I Do Love the Holidays

I do love the holidays but it seems like I get so overwhelmed with all the things that have to be done. It's always nice to get together with family, but it seems like my family invariably gets into little spats & catty comments, & I dread it. I don't know how to combat this so I just ignore it. Certain people seem to save up complaints just so they can bring them up when the whole family is together & then wait to see who picks which side. I have thought about not inviting the main culprits but when I tried that they showed up anyway. Just have to wait & see what happens this year. 

 

I have been selling a lot of little girl longies this year. I  like to put ruffles on the bottoms. The baby girls look so cute in them. Until I started the ruffles I was selling more to boys than to girls. Lots of blues & greens. Now I am getting tons of girl orders with lots of cute ruffles. Pinks & yellows etc. 

 

   

I have found that when I do the ruffles it works out better to do a tighter leg at the ankle as it makes the ruffle stand out more. I make the leg tighter like a legging. These are looser & I didn't think that the ruffle stood out enough. They have turned out to be really popular & are selling very well. I just wish more moms would take the time to send me pictures. I don't get half as many pictures as I would like. :)

 

 

SweaterMaker Easy Charting Program

One of my readers sent me a link to an awesome program called "SweaterMaker' that will run on all versions of windows. This program is very inexpensive compared to DAK & doesn't have the issues that 'Knitware" does. I haven't tried it, but she tells me that it works great & that you can print your patterns out too. It is a charting program that does all the math for you, similar to the two other programs.

 

http://www.seedlingsoftware.com/sweatermaker.htm

 

 

 

Is it Winter Already???

Everyone is getting out their coats & hats. The weather is getting colder, so...what do we knit besides scarves?? Warm Wooly Socks!! I've been checking with my yarn vendor to see what there is that is new for some nice warm socks. I think that I have narrowed it down to 4 colorways that I like the best. I am going to get my sock knitting machine out of the closet & lube her real good & then get to work on some socks for everyone. This is 75% merino wool & 25% nylon & does make SUPER socks. Here are the colors that I am looking at...

 

I haven't made socks for a while. The socks I make seem to last forever. When they do get little holes(or even bigger holes)I darn them rather than throw them out. It isn't unusual for me to have a pair of socks that have 4-5 different colors of yarn mending them. I can never seem to find the right color when I am in the mood to mend socks. I wasn't very good at mending them so I watched a few videos on YouTube & picked the way that I like the best. Now I use a in & out method that looks like weaving. It works very well & the socks are as good as new, altho they may not be as beautiful as they once were.

 

Does anyone know where Carol Wulster is?? I had her mitten & hat wizards before I replaced my hard drive, but have been unable to get in touch with her. She is the very talented lady that brought us the mitten wizard, hat wizard, sweater wizard sock wizard & other beautiful patterns. I think she may be the one that also came up with the 'buttonhole spacer' a few years ago but am not sure of that one. My computer crashed & I replaced the hard drive but I was only able to get the mitten wizard off of the old drive. I used the wizards all the time & really miss them. I wanted to see if I could get hold of her & redownload them. I could kick myself for not burning them to disc. Her store on Ravelry is still there but there is no contact information & nothing for sale. I am somewhat worried now that she may be ill or some other event has waylaid her. If anyone has an info about her I would much appreciate hearing from them.

 

 

 

 

OFF TOPIC INTERNET SAFETY

This is going to be a post about internet safety.

 

I have two Google acc'ts. I had lost the password for one of them. I tried every password that I have ever used & they were all wrong. Finally I gave up & tried to get in touch with Google. I searched for 'contact google' & my search turned up lots of results. I picked the one with the phone number on top. I called Google & talked to a very helpful young man with a foreign accent. We talked for several minutes about the problem. He told me that 'Google had suspended my acc't' & that for '$199 he could' fix it for me. This kid had somehow gotten on my computer & was showing me all the illegal emails that had been sent from my acc't. I knew that Google did not do that & quickly pulled the plug on my computer.The url had google in the addy & I thought at first that it was a legitimate site for Google, but when he started asking for money I disconnected.

 

 

 Shortly after that I Googled 'Mitten Wizard' to see if I could get another copy of it as I have a new hard drive & the program did not transfer. My search turned up a link to download the program. Somehow it just didn't look right to me so I didn't download it, Thank God. I checked some of the other links & was able to find it on Ravelry, but the program is not available. The internet is a very dangerous place & we must be on guard against all kinds of threats. I think we all feel somewhat safe browsing the internet as we are in our own homes. So many things we take at face value because of that, but you just can't anymore. The internet is a very dangerous place & becoming more so everyday.

 

 

Children's Sweaters

Here are some sweaters that are going to the Clothing Bank here in town. Not fancy but warm & comfy. All are 'grafted neck' & 'grafted sleeves' to make them easy to make.

 

 

This one is made from Red Heart Hokey Pokey. I bought it several years ago to make small crochet bags as gifts. I still have mine & use it in the summer. I only had 3 skeins of this yarn  so was pretty limited with what I could make. This is a size 12 months. I think I would have liked it better if I had alternated 2 rows of the gold with the green & blue. I think it would have made the colors show up better. You can't tell in the pictures, but there are 4 rows of blue followed by green.

 

 

This is a size 4 & is made from Red Heart Soft Baby. I have tons of this yarn that I bought to make baby sweaters for gifts & for charity. This sweater is too big for my mannequin. It is a light pink & light green. Pastels for babies. I will be making more of these before I am through.

 

 

This is another sweater for the clothing bank. It is a size 6. I was glad to have enough to make a little larger size. This yarn is Red Heart Sport. I bought this yarn for Christmas Stockings for gifts. I made tons of them in the green, yellow, orange & red & sent them off to the kids in the family.

 

I esp. like this sweater. I had several skeins of green & only one skein of red & one of orange. I wanted to make the biggest sweater that I could so I added up the weight of the skeins & asked 'Knitware' if I had enough for a size 6. The pattern is 12 rows so I only needed 1/6 of the yarn for each color of narrow stripe. I needed 2/3 of the green for the thicker stripes. 'Kniware' told me that I had enough-but only barely. Here is what I had leftover.

 

 

 

For the past several months I have been getting all sorts of requests for my physical location. I have had at least a dozen. Most of them are anonymous, but some aren't. I do not give out too much personal information to anyone that I don't know. I hope that I haven't hurt anyone feelings but you never know who is on the other end of the emails. I once received an email of a man's private parts after giving out my email addy to someone that I had talked to online but didn't really know. YUCK!! :)

 

 

Embellish the Neckline a Little

Today I am going to talk about embellishing the neckline a little bit. This is really an easy addition to your pullover, & VERY simple + adds a little pizazz to the look.

 

 

This is a very easy pullover with grafted neckline & sleeves. I don't have it sewn up yet but will finish it up today. It is for the Clothing Bank here in town. One of the ladies that volunteers there said there is a great need for children's jackets & sweaters & hats so I decided to make them some. I also thought that this would be a good time to say a little about necklines.

 

 There are lots of things that you can do to spice up the neckline. Mary Anne Oger(I hope I spelled that right) has a great book out called the "Necks Best Thing". She has lots of great necklines for the MKer.

 

 

This picture is of the neckline. It isn't as easy to see as I had hoped it would be. There is a ridge around the neck that makes it stand out some as opposed to the plain neckline. To make this neckline you need to:

 

1.Rehang the neckline stitches with the right side of the knit  facing you on the KM.

 

2. Knit one row straight across with the main bed carriage.

 

3.After that, transfer your stitches for the rib that you are using.

 

4. Knit the rib(this is the grafted neckband).

 

5. After the rib is knitted you want to take the neckline off with the garter bar or waste yarn.

 

6. Turn the neckline around & rehang it with the wrong side facing you.

 

7. You are going to bind off the neckline by rehanging the first row of the neckline stitches. You will have 2 stitches on each needle.

 

8. Bind off the neck over 2 gate pegs loosely.

 

If you want you can knit more than just the one row for the ridge. Sometimes I do 2 rows for a more pronounced ridge. Just a little something to add interest!!

 

PQ 1500s 

As you know, I bought a Brother PQ 1500s earlier this year & I just love it. It is a straight stitching machine that is advertised as a quilting machine. I was looking for a bias binder foot to fit on my machines to attaché bias tape. I bought 2 binder foots(feet??) from Brother that are made for the PRW 420 but they didn't work very well.

 

 

For the PRW 420 & 1/4" tape.

Also for the PRW 420 For 1/2" tape.

 

Neither of these worked very well. In the demonstrations they show the feet work perfectly but in actual practice not so well.

 

I saw this foot that is for an industrial machine from SailRite. 

I bought this foot & attached it to my PQ machine, which is a semi-industrial machine & it worked even better than I had hoped. It was exactly what I was looking for.

 

Here it is on my machine. You can't see it but I have taped a piece address label on the bed of the machine. The foot is what is called a 'swing away' foot & it chipped the bed of the machine where it slides  around to working or non working status. I thought with a little bit of tape that would cushion the bed & it wouldn't chip any more than it is. So far it is working.

 

 

 

My DD says that I am neurotic to get so upset over a couple of little dings. I like to keep my things looking nice & it really upsets me when something like this happens. I am crazy?? Maybe!!. My first impulse was to throw myself on the floor & scream & kick, but managed to avoid doing that. But I am not happy about it. :(

 



Shaped Necklines when Knitting with G-Carraige, Fairisle or other Stitch Patterns

When knitting pattern stitches with the G-Carriage it is possible to have a shaped neckline. It is an alternative to the cut & sew neckline. It makes a beautiful neckline & isn't all that hard to do, but a bit time consuming. (Some mker's try knitting back the out of work needles with ravel cord but that never worked for me)

 

1. When you get to the neckline while knitting the front of your garment you want to scrape off the complete front with your main bed carriage. You will be doing the neckline one side at a time.  

 

2. Then rehang the left side back on the machine keeping in mind that you have to return the stitches to the original needles in order to keep your pattern knitting correctly. If you scraped off stitches for the shoulder you do want to rehang those stitches. Do not rehang the stitches from the neckline on the right side, or the center stitches. I hang the right side on the gate pegs so that the weight is not pulling on the other side.

 

3. My pattern says to bind off 1 stitch each row at the edge of the neckline. Since we are doing the left side first that would be needles on the left side only. Instead of doing that I am going to drop a stitch at the neckline for each bound off stitch each row, & use a double eye needle to knit them off & run contrasting yarn through that stitch.  Knit in pattern with GC or whatever.

Those stitches will not unravel because they are on waste yarn & have the extra yarn drawn through them.

 

4. My pattern then says to knit 12 rows on the remaining stitches. Let the G-Carriage knit those rows in pattern. Scrape off stitches after knitting your 12 rows. 

 

5. Now rehang the stitches for the right side of the neck omitting the center neckline stitches. Knit as for left side reversing the shaping.  

 

6. The pattern will tell you to knit the 12 rows even. These rows will be the side of the neckline that go straight up without any shaping. Scrap off.

 

7. Now we have both sides of the neckline stitches almost finished. Rehang the stitches from the neckline on the appropriate needles & then hang the inside edge of the neckline stitches on the needles keeping in mind how big you want your neckband. Knit one row across these stitches in plain knitting. Scrap off.

 

8. Attach front & back at one shoulder & rehang the neckline on the machine, the back of the sweater neckline too, including the rows that were knitted even & the stitches that were scrapped off on waste yarn. Start the rib knitting for the double neckband. You might have to knit through by hand the first row. After that the GC can take over or knit the rib with  main carriage & ribber carriage.

 

9. Once you have knitted the appropriate number of rows you can rehang the first neckband stitches so that you have 2 stitches on each needle, & bind off over 2 gate pegs.

 

  You now have a beautifully  shaped neckline & can proceed with attaching the sleeves & sewing up. Remove the waste yarn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Back to Kniting Diaper Covers

Back to knitting diaper covers again. Don't have any pictures right now.

 

I managed to get the negative feedback removed. Doubt I'll ever see my carriage. I did post a 'Beware' of this person on Facebook & the MK list. Ileen Levy said she may have tried to pull the same scam on her a couple of years ago. For those of you that don't know Ileen, she has a brick & mortar store as well as selling online.

 

It seems like lately everyone is asking for discounts on the covers. I know times are hard for families with small children. I am older & financially secure now but I haven't forgotten what it is like to have little kids at home & not enough money for clothes, food etc. I remember pinching pennies & making do. I still have stay on a budget. I try to give the younger parents a break whenever I can but with the cost of the yarn & the escalating costs of shipping, it isn't easy. I haven't raise my prices since before the recession. Although I am able to buy my supplies wholesale I have to buy a bag at a time of each color I want. I can't buy just enough for one cover. & even wholesale, they are not cheap by any means.

 

I decided to change the template for my blog. Thought I would go pink for awhile. :)

 

 

 

 



My Diaper Covers

I make my diaper covers in 5 sizes; Newborn, 6 month, 12 month, 2T, & 4T. Recently I was asked by a mom to make a preemie/small baby size in the pullon style. I always recommend the pullons for smaller babies because of the way it fits. & I think they look cuter on smaller babies than the shorties do, although I make a lot of shorties for smaller babies too.

 

Pullon

 

 

as opposed to the shortie on a very tiny baby,

 

 

 

When I first designed my pullons I didn't think they would sell very well because I just didn't think that moms would be interested in them, but I loved them so tried to promote them on my Hyena Cart Store & Ebay.  I had seen some similar covers online & they didn't seem to sell well either. I wanted to make mine with good coverage around the legs as the shortie legs were so loose & seem to flap around. My pullons have proven to be a big seller & I am adding new colors all the time.

 

 

It turns out that my pullons sell almost as well as my shorties, which are by far my biggest selling item. Several moms have asked for a pullon with long legs for winter. I think that I will make the legs ribbed so that they will hug the baby.

 

Ebay forced me to give the crazy Ebayer her money back even though she lied about everything. I don't have the ribbed transfer carriage back yet. I imagine it will be in pieces when it shows up, if it even does. I didn't wait until I received it back before I refunded her. I know I should have but I wanted to get rid of her once & for all. She actually wanted me to pay her for sending it back to me. I decided to do some investigating about this woman. It turns out she is Lucille Rowels, aka Kazekaknits, & lives in Chicago Il. She is a 55 year old attorney, but not a very good one judging from her feedback. I wonder if she is on any of the MK lists. One other thing, she does not know how to use a rib transfer carriage. LOL

 

The other day I was talking to my neighbor about some of my glass bake ware that has burned on food & grease. I have scrubbed it with cleanser, SOS pads, magic eraser & whatever else I could think of to get it clean, all to no avail. My neighbor, Kathy told me to put toothpaste on the SOS pads & water & it will remove it. I tried it & it does work. In fact, it worked so well that I got my old cookies sheets out & scrubbed them too. It worked for them to0!!

 

Remember our Warriors

 

 

  

Scrappie Finished

 

I have finished my shelter scrappie. This pattern was generated with the Knitware program, of course. I use the program to save myself from having to chart the patterns & to tell me if I have enough yarn to make the garment of my choice. It is easy to use & does a great job once you are used to the fit of the garment that you are making. I have learned a lot of machine knitting techniques over the years & generally finish the garment my own way, rather then the way that the pattern states. Sometime ago I did a post about short rowing the neck (http://machineknittingismylife.blogspot.com/2011/03/short-rowed-neck-with-grafted-neckband.html)(& neckband & grafting it onto the garment rather that binding off stitches & attaching it later. It makes a much nicer band that looks far superior & Also more stretchy than the bound off band.  

 

 

I weighed my swatch & used the program to calculate how much yarn I needed to make the sweater. The program told me that I had enough but I decided that I wanted to make a hat to go with this sweater so looked through my stash for more of this yarn. I know it's out there somewhere but I could not find any. This is the amount of yarn that I had left after I finished the sweater.

 

 I understand the basic principle of how the program is able to do that, by calculating the number of rows & stitches in the swatch & the number of rows & stitches in the garment & dividing those numbers, one into the other. I don't think I could do it myself with any rate of success. LOL. I am grateful to the Janet's of this world that are able to do just that. 

 

& Here is the finished sweater!!

 

I am still dieting but have hit a rough spot. I have lost 42 LBS but it is going much slower than before & is getting much harder to resist the all the goodies out there, but I am still trying.

 

 

 

While selling some of my older knitting things on eBay for a relatively low price compared to the price of other like items I unfortunately attracted the attention of Kazekaknits that left this feedback for me;

Buyer Beware:Item broken when arrived & doesn't work. Seller doesn't do refunds

I do not sell defective merchandise. There is nothing wrong with the carriage as I tested it before I sold it, & in fact sold 2 of them. She sent me 8 emails during the transaction demanding all sorts of ridicules things & I emailed her that I was going to cancel the bid. I knew I should cancel it but gave her the benefit of the doubt. She doesn't know how to use it & this is the result. Beware of the crazies.



Still No Orders

Still no orders so am working on shelter sweaters again. I am enjoying myself relaxing. I have knitted up the front & back of another child's sweater. This is a scrappie (BTW:I know that I am misspelling the word scrappie. When you knit diaper covers they are all shorties, longies, footies, skirties etc.) so thought I would do the front & back in the variegated yarn & the sleeves in another solid color yarn, but I am thinking instead that I will try to get the sleeves out of the same yarn as I didn't like the look of the yellow that I had picked out. I did weight the swatch & it says I have enough. I know that somewhere in my bins I have more of this yarn & am going to search the garage for it tomorrow.

 

 

I am also going to post the pattern for this sweater if someone else is interested in making one. This is a pattern generated by the Knitware Program. If you can match my gauge you can make this. It is a size 2 with a comfortable fit. I added 6 stitches to the neckband. It is hip length & a pullover. It has a doubled neckband, & drop shoulder grafted sleeves that are knit from the shoulder down. The ribbing on the sleeves are transferred from the main bed & knitted directly onto the sleeve. I know that the patterns may say to take the sleeve off the machine & knit the ribbing independently of the sleeve & then sew them on. This is definitely not the best way to do that. Just transfer them to the ribber & knit them, then bind off the stitches with the loop through loop bind off.(you can find a demonstration of the 'loop trough loop bind off' on U Tube by searching for it. Diana Sullivan has made lots of how to videos that really are excellent)  This sweater is being knitted on my SR 860 mid gauge machine. 

 

 

 

  If you right double click on the pattern it will show a larger size. Save it & then print it out & see if it is legible.

I am not sure how to enlarge the pattern to make it easier read. If anyone had a suggestion please email me. I have been trying to enlarge it for the past hour. LOL Will try again tomorrow. Or if you want the pattern emailed contact me.

 

 

 

Where Does the Time Go??

I have been knitting & knitting without much time for anything else. Finally I have a break. I have NO orders right now so am working on my knitting room again. I don't know how it gets cluttered up so fast. I try to keep some order but it always gets away from me.

 

I still have the sewing bug. I am going to try again with the toddler quilts. Maybe I will have better luck this time. Wal-Mart here in town has expanded their store to include a craft section & groceries. I am not crazy about their fabric but I feel I can get some good supplies there. Now that all is quiet around here I am going to see what they have that might make some new toddler quilts. I bought the charm packs for the first ones from the Missouri Star Quilt Co. They were very cute & just right for little kids. If I can't find anything at WM I will reorder from them.

 

Since I found out that I have Macular Degeneration I am cleaning out the things that I don't use or haven't used in a long time. I have a floppy disc drive that I haven't used in years & am going to sell it along with some other things. Sticking it in a box & leaving it there forever is an example of how I hoard things like that. I had it rebuilt maybe 6-7 years ago so it is like new. I am not selling anything I need & as long as I can see to sew & knit I will keep everything that I can still use. I went back to the doctor & he said that I actually did a little better than I did 6 months ago. I am taking eye vitamins & also some drops & I can tell that I can see colors more vividly, but I can also see the tiniest little spot in the center of my vision in my left eye that is blank. It is not interfering with my crafts yet. My right eye is not as affected as my left & I believe that I can continue with my crafts for a long time to come.

 

I knitted a couple of outfits for some new babies as gifts. Here is a picture of Drew in his new hat & cardigan.

 

 

I also made him a blanket but no picture of that yet.

 

Have a Happy Easter!!

 

 

   

Back To My Machine Knitting

I am back to my knitting machine. I have a couple of orders that I am working on but needed a break so decided to knit a shelter sweater just for a change. Sometimes I do get tired of knitting diaper covers but for the most part I am happy to make them. I love all the pictures I get back from mom's showing baby in my covers.

 

Knitting sweaters for the shelter is a great stress reliever for me. Machine knitting can be very relaxing when all goes well. Then, the time it takes me to sew it up is also a relaxing quiet time.

 

This sweater is a size 4 knitted in Red Heart Soft Baby. It is a hand knitting yarn but knits beautifully on the machine if run through wax as you knit.

It is baby pink & green. It has raglan sleeves & a short rowed neckline. Also, will have the grafted neckband. I knitted it on my Mid gauge at tension 4 & ribbed at tension 0.

 

Still no word on the toddler quilts. Hope they find them.

 

 

 

I Just Can't Believe it !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been interrupted by orders so it took me a little bit to get the 2nd toddler quilt finished for my grandson. But I finally did, & sent it off in the mail & sat back to wait for the kids to get them. I did not get a picture of it tho as I was in too much of a hurry & wanted to get it out that day. Well, they never got it!!?? I sent it priority & insured for the $50 that priority mail gives you free. Tracking shows that it got as far as California & then there is just a big void. I contacted the Post Office & filled out the form for missing mail, but it doesn't look good. According to the PO the package may have lost it's label. They think that because there is no logging in or out for the package after the last login in Stockton California. I really put my heart into those little quilts & I can't even tell you what I would like to say to the PO. It is just too gruesome. But there it is, nothing to do but wait. Thanks to God I did have a picture of one of them to send to the PO, & I hope they find them. If not, will I do it again?? Don't know.

While sewing the quilts I ran over a straight pin. I never run over pins as I do know better. I just didn't see it. I have a tiny little spot in my eye that is right in my central vision that is blank, from the ADM, so I just didn't see it. The needle hit the pin & jammed it down into the machine. The machine will only sew backwards now so it is in the shop. I hate to take my machines in, knitting or sewing. I am hoping for the best. I was thinking of buying a new machine anyway so bought a Brother 420. If the other one can be repaired I will keep it as a spare. I was planning on buying a more expensive machine than the 420 but had to get what I could now. I wanted it to be a Brother because all the sewing machine feet that I have fit on the Brother. & I didn't want to have to learn a new machine.

 

Happy Valentines Day!!

 

 

 

 



A Brief History of Knitware

I have had several comments about the Knitware program & thought that I would give a brief history of the program as I know it. This may help some of the newer machine knitters that are interested in it.

 

Knitware was written by Janet T at least 20 years ago, maybe a little more. It was called Sweater Design at that time, & sold with a set of knitting & sewing software. It generated patterns for sweaters only.  Over the years she regularly updated & enhanced the program adding pattern generators for dolls, pets & teddy bear clothes plus skirts, pants, ponchos, blankets, hats & a variety of other things like dishcloths & dishtowels eventually calling it Knitware & marketing it herself. She had the business for 15 years & had a good following of customers. Janet stated on the Knitware Users group in 2006 that her husband was retiring soon & that she wanted to have more time with him when he did.  She decided that she would sell the business for that reason. (Unfortunately her & her husband divorced shortly are he retired.) She wanted to sell the business to someone that would continue to update & enhance the programs that now came in 3 CD's that she called Sweaters, Skirts & Critter Clothes. She preferred that the business go to one of the Knitware users hoping that these goals would be realized. In late 2006 or early 2007 she sold the company to Ada Lai. The first thing that Ada did was raise the price. Secondly, she decided that she did not want the Knitware Users list 'cluttered up' with posts so that members were discouraged from posting on the list, thereby alienating the members  & effectively destroying her customer base.  Ada promised us an update coming in a few months. The time that the update would become available was constantly moved out later & later. Unfortunately that update never materialized. I think everyone has pretty much understood now that Ada is not the skilled programmer that Janet was., and may have overstated her qualifications.

 

At one time I had the link to Knitware on my blog but have since taken it down. I would not download Knitware or any of the 'fixes' that Ada posts on her website, Great Knit Designs' as I have heard from other knitters that the downloads caused problem on their computers & the program would not function correctly.

 

Sometimes you find an old disc for sale on Ebay, but other than that I would be leery of anything that Ada comes out with whether it is a 'fix' or an update. Frankly I would not buy an update from her at this time even if she did manage to come out with one because I doubt her ability to write a useable program. If you go to the yahoo group 'Machine Knitters' You might find some usable information on how to make the program function. There is no one left on the Knitware Users list as they have all moved on. & Ada has 'banned me' from the list for complaining about the 'no posting' rule. among other things. (At one time, she asked me to write lessons for the program but I declined because I just don't have the time.) The version I am running on my PC is the last update that Janet came out with on 2006. I heard that Ada is now selling the program for $30 each & is the version I am running.  A sad end to an Awesome Program.

While surfing the web I ran across this site. It provides information about Janet & the origins of Knitware. Check it out!! I'm not sure when Ada posted this but am going to read through it just to satisfy my curiosity. I know at one point Ada said that she was going to overtake Design-a-Knit & also Sweater Wizard, both well established programs for the crafter. Ada sounds very optimistic about acquiring Janet's business. She seems to have made this her life's work. Not to be mean, but I think she just bit off more than she could chew.
http://softwaresolutions.fibre2fashion.com/company/great-knit-designs/

 

 

More Knitting with Knitware

When using the Knitware program there are some things that you have to take into consideration. I was finding that my neckbands were coming out tighter than I wanted when I used the 'moderate' fit. As a result of that I decided a long time ago that I would always use the 'comfortable' fit & a wider neckband. I generally add on 6-8 stitches on the neckband & that has worked out well for me. No more problems pulling the sweaters over the heads. Also, sometimes my sleeves were too tight. Using the 'comfortable' setting took care of the issue too.

 

Another feature of the Knitware program is the ability to knit a swatch & weight it, then enter the weight into the program with the row number & stitch number(72 rows x 50 stitches) or whatever & calculate how much yarn you need for that sweater. That helps me to be able to make the biggest sweater possible with the amount of yarn that I have without guessing.  

 

 

 

This is another shelter sweater, in a size 4. I bought this yarn years ago & don't remember what the planned project was. It is really a cute yarn & has made a very cute pullover for a little girl.

 

 

This isn't a very good picture.  I used the KW program to calculate how much yarn I needed for this pullover. The program told me that I almost had enough for it, but was going to come up a little short. I thought that I could make it if I unraveled my swatch.  I did that & it worked for the green, but I ran out of the red just about 4" from the top on the last sleeve. I used a Red Heart Kids yarn as a substitute. It wasn't that great of a match but it was the best I could find. The pullover is a size 2. The difference does show up but I still think that some little kid will love this sweater.

 

Best Wishes to all for a New Year.

 

 

PS:I am dieting & have lost 34 LBS!!