My Sleeveless Shell is Done

It is done! I finished sewing in all the ends this morning. Since it is actually wearable, I am probably being over critical by saying I am not super happy with it. But if my whole point was to learn something in the making of it -- learn I did.

I learned a lot about converting a pattern from a hand pattern to a machine. The pattern gave a gauge that was for width of 17 stitches = 4 inches; but it did not give the number of rows per inch. It was a pattern that expected you to measure as you go. Well on a machine, when your sweater is stretched out with weights, it is rather hard to measure. My fall back was the swatch that I did. I measured the number of rows and then tried to determine how many rows I needed to have in order to get a good length. I am guessing my math was off or my knitting on the sweater was different from the swatch for I am about 3 inches short in length. Most of that length should be in the "bodice". It feels rather snug in the arm area. When looking at my picture and at the picture with the pattern, you can see that my neckline is higher and that there is not as much length in the straps. The lesson learned here for me: Be selective with the pattern. Make sure that it has everything you need to convert easily to machine knitting -- rows included.

I had trouble with the yarn. It is not very resilient when you have to pull out a row and re-knit it. The 8 plies come apart easily and when re-knit they look slightly different. I think that if I had picked a solid color, it would have been more apparent so I am glad I went with a variegated yarn. While it is soft and silky feeling, I think that it will get a lot of pulls in it.

The cable really looks nice and neat, it turned out much better than I hoped. I actually changed the cable to twist every 10 rows as opposed to 12 rows -- but that was a total accident. I miscounted on the number of rows when I did the first cross over and I didn't want to go back and pull it out because of the yarn plies coming apart.

Well, I might try this pattern again as I do like the sweater. However, I think that I will try it with a wool blend and stay away from the bamboo cotton blend. Perhaps I will try this pattern by hand where I can measure it the way the pattern is written.

Or maybe I will just stick to socks.

Mitten and Sweater Update

I have been so busy the last week or so, that I really did not do too much knitting until yesterday. As you can see, my mitten is progressing -- albeit slowly. I finally have transitioned to the second green color. There is only about four more rows until I get to the second pink shade. I am really looking forward to how the transition will look.  I first blogged about these mittens when I got the book more than 3 months ago. I know this sounds strange to say in July, but I am beginning to wonder if I can get these done by winter!

I don't have a picture to show you yet, but I am so close to being done on the sweater that I knit on my Bond. I have completed the back and front, I connected the shoulders and hand knitted the rolled neckline and I am working on knitting the rolled edging on the arm holes.  As soon as I have that done, it I can sew up the seams, tuck in the yarn ends, and wear! -- Oh, and of course, take a picture or two to post here for you to see.

Happy knitting!

Knitting updates and lessons learned

First the lace project.  As you can see I have made a little progress.

This now represents about 100 rows of knitting. However, most of them were frogged. Thankfully, I started using life lines or there would be even fewer remaining representatives.  

LESSON LEARNED: This lace has one row of pattern (the even numbered rows) , then one row of all purl stitches (odd numbered rows). I was putting the life line in every 4th row: 4, 8, 12, and 16 but with all of the  jigs and jogs created by the various stitches, when I had to follow a life line back, I had a real problem getting all of the stitches back on my needle. So then I had the idea of putting the life line through the purl stitches. This works much better! Now I put the life lines through rows 1, 5, 9, and 13.

My bamboo sweater is about half done -- the easy half! The back is complete. It only took about 3 hours to knit on my Bond USM. 

The Bamboozle yarn is soft and smooth and I imagine that it will be very comfortable to wear. But it had some issues with knitting on the machine. I had a hard time getting an e-wrap closed hem on it because as I wrapped the yarn around the needles, it took the twist out of it and the 8 ply yarn split up. I modified my method and used waste yarn at the bottom of the sweater. When I was done with the entire sweater back, I rehung the bottom of the sweater and back stitched an edge before removing the weighted hem and waste yarn. I think that it turned out pretty good for an "on-the-fly" change.

Since I am estimating that the cable may add as much as 2 extra hours of time to the front of the sweater, I am going to wait until next weekend to knit the front. I know that I won't have time to do the front of the sweater in one sitting and I don't want to leave it (pardon the pun) "hanging" for a week. I know that I could leave it by taking the weight off of it, but since my Bond is on the dining room table, I would be afraid that it would get bumped or knocked and will fall off of the needles.

Bond Ultimate Sweater Machine Needle Positions

Although I have only been using this machine for a short while, I feel really comfortable with it and as I have always been mechanically inclined, I understand how it works. As a manager in my work, I often teach new employees how to perform tasks so I am also comfortable in teaching. So this is for my new friend who also bought a Bond Ultimate Sweater Machine and needs a little help understanding needle positions. The best way to do this is with pictures.

This is the non-working position.

The non-working position is for needles that are not being used in the pattern or at least not being used in the present part of the pattern. The nub at the back of the needle is all the way back to the rear of the knitting bed.

Working position.

The working position is where the tip of the needle is at the foremost edge of the bed.

Forward working position.

You can tell the forward working position because the latch of the needle when open is right at the forward edge of the knitting bed. When using the "yellow card" the needles will line up in this position. You must have the needle latches OPEN at this position when you begin to knit -- otherwise you might have all your knitting land on the floor.

Holding position

When the needles are as far forward as possible, this is holding position. Any yarn on these needles will not knit when the carriage is passed across the knitting bed.

Sweater Adventure

As I said in one of my earlier posts, " Using the pattern book would have been a logical way of learning how to use the [Bond] machine, -- but I have never been too logical." So with little practice behind me, I have jumped right in to sweater production.

First sweater attempt -- this is the back. The yellow yarn is
waste yarn and is not part of the project.

I decided that the best thing to do would be to make a "practice sweater". So I dragged out some old acrylic yarn that I did not like to knit or crochet with anymore and decided to make myself a sweater. I figured if it looked lousy it could just be one I wore to work in the yard.

Four hours later, I pulled the back of the sweater off of the knitting machine and thought, "this looks a little big. . ."

Lesson Learned:

Read the directions CAREFULLY. The yarn called for in the pattern was "light worsted" I missed the word light and used worsted weight. A sweater size 42 turned into a 54. Hmmmmm.

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Un-raveling the yarn was rather fun. Normally taking apart a project would leave me a weeping mess; but the fact that it took me only four hours to knit the back of a sweater big enough for a 300 pound linebacker, gave me the ability to rip away! As I was ripping out all the stitches, it occurred to me that maybe I should make a smaller sweater -- something more along the lines of what a child would wear. Thank the good LORD for making little great-nephews! He's going to get a sweater whether he likes it or not. But I still had the "light worsted vs worsted weight" issue. 

Lesson Learned:

The math you learned in 5th grade still works today. If the light worsted  is 17 stitches to 4 inches, and the worsted weight that I used is 15 stitches to 4 inches, then to get the same size sweater, I just take the number of stitches, divide by 17 and multiply by 15.  So for the cast on, the pattern called for 62 stitches. Sixty-two divided by 17 and multiplied by 15 is 54.706. That is almost 55, but I was pretty sure I needed an even number of stitches, so I used 56. For what ever reason, the gauge called for 23 rows and I was getting that with the worsted weight; I think that has more to do with the keyplates than the size of the yarn.

Notice again, my interesting weights.

I love the colors that I used. I think it is really "manly" looking. It will be cute on a little boy. (I certainly hope it is wearable).  Now I am ready to steam the back to remove the curl and then it is on to the front of the sweater! Wish me luck!

Pinned out for steaming -- I need to buy some
blocking wires.