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!!!

Quarantine knitting a mask

 The July 2020 issue of Machine Knitting Monthly had a pattern for knitting a face mask. I saw where Kiwi had knit this and posted at note on KnittingParadise. It looked like a fun project, so I knit one also. Here is my take on my knitting. 

I have knit just 1 so far. They really are easy. The label in the cone of yarn I used says 3/14 100% cotton, from UK. It seems to knit as 4 ply. I put a coffee filter (small size but also folded in half) inside. The coffee filter makes the mask stick out funny, but who cares?

I like the way the short rows do not leave holes. They also shape the mask nicely. 

It was suggested to me that maybe 2 layers of cotton fabric would be better than the coffee filter, and I agree. It would drape better and maybe stay in place better. 

The mask is knit with two layers and has a slot at the bottom to insert the filter (or cloth). There is a button on the bottom to hold the slot closed. 

I had washed the mask and dried it in the dryer before wearing it. 

Now I have worn the mask for an hour or so while I walked vigorously in the mall, where it was air-conditioned. At first the mask felt great. It was soft, fitted nicely, and let me breathe. Later, as my head sweat a lot as it usually does, the mask stretched out and the coffee filter sort of dropped. The lovely I-cord ear pieces stretched out also. I found myself tying the ear-loops to make the mask tighter.  

When I later washed the mask by hand and hung it to dry in the sunshine, it stayed stretched out.I think I need to wash it in the washing machine and definitely need to dry it in the dryer to shrink it again. I should have remembered how cotton sweaters stretch while being worn <G>

Maybe a better yarn would be a cotton/acrylic blend such as Panama?

Maybe a sock yarn would be a better choice? 

I'll have to try with other fabric content. It was an easy and fun pattern to try. It will be useful for grocery shopping, which I have done while wearing this mask. It caused no problems and was comfortable for non sweaty endeavors! 

Please ignore the quarantine hair-do and the seemingly "dirty look" I show in the side photo <G>

Online Seminar

Wow, I have not written in a long time! Our Carolinas Machine Knitters Seminar in May of 2019 was a great success. Luckily we had not scheduled one for this year, 2020, with the lockdown etc.

My latest seminar to attend was the one this month online by Vogue Knitting Live. They finally had a machine knitting demonstrator, Bill King, so I signed up. I got into only 1 of his classes as the other one filled up very soon. He was so successful, as was Vogue Knitting Live, that he is scheduled for 4 classes in August through that site!!

Most machine knitting seminars have a charge daily, but this seminar charges by the class. Since we do not have to pay for travel or a hotel room, meals, etc. it works out to be quite a bargain! Yes they still have shopping and show specials at the shopping.

Yesterday's class was so inspirational and fun. There were 30 people total, including Bill. He is a very talented knitter and like most of us loves to talk. His class ran overtime by almost 1/2 hour until the Vogue representative reminded him to finish   He seemed to like to meet us too and find out where we were from. He was available to answer questions during and after his demonstrations. I was very impressed. 

He has 4 classes scheduled for the August session, but 3 are already filled up. The class I took on Cables still has room for you to register. Hint, hint!!

This class was well worth the cost, which was fairly minimal. 

Since it was a zoom meeting, we could see the other participants, including Mary Slattery, and some other people I recognize as demonstrators at other seminars. One lady even used her machine at home during the demo to knit samples of what Bill showed us!  Of course we were polite and kept ourselves muted unless we were speaking to the group. 

I need to knit some cables today before I forget what I saw....I did take notes and I hope they help me remember. 

I am looking forward to the class I will take in August on ribbers. 

Update on Raleigh/Durham Seminar May 3-4

Check the Carolinas mkg website as Cindy has now posted the info and registration forms already!! Hotel contact info is there also.

I'm so exicited....I just can't hide it....I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.......!!!

(Showing my age !!)

Seminar near Raleigh May 3-4 2019

Hooray! Yes it is happening again...a CMKG seminar near Raleigh. On May 3-4 the Carolinas Machine Knitters Guild is sponsoring another great seminar at the DoubleTree by Hilton,
4810 Page Creek Road, Durham, NC 27703.

We will have 3 demonstrators; Diana Sullivan, Billie Hall, and Linda Jensen.

Of course everyone recognizes Diana Sullivan of youtube fame as a prolific maker of machine knitting videos...221 videos so far!!! She has lots and lots of those videos for beginners and more advanced knitters. I love watching the videos.....sometimes I even do the technique or knit the item I have even won prizes at the NC State fair using her patterns!!  Check her blog for listings of patterns for free and patterns for sale and inspiration written throughout the years. 
http://diananatters.blogspot.com

Billie Hall is our surprise demonstrator, a treat for PASSAP knitters. Anyone who has attended Pat Groves Pacifically Passap seminar in recent, and not so recent, years will have seen Billie. Yes she will knit on a Passap. She has a variety of patterns and books she has written throughout the years. Her book which is most often recommended is "Knitting with the Lights Off" which is a manual to get you started on the electronic Passap (e6000) without turning on the console! It is amazing how much you can do with just the machine and no electronics. Her internet profile is so low that I cannot find it.....but she is a fun and informative person to meet. I have knit various items from her Knitting with the Lights off and got prizes on them too!

Linda Jensen is a West Coast person who has been writing machine knitting patterns for years. She has a Facebook account so she is reachable. https://www.facebook.com/linda.jensen.12177
She is also on Ravelry..   https://www.ravelry.com/people/lindasuejensen
And her website is    myblueheavenknits.wordpress.com   Linda also has an etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/LindasCrafts   AND I have also bought and used some of her patterns. My favorite of her patterns is Ear Flaps and Animal Hats.  Need I mention that this got me another prize?!

What a great lineup of demonstrators!!

Besides what we will be able to buy from the demonstrators, we plan to have another vendor selling knitting machine related items....more info later.

Special hotel rates for those attending. Be sure to mention that you will be attending our seminar!

For Registration form and more info, check the CMKG website later this week. Look for this seminar under Events.

http://www.carolinasmkg.com/