Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Too Cute Not To Share

One of my readers sent me a picture of a sweater that she has made that is sooo cute I just had to share it. She said that she found it in a hand knitting magazine & converted it to the machine. I absolutely love it!! 


She sent me a picture of a pink one that she designed herself but I can't find it although I know I saved it. When I have more time I will look for it. 

While watching machine knitting videos on You Tube I found this video. The quality isn't that good but I thought it was an interesting technique. I may want to try this someday. You can find the video here.



Wednesday, June 10, 2015

My Little Slip Stitch Sweater

Finally, here is the finished Slip Stitch Sweater that I have had laying around, unfinished forever it seems like.
 
 
It looks cute with it's little puff sleeves. I think this will go to the shelter. It is a little warm for California weather. Better suited to a cooler climate.
 
I am not satisfied with the finishing on this sweater. It seemed like if anything could go wrong it has with this poor thing. First of all, it sat around for months all by its lonesome. I'm not really sure why that happened other than I was depressed for awhile & didn't do much of anything. Then, I did a cut & sew neck & screwed up on it royally. (I am not going to show you a picture of it.) Then, when I was marking the neck I thought I had a washable marker in my hand & it turned out to be a sharpie that does NOT wash out. I soaked it with a stain remover from Amway & Thx to God it came out. ( That stain remover is the only one I have ever found that will take out the black greasy spots that we sometimes get on our knits from the machine lube.) Then, I dropped the sleeve cap off the machine & tried to latch it back up & made a mess of it. Had to redo the whole sleeve. And on & on. But it's finished now & maybe some kid will love it. I hope!!  
 
As most of you know, I sell my diaper covers on eBay. I always like to look through the MK listings & see what's up. The prices on the machines seem to have gone down over the past few years but the prices of other things is shocking. I saw a box of 10 GC needles selling for $145.00. & The listing claims to have more than 10 available. There are several other GC needles listed & the price is $15-$20 PER needle. When I had my GC machines rebuilt I bought 4 boxes of 10 needles. I think I bought them for a dollar a needle but I'm not sure. I also bought several of the little brushes that hold the stitches back along with an extra motherboard for my 965i Brother. I have extra magnets for the GC & although I have been unable to find anymore GC Cams I did work out a way to convert my 2sts cams to 1 sts cams, along with my trusty fingernail clippers. LOL
 
I saw on Diana's blog a video on how to change the belt on your Brother FB 100. I am going to get a couple of belts for my FB 100. I believe that Distinctive Knits has them with written instructions on how to change them too. They have a cable there that you can use to hook the FB 100 up to a USB port on the computer & download all your floppy discs to DAK. I don't think that you need to have DAK to use this cable as you can save the files in different formats depending on what program you have.