Not Dead, Just Busy

[kniteracy]

Schedules, Swiggles, and Machine Knitting!

Working three days a week has changed the way time gets managed around here. There's less time to do the things I have to do and consequently less time to do the things I like to do, like writing in my journal.

Recently, journaling has been eclipsed by work, folk clubs, practice, and taking care of things around the house. I'm still baking all our bread or as much of it as I can, and we've had a couple of really nice meals at home lately (J found sirloin steaks on sale at Sainsbury's, so I have had a little red meat, hooray!).


Our normal (if you can call anything around here normal) weekly schedule goes like this:

Monday: I'm home. Bread baking, practice, housework, a little writing if I can fit it in. J has scheduled many Mondays off, so he often works on a DIY project.

Tuesday: I'm at work from 9:30-6ish, with major flexibility at the beginning of the day because of transport things. We eat cheap takeaway at the office and G has a frozen pizza at home for dinner, because Tuesday night is Sharps and that starts at 8 at the House and runs 'til 11. We get home late and are too exhausted to do anything except hug G and fall into bed.

Wednesday: I'm at work from 9:30-6ish. We rush home and have a quick dinner together; then J and I run off to Eltham for Folkmob, which runs from 8:30ish to 11ish (sometimes later), then come home eithe by train or bus, depending on hos late it is. We are too exhausted to do anything except hug G and fall into bed.

Thursday: I'm at work from 9:30-6ish. There's no folk club on Thursday nights, so we come home at the regular time and that's the night everybody expects me to cook something fabulous for dinner, so I spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

Friday: I don't work on Fridays, so if the weather's good, Friday has become laundry day by default, though we get lots done on the weekend, too. Friday night, we really like to have takeaway and play a game or something at home, but that isn't always possible, so sometimes we have leftovers.

Saturday: It's a toss-up what we'll be doing on Saturdays.

Sunday: See Saturday.

This week differs from most weeks in that I had to work on Friday and will have to work today as well (I'm switching days off because the Talis Fairy's C is with us for a few days and while leaving one thirteen-year-old boy at home alone is OK, leaving two of them together could be a recipe for disaster. So J has today off and I have tomorrow this week, which means we won't go to Sharps and we'll probably get C to the train station on Wednesday, though Tuesday afternoon/evening is a possibility depending on what else we're doing.

Whew.

Now, special stuff that has happened:

First off, I have a gig in Eltham in December. I know you probably already knew that.

Secondly, we had a Swiggle on Saturday, which was mostly lovely. hrrunka already pointed out the one bit of trouble I and most people who kinda wanted to play some music had with it, and even that wasn't all that big a deal, really. I think it was mostly due to people who wanted to talk staying in once it got dark outside because it was chilly outside, but I also reiterate that I think there'd be less intrusive chatting if these things were held more often, say, once a month. That way people wouldn't be as busy catching up with one another, because they'd see one another more often.

Third, I am going to be doing a harp weekend for some Far Isles people in November, so I'm preparing some workshops for that, even though I know it will be mostly the usual 'beginning the harp for people who have had their harps for awhile now' workshop. Hopefully there will be enough slightly-more-advanced students that we can get into some meatier topics over the course of the weekend, so I'm preparing a couple of those too, and looking forward to a weekend of harp immersion.

Fourth, I have a new-to-me toy that pretty much took up my whole Sunday, which will be why I haven't exactly been the prolific journaler this weekend. rinioth messaged me on IRC a week ago or so and said, "Hey, you still interested in a knitting machine?" and I was like, "Shyeeah!" His wife apparently bought one something like 15 years ago, used, and then never used it much herself, if at all. I'm going to natter about this for awhile, so feel free to skim.

This is a Knitmaster 260K knitting machine, which is a very basic machine that doesn't have a ribbing attachment or anything like that, although I believe you can approximate mock rib with it. I'm not sure if you can get a ribbing attachment for this machine. Yesterday, J, pola_bear and I (mostly pola_bear and I) worked really hard to make this thing work, went through all the introductory material in the three manuals that came with it, searched through the boxes of magazines and patterns and really old acrylic wool that probably were part of the legacy of the machine when rinioth's wife bought it, threaded it up, fixed the needles to knit a starting swatch, and could not, for the love of little chocolate truffles, make it work properly. It would cast on beautifully, then not transition to the knitting row settings well at all. It would drop tons of stitches and leave loops at the back and then the carriage would get more and more tangled as we went along. I was really beginning to think, by the time pola_bear went home to her mum and I came upstairs for a frustration cuddle with J, that there was a really good reason rinioth's wife hadn't gotten much out of the machine: It was absolute junk. After a long cuddle, I decided to go back and try it again, and I asked J, another pair of eyes, to come and just make sure I was properly troubleshooting.

Well, we found a couple of things. First, there was a whole bunch of thin, white yarn (not a colour I'd used) wound around one of the rollers that takes care of pushing the needles out ofthe bed and through the yarn. OK, that was problem one. It took several minutes to get all the yarn out of there without damaging the mechanism. Then, we cast on another swatch and had the exact same problem, all over again. J suggested that I try to pick up every single dropped stitch and see if that would help, rather than just hoping it'd work itself out as I continued knitting.

So, that's what I did. Painstakingly, with the little needle tool that comes with the machine, I picked up each and every dropped stitch, using both the machine needles and this little tool. Not only was this time-consuming and frustrating, but I also learned some valuable lessons about the way that knitting machines knit. I can now explain to you exactly what is happening when the needles on a knitting machine make a stitch. Aside from a couple of things getting caught on the posts, which I understand is going to happen at the beginning of a machine knitted swatch, I picked up stitches on four or five rows. With each row, the machine dropped fewer stitches. When I finally had a clean row, I weighted the swatch down and tried to work a little faster -- and what do you know, inside of five minutes, I had knitted over 100 rows of perfect, snag-free, dropped-stitch-free swatch! J wonders if the machine wasn't just gummed up from the snag and years of non-use and needed to re-lubricate itself (we still don't have any machine oil for the machine: that's on my list of things to get today).

Now, I have to tell you, most people would probably have given up, after having followed the directions exactly to the letter and still coming up with snaggy, knotted, non-knitting when they were done. I feel pretty good about myself for persevering, but particularly if that jam was in the carriage when rinioth's wife bought this machine, I can understand why she never really got into using it: it makes it nearly impossible to move the carriage back and forth, whih is part of why stitches were dropping. It only seems to really catch after the cast-on row, which is why casting on seemed to be simple. I think this is because the needles have to move more during regular knitting. Once that jam was cleared and the machine had knitted a few rows, it really went to town.

Now, I didn't finish that experimental swatch until almost 8pm, and then it was time to make a really late dinner for everyone, after which we played a game of Hell Rail (and I nearly fell asleep on the table), so I have not cast on another piece of knitting. I do not know whether or not it will need to be babied through those first few rows of anything I knit. If I find out that it does need that kind of close attention, I'm not 100% sure I'm going to like this machine-knitting thing. Or I suppose the more accurate thing to say would be I'm not sure I'm going to like this knitting machine. If it continues to drop stitches like that at the beginning, it's going to be more trouble than it's worth.

Speaking of that, whqat is it worth, anyway? That was one of the questions I promised I'd answer for rinioth, so I checked around on Ebay and on various machine knitting sites, and the nearest model I found to this one (a Knitmaster 260) was apparently a fancier model, with a ribbing attachment already included, on a nine-day-out auction, with a starting bid of £50. I haven't seen anything selling at over that. I'll start looking for comparable machines and see which ones are like the Knitmaster. My feeling is it's not worth terribly more than that £50, if even that, particularly if it is going to be so touchy at the beginning of each project. However, I am learning a lot about machine knitting in this experiment.

I suppose it would be silly to wonder if anyone on my friends list has a knitting machine or uses one regularly? The LJ machine knitting community seems to have been deleted, so I can't look there, and I'm not really keen on joining a mailing list (I'm already on more than I have time to read), although I will if it looks like that's the only source of good information. The UK Machine Knitters' Guild web page doesn't have a whole lot of information on it that I can find, but I'll continue looking around, and any pointers, or pointers to people who might have pointers, that I could get would be really helpful.

So now I'm possibly going to go and try that second knitting machine experiment, to see if I can cast on a swatch and move smoothly from cast-on to knitting without a ton of stitch droppage, now that the machine has "warmed up," so to speak.

Edit: With less fiddling than last time but more than I really want to do, the machine handled a wider swatch (70 stitches) handily and I did about 100 rows in five minutes or less once all the glitchies were worked out. I'm getting to where I can "feel" when the carriage has snagged; the yarn feeds through differently when there's a problem. Next experiment: wool thicker than fingering weight!

We're expecting the Hoover repairman pretty soon, sometime between 8 and 10, I think, so hopefully by this afternoon I'll have a working dryer-- or a semi-working dryer: I have found that this dryer is good only for certain things or very, very small loads, which makes it neither time or energy efficient, but that's another story, and it will still make things easier in winter if we have a working dryer.

After that, it's off to work! And it's Hallowe'en today, so I'll bring my green velvet witchy hat to wear-- it might cover up the fact that my roots are starting to show... ;-)

Comments

[rinioth.livejournal.com]

I've had to unjam yarn from around those rollers too.

I suspect that J is right, the lubricant has probably dried out and turned gummy over the time the machine has been idle. You might find that regular use improves it or it might actually need cleaning and re-lubricating.

A tells me that she used it to make todler clothes for the girls but hasn't used it for anything since, which means it's been stored for at least 15 years.

Did you notice if it's always the same needles that drop stitches? If so then they might be either very sticky with old oil or slightly bent.

I think the first few rows will always be difficult because there isn't any weight to keep the current row in place relative to the needles.

Anyway I hope it proves useful to you.

[ebren.livejournal.com]

Oh, tell us more about the harp weekend! *bounce*

Harp weekend

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd quite like to know, too. It was my idea, and it's happening at my house (and how I get 12 people in there is going to be fun!)
I've got logistics and feeding covered, but "the usual 'beginning the harp for people who have had their harps for awhile now' workshop" isn't "usual" to me. And yes, I've had mine over a year.

Re: Harp weekend

[telynor.livejournal.com]

How much prior information do you want about workshops?

I have the basic 'begin the harp' workshop kinda memorised by this point, and I will be teaching early tunes to go along with that.

I am also very comfortable teaching basic improvisation, accompanying singers, interpreting single line melody onto the harp, and fixed hand techniques and welsh bardic school ornaments, which are real live historical techniquest. I have outlines for most of these in my head and some of them on paper. Worry not. :)

Re: Harp weekend

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Well I'm not worried, I just trust you to figure out how good/bad I am and teach me what I'm capable of learning. But one of our attendees has asked "Have we got her stated aims and so on? lesson plan etc." and I went "huh?"

At present we have Gillian and Kethry arriving Friday night, then probably raiding Sainsburys for more food etc. Paul will be travelling Friday and probably picking up Su and her harp from Stevenage on the way.

Mel and Saf I'd guess probably Friday night, depending on whether you're going to be there or not. They'll bring the entire family's harps with them - oh except for Mel's harp, which is still in my lounge and still missing a string (keeps breaking). I must get that fixed... or maybe leave it till Friday and get you to do it in ten seconds flat. I suspect a little knowledge might help a lot.

Shirley works Sat morning, will be with us by 3pm Saturday afternoon.

Mel's older two girls will be delivered by Gareth Saturday evening, having spent the afternoon at stage school.

So you may end up running the basic beginners workshop twice, the second lot being Saturday evening or even Sunday. I dunno if that works?

And of course Saturday night food is Gillian playing games. She's always wanted to cook a real Georgian breakfast. So we're getting one for Saturday dinner :)

Re: Harp weekend

[telynor.livejournal.com]

My current plan is to arrive Friday night, depending on transport and whatsis. And, er, I guess if people want a syllabus ahead of time I'll spend some time on that as soon as I get a minute, which would be Friday of this week. I don't want to provide a complete outline, because it's nice to have a *few* surprises, but expect to see that 'basic' thing repeated more than once (I don't mind doing this; it helps me understand where everybody is with the harp).

Other things I can teach:

Singing with the harp
How do you play with dance instruments
Storytelling with the harp
Basic music theory from the harp

Not totally harp related:

Ballad extraction
Pulling music out of thin air
Songwriting workshops

I am happy to give overviews of any of these topics, though we probably cannot cover them all in a single weekend. I will happily bring along notes and exercise ideas for every single one of these topics, and we can assess interest and make some choices once we get everyone together. Alternatively, I could pick my three favourites. ;-)

Re: Harp weekend

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

"depending on transport and whatsis" - I'll email you a map of how to find my place, shall I? I assume you're driving.

I'd love to learn storytelling with the harp, myself. Others may find the basic music theory of more use.

In fact, I'll email a list of who's at what stage, shall I? In so far as I know myself, of course! Probably best not doing that sort of thing (and my address and all) in a public forum....

Re: Harp weekend

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Hmmm....

Transport.

Er, I don't actually own a car. How's, um, the train situation? *8-)

Re: Harp weekend

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

No car? Oh.

Biggleswade is on the Kings Cross line. There are trains. Not as many as stop at, say, Hitchin, or Stevenage, but there are trains. And we're theoretically walking distance from the station, but you're better off phoning for someone to come and pick you up, the route's a bit tricky.

You're not seriously going to transport a harp on a train???

where are you coming from? Somewhere in south London, isn't it? I wonder if you're en-route for Paul to pick you up? Or Gillian?

Re: Harp weekend

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I transport harps on trains all the time. I actually have a coworker who lives in Biggleswade, I think, so I can ask her about trains from King's X.

I will be transporting at least two harps and possibly three. I live in Southeast London and would welcome a ride from someone with car enough to transport me and all those instruments.

Let's plan on an informal bardic circle on Saturday night, too, maybe even in our pajamas, just so we can all chill out and have some fun! Harping not required-- stories, singing, guitars, whatever. :)

Re: Harp weekend

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Emailed re possible lift options....

Saturday night sounds like fun! I'm not sure what other instruments we own/play between us - I can find a few penny whistles, a bodran, and there's an electronic keyboard in the loft. Story-telling, though... yes. Will pull out story-ball. And if Gareth is present, he's a master story-teller.

Chill out? Well, I've got the important bit. Went mead-shopping at the weekend :)

What do you drink? We'll have mead and wine, and the malts are in the cupboard - cider? Beer?

Re: Harp weekend

[telynor.livejournal.com]

OK, this is where I look like SuperWimp.... I have been known to taste mead, sometimes cider, and people at WorldCon found one pale ale that I liked--

--but the answer to "What do you drink?" is nearly always, "Diet Coke...."

Re: Harp weekend

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I buy my Diet Coke by the 4-litre pack. You'll be fine.

The Far Isles knows coffee as "brown bean juice", and Diet Coke as "Strongoak Spring Water".

[aunty_marion]

Jan Johnson at the archery club (from whom I also buy honey and jewellery...) has/had a knitting machine. I know I asked her a while back because someone (you? can't remember) was asking about Doctor Who scarves, and she said she wasn't sure she still had the ribbing attachment for those. She used to knit Fair Isle sweaters on it, though. I can send you her (well, her husband's) emails address if you want to try asking her.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Sure. I'm thinking of getting on the guild of machine knitters newsletter or something as well, although I worry that if I go to that as a resource what people are going to tell me will boil down to, "You need a new knitting machine."

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"I think there'd be less intrusive chatting if these things [SWiGGLes] were held more often, say, once a month."

There might. On the other hand, since fewer people could get to them that frequently I suspect it would be about the same because people still wouldn't see each other for several months. We used to have the monthly WiGGLes in London, and it got so that very few people were getting there (OK, getting to central London after work is even worse than getting to north London on a Saturday, but by the time we stopped them it was down to only a few regulars). We just don't have that much free time, especially with transport time and cost, we are too widespread and for many getting there means losing the whole day. I may have one weekend not booked for anything (except shopping and other things I can't do during the week) in December...

And to be honest if it was nothing but music I suspect that quite a number wouldn't come that frequently, because the social aspect is just as important, if not more so, to a lot of the filkers. I wouldn't have been at this last one at all if I hadn't promised someone that I would be there for musically unrelated reasons (and that's probably true of at least half of them, for me)...

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I'm really not suggesting that filks should be nothing but music. I think it's great to sit and socialise with people, and I enjoy everyone's company. It's just that I also like to listen to music and make music, and when a whole bunch of people have to be shushed so that somebody like Talis can be heard singing (forget me!), it means there are people who would rather be talking and socialising who feel shushed and people who would rather be listening or playing who feel there's too much background talking and noise for them to play or sing.

For me, particularly since I rely on public transporation, coming to a filk meeting is an effort. Coming to a pub meet where I'm not expected to bring an instrument is of course easier, but you see how often I make it to the Tun. I'm more likely to make something like that, however frequently or infrequently it's held, if I think I'll get to listen to and play some good music. I'd never suggest that filks be all about music or try to force people to just play (like the two Americans who showed up at the pre-Worldcon filk and demanded that we all play for them), but if I weren't excited about the musical exchange, I don't know how consistently I can be bothered to show up, particularly with sometimes heavy and unwieldy instruments. That's not a threat; it's just a fact. I guess people who are more interested in talking than playing might say, "Woohoo! There goes that music purist! More time to talk!" but that's really not what I'm saying.

Of course the social aspect is important, and I wouldn't want to lose that. But when you have a small group of people who really want to enjoy the music exchange occupying about 1/3 of a big room where the other 2/3 is occupied by a larger group of people who really want to talk to one another, sometimes those groups clash. And of course I haven't been here very long so have no room to talk about changing things. It's an opinion, and it's my opinion, and I like it, so I'm going to pet it and feed it on juicy live mice. ;-)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"if I weren't excited about the musical exchange, I don't know how consistently I can be bothered to show up"

That's how I feel, except about the social exchange *g*. In fact, I can take what you said and pretty much invert it, and neither of us is at an extreme. (Actually, I have no idea how often you get to the 'Tun except that the one time I have gone in the last couple of years -- this last one -- you weren't there; I can't get there sensibly unless I have that day and the following day off work; I also dislike smoke and crowds.)

One thing I found was that the "music interruptions" seemed rather abrupt and rude. It wasn't a polite "OK, could we have some music now?" and letting conversations finish (or go elsewhere) but just someone started and everyone else was expected to shut up (usually with large quantities of 'ssssshhh'). I suspect that's why some people didn't...

Live mice? Ick. But dead ones are even more ick.

(Incidentally, I believe in knitting machines even less than I believe in sewing machines. Which, since faith is a large part of how machines work, means that you don't want me near one *g*...)

[telynor.livejournal.com]

"One thing I found was that the "music interruptions" seemed rather abrupt and rude."

I don't think this was really due to the players. Someone would tentatively start playing something, frankly worried that they'd disrupt the conversations, and others who wanted to listen wouldn't be able to hear them, so they'd shush folks. It might have sounded abrupt and rude if you were standing across the room, but, I dunno. I don't think it was rude when callylevy came over and asked to hear the dulcimer and I started playing something and then somehow, whether by shushing or by people just hearing some music happening, conversation lulled.

Is there a polite way to tell a whole room full of people that you would like them to be a little quieter for a few minutes so others can hear a song? I don't think anything could have been heard in that room by everyone below a shout-- so I imagine the alternative, someone actually shouting out that music would like to happen now and could people please think of being slightly quieter or taking conversation somewhere else, would have sounded even more rude.

(Note that I do adore you and that unlike many Americans I believe that people can disagree with one another and still be friends.)

As for knitting machines, it's actually much easier to demonstrate how knitting works on a machine than with two needles. However, since I think this particular faith is born more of stubbornness than anything else, I'll take your warning under advisement. ;-)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Oops, I thought I put in ther that it was the other people rather than the players. And no, it wasn't anywhere near fortissimo loud (if it had been I would have left), when people did start they could certainly be heard over the other side of the circle (because I /was/ at the opposite side from where most of the quiter musicians were) and when people did say "someone's starting" or whatever it was heard. What there wasn't was a chance to actually finish what you were saying before people started with the 'shhhhh' thing.

A related problem was that some people /were/ just noodling and not intending to start anything, and then other people tried to quieten the room and suddenly the person was put on the spot. That happened several times (to you at least once). That doesn't help with the uncertainty of wondering whether a person is actually starting or not.

In general, when people hear music starting, they will stop talking (not all of them, but I think most). I think they did with your dulcimer (some of us explicitly wanted to hear it because you'd talked about it here, and that made a 'core' of people who noticed it). With some other things I think they thought it was just 'noodling' and not actually anything starting.

It could be flagged quite literally visually, with a flag that is held up when someone wants to perform, and then allow for people noticing it and closing down their conversations. Similar to (although opposite in sense) the idea of having visual signs of when a set is coming to an end.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I think some people are really tentative about playing, even in front of their friends, and they "noodle" both to get their hands warmed up and because they hope people will ask them to play if they see them noodling. I'm almost never just idly playing with an instrument; I'm checking tuning, deciding what I'd like to play later, warming up my hands for something I plan to do later. And while I don't necessarily need an invitation and a perfectly quiet room already, I think some people, particularly those who aren't the most confident of performers, -do- need that. I nearly always assume that noodling on an instrument indiates a willingness, if not a burning desire, to play something, and I often ask when I see that happening, "Hey, so-and-so, would you like to play something?" :) I know that sometimes this kind of behaviour has been interpreted as 'bullying' people into singing, so I am trying to think more before I ask, see what I really think they are doing first.

As for people hushing when I play, I'm less bothered than you might think from the discussion here. Honestly, my frustration comes from not always being able to hear other people play, not from people not being able to hear me. I'm used to playing in crowded places: if I want people to hear me, people are going to hear me. But it was losing the first several lines of "Jesus' Brother Bob," the first song I'd ever heard Corwin sing in public really, and hearing Mike play an introduction several times, looking as if he really wondered whether anybody was listening at all, and J commenting to me later that he missed the whole first verse of "Cream Cake Girl" because he didn't realise it was happening-- and the TF even introduced the song pretty obviously before she began playing.

A visual flag might be an intersting idea.....does this mean we need to come up with some sort of emblem? No, nevermind. Let's not go there. Really. ;)

[hrrunka]

"OK, could we have some music now?"

I guess maybe that might have helped, but it would have had to have been bellowed fortissimo because the gathering was big (and loud), and that might have seemed even more rude than the shushing.

I dunno... Seems to me, in times past folk would have paused to listen without needing to be asked? Or have I spilled rose-tint on my specs?

[telynor.livejournal.com]

"I guess maybe that might have helped, but it would have had to have been bellowed fortissimo because the gathering was big (and loud), and that might have seemed even more rude than the shushing."

I thought the same thing. I'm beginning to wonder if part of it isn't what folks on filk_uk are saying: is it really that there were just a whole lot of people there?

[hrrunka]

I think the relatively large number of people present was part of it, and the somewhat less than pleasant conditions outside was another part of it.

[gingicat]

MASSFILC meetings tend to run as follows: early afternoon for music, late afternoon for business meeting, then dinner and social time followed by more music. It works really well, but of course Lois and Gary and Spencer have been herding people for years, and it does take an active herder to keep this schedule on track.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Well, we don't have 'business' as such (we aren't a club and don't have anyone "in charge", and maybe that's part of the problem with the size we are now), and I think we would need to reverse the order of events (singing tends to start once there is a critical mass, often later in the afternoon), but possibly having more organised times would be better. I think it would need to be tried and is worth trying...

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

With less fiddling than last time but more than I really want to do, the machine ...

Gwen, if you ever get a sewing machine to fiddle, we'll have to kill you right then and there to prevent the world from exploding by envy.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I had a sewing machine, but I just could never figure out how to sew. I'm just not talented like that. I left it at autographedcat's house and I believe it ended up Freecycled. It was a really nice sewing machine, too.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

I don't think they've got one of those at The House On The Rock (http://www.thehouseontherock.com/), but it would fit in there perfectly if someone could only make a fiddling sewing machine.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Hee!

Do I recall correctly that this is one of the places featured in American Gods? I have a very bad memory for books, so I could be wrong, but it feels about right.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it, but yes, apparently it is. There are photos of the place here (http://www.pbase.com/ysic/the_house_on_the_rock) and someone mentions the book.

It's one of our weird Wisconsin attractions. I saw the place before I moved to Wisconsin, when I lived in Chicago and was visiting Wisconsin often on combined job-search and tourism trips, and I didn't know anything about the place before my visit. It's...amazingly bizarre. There are lots of weird animatronic bands and automated musical instruments (some fake, but some real?)

[rarkrarkrark.livejournal.com]

ah nostalgia...

I grew up with a knitting machine in the house. Three of them, in fact. One had a punch card sort of thing that one could use to knit patterns in a differerent colour into the piece. I found myself explaining this to one of my EE-student friends last week...

I had another one that I got for my sixth birthday, a little kid's one. The instructions were entirely in japanese (I believe the instructions for my mother's three were also entirely in japanese. Perhaps not shocking, given that that's where they were procured) but the pictures and memory were enough to get it working. I gave it away seven years ago to a homeschooling family who wanted to learn about both the knitting machine and japanese and weaving on my old little loom that I also gave them.

I remember the fussiness of picking up the dropped stitches -- even without anything special you can purposely ravel a vertical row of stitches and then redo them 'backwards' (knit v purl) to create designs. My mother used to do the raveling and then set me to redoing it with the little tool, ostensibly due to my smaller hands.

I don't currently machine knit, largely due to lack of machine. With the exception of a very small and unimpressive unit I saw for sale awhile back, I haven't seen any recently. C and I would like one, too. (we've got a source of raw wool, I spin like it's a nervous tic, and neither of us has the patience for handknitting so my yarn tends to just hang out in storage forever)

[callibr8]

Hmm, maybe we could arrange some trades of handspun yarn for handknitted ... whatevers?? [hopeful look]

[rarkrarkrark.livejournal.com]

I'd take you up on that, but you're on the other side of the country (and I've been holding on to several balls of yarn that ought to be west coast bound for years. For some reason I find mailing packages to be a very difficult process...)

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I'm getting a little frustrated with this one, as swatch after swatch requires the same fiddling and messing about in order to get to that zhoop-zhoop-you're-knitting stage. Currently looking around for resources that don't cost money in hopes I can get some advice from somebody on how to make it work for me.

[rarkrarkrark.livejournal.com]

As I recall, the threading (yarning? setup? whatever) is definitely the touchiest bit of all, and a very tiny delta will completely hose the thing. But it sounds like you're already paying careful attention to the manual's instructions on that. Also, the needles have to be put in a different place while casting on vs during actual knitting. I *think* that on my little machine that was all the way out (with yarn set up and down between them) and all the little flippy bits flipped back (much more important than one might guess) and then the first pass of the carriage sets them to the usual knitting place (a bit farther back than halfway) but I could be wrong about that and even if I'm right your machine might be different anyway. Beyond that I'm no help. (though cleaning and oiling seems like a good idea to me anyway)

If you find yourself utterly without resources on this bug me and I'll see if I can get my mom to help via email. She's nutty and I try to avoid her, but she'd be harmless to you and possibly helpful.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

If Colin is right, and it needs some weight to hold the body of the knitting onto the needles, then you can buy little square weights with "claws" on them which you hang off the first couple of rows to give it that weight.

My mum is a maddened machine knitter. We all wear lots of machine knitted stuff :-)

She's on LJ as maggiegriff, but doesn't post, just reads. Her responses won't be fast, she only checks email once or twice a week, but I bet she'd be happy to help, and she really does a LOT of machine knitting.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I've talked to some people on a mailing list just for this brand of knitting machine, and they all seem to think I probably need something called a "sponge bar," so I'm going off in search of one of those. One of the needles is bent and one is missing, so I'm going to take care of that this week, as well.

There are four claw weights that came with the machine, but they only help after you have a few rows already knitted; the problems I'm having are mostly right after cast-on and the transition from casting on to knitting.

But definitely, I'd love to talk to your mum about machine knitting, so I'll add her to my friends list. :)

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

I have the cheap "Ultimate Sweater Machine" which I don't use that often, and haven't used at all lately because it hasn't been located and unpacked yet! I don't bother to do anything fancy with it, but it's great for churning out baby afghans, charity afghans, and scarves in a mindless way.