. It is listed for $2,700 with everything I own that belongs to the Passap. 

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/art/4645465178.html

Passap E6000 comes with a motor, books, video tapes and DVDs, magazines, Tricofit, color changer etc. 

Link to facebook page with photos of the machine. 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.359704287373744.101413.161818940495614&type=1

If you are interested in this machine you can email me, Rita, at fmcelroy@aol.com and I will forward your message to Manju. Or you can contact her through the craigslist link.

Wow, two Passaps for sale...Manju's and Raeanne's. Passaps are fun to use, but you must spend some time at the beginning learning to use them. They make gorgeous textured fabric, and using the color changer is so easy. Double bed work in general is really great with the Passap....you don't usually need to use a comb and weights.  I have made socks on the Passap and find it much easier than on brother machines. (But, of course, I love my brother machines too!) http://raleigh.craigslist.org/art/4645465178.html

Passap e6000 for sale

A friend of mine in Raleigh has an e6000 for sale. Because of its weight and size it is for pickup only.  Contact me or Raeanne (if you know her) for more info.

This is a well cared for but seldom used machine. She has had this machine since the early 90's and might even be the original owner (I am not sure).
Thanks for reading this.

Simple Christmas Stockings

My friend, Leslie, is collecting Christmas (or not Christmas) stockings for soldiers. She was asked to collect up to about 200 for the soldiers in Georgia, where her relative works. If she does not collect enough, then the stockings will be used in the hospital for children who must be there over Christmas.

Leslie told us of this in September, but, as always, I was busy and did not get started until 2 weeks ago. Leslie even pointed us towards the pattern to use on the bulky machine to make the stockings be about 7 inches in the foot and about 12 inches tall.

I did get busy and knit 20 stockings in a very simple style. Fairisle would have left floats, so I did one color stockinette or striped stockinette.  I got inspired when I visited the craft store and saw a handout from Red Heart yarns for a striped stocking. I loved the way the darker color wide band was split for the light color heel. So I copied this style.

At first I thought the stockings were too big, so I made the green and white solid stockings in a shorter size. I hope they can sneak by without getting rejected

I plan to get these in the mail on Monday.

You can see that I got tired of the standard Christmas colors. These were all fun to do and did not take a terrible amount of time! I'll see if I can find the pattern for you.

Not Quite Stone Soup Hat

Not Quite Stone Soup Hat


I made a striped ribbed hat which looks more complicated than it was.
I knit this on my Passap, just so I would not have to mess with the comb and weights, but the hat can be made on a standard gauge Japanese machine like Brother, or Silver Reed.


I used basically stripes of three main yarns.
Color one was from a cone of Tamm 3 ply (black).
Color two was leftovers of self patterning sock yarn, various ends rewound onto a cone. I just tied the next leftover yarn to the one on the cone and kept winding. (I had a lot of leftover patterning sock yarn!) Don't worry about the yarn tails, they just knit in.
Color three was a leftover bit of red 2/24 yarn used doubled...when I ran out I substituted Tamm 3 ply (red).


Now for the knitting.
Orange strippers (ignore this on brother machines, use comb and weights instead)


Cast on with main color (black) 80-80 , set up for 1x1 rib. T 4/4.


Knit 1 row N/N, 2 rows CX/CX, 1 row N/N . (This is the brother basic cast on for 1x1 rib plus 1 row of rib. )

RC 000


Transfer stitches into 2x2 rib.


Knit 4 rows MC (black) gradually increasing tension to 6/6.


Knit whatever color I want....2 R color 1, 4 R color 2, 2 R color 3....change colors whenever the mood strikes me.....random stripes, but try for first cast on and the end rows before gather off to be same color.


Knit to RC 120 (close to 11 inches long).


For cast off I racked to match front and back bed needles of the 2x2 rib, transfer all front stitches to back needles which already have stitches. (Stitches are now only on back bed in 2 stitches, 2 blank needles, across the bed.) Make sure front bed needles are out of work (and set lock to GX just to be sure it does not knit).


Black strippers (brother knitters ignore this).


Knit 2 rows , transfer EON (which means there is one needle with 2 stitches on it, then 3 empty needles out of work) than knit 2 rows, gather off.


Sew back seam matching the black stripes to black stripes, the red stripes to red stripes.

I tried different lengths of hat before I settled on the pattern I have written here. I even did 1x1 rib and 200 rows long, but it was not my favorite.