A Moment Of Silence

Let us all observe a moment of silence with the passing of Knitware. As of January 1st of this year, Knitware has been discontinued.

Sponge Bars

As machine knitters we all know that to knit the machine requires a good sponge bar to do it's job correctly. My SR 860 was giving me trouble so I took out the sponge bar to check it. As I feared the sponge bar was shot. I had several sponge bars available & while I didn't have one for the 860 I had one that was close & thought I would use it. Wrong!! I had orders to get out & didn't want to wait for the new one to get here so I stuck in a sponge bar that looked pretty close to the old one. After I stuck it in there the machine knit fine but would not knit on hold at all. It just jammed every time. So then I tried to get the thing out & it was stuck. I tried poking it out with a screwdriver, grabbing it with needle nose pliers etc etc. Finally had to enlist the help of DH & take the bed off to get the darn thing out. I still have orders to get out so I put the old one back in & am knitting slowly with it until the new one arrives. NEVER put the wrong sponge bar in any machine. I knew that but conveniently forgot it but will not do that again!!

The 'Pie Crust' Edging

The 'Pie Crust' Edging

 

 

The 'Pie Crust' edging is a cute simple edging to add to your knitting It can be used on blankets or other places where an edging is needed. There are lots of different edgings available to machine knitters, but this is the easiest & the most fun I think.

 

 

These are a pair of my ruffled shorties. I make them for baby girls. I use the 'Pie Crust' edge on the bottom of the ruffle to give it a little pizazz'

 

 

Here is a close up of the edging. To make this you are going to take your project off the machine. Then rehang 3 complete stitches from the edge of the project that you want to edge. Knit 6 rows. Then, rehang the next 3 stitches on top of the 3 stitches on the machine. Knit another 6 rows. Continue in that fashion all the way around the edge. When you are finished you will have an edging that looks similar to a pie crust.

 

So far I am doing okay with my New Year Resolutions. I have had a couple of close calls. LOL I have stuck to it though & only 11 months to go. :)

 

 

 



Things for Friends

Right now I am making a jacket & pants for my friends new g'child. He is a big boy & very cute. I made him a set already & here is a picture of him.

It's a little cardigan hoodie. I made him some pants to go with them but he is not wearing them. When I saw that he is outgrowing the outfit(he's a big boy) I decided to make him another one. This one is made from Red Hearts Kids yarn knitted on my mid-gauge. The new one is from Millor Piropo, also on my mid-gauge. It is gray & navy with striped pants & navy hoodie with gray trim. Right now we don't have any new babies to knit for in the family & I do like making baby clothes so I do a lot of knitting for friends etc. + the women's shelter.

 

I'm sure that we have all made New Year's resolutions. Mine is not to charge anything on any of my credit cards for a whole year. It has to cash or go without. I would like to pay down my CC's at least by half. It is just too easy to go to the mall & charge up a storm. I have a bad habit of getting bored & then going shopping & buying all kinds of things that I don't need & in some cases don't even want.

 

I feel like I am neglecting my blog as I haven't been keeping up with it very well. I am going to do better this year.

 

 

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.