Weighing in at just under a gram on my dye scale, I think this is likely to be the smallest FO I’ll ever make!  But, I totally winged the pattern, guessed at how many stitches to start with, and happily, it fits like a glove — or would that be sock?  Yes, it’s a sock for an insulin vial.  You can make one too!  All you need is some scraps of sock yarn, a size 0/2mm 32″ circular needle (or set of 5 DPN’s), and about an hour (give or take, we all knit at our own pace, afterall!)

• CO 24sts loosely (not super loose, you just don’t want this first row to be tight), join sts and begin working in the round
  • if magic looping, you’ll want 12sts on each side
  • if using DPN’s, you’ll want 6sts on each needle
• k1 p1 for 9 rounds
• k 18 rounds even
• k1 k2tog around (16sts remain)
• k 1 round even
• k2tog around (8sts remain)
• break yarn and run through remaining 8sts, pull tight
• weave in ends

In the past month I knit myself a sweater (Rogue from The Girl from Auntie)

I was a bit overwhelmed looking at the pattern, since it is 19 pages, but it’s all very clearly written out and detailed – which is wonderful when you’re knitting complex cables (especially for the first time – I’ve done cables before but nothing like these).  The charts look confusing at first, but if you follow along it all just makes sense when it needs to.  I thoroughly enjoyed knitting every bit of the sweater (well, except for maybe the last half of the second sleeve – I was ready to be finished by then!) and I can’t wait to get started on Eris, another pattern she has written.  I actually bought the Eris pattern back in June, and was promptly discouraged as I flipped through all 40 pages of the pattern… but now I realize that it’s not really that the pattern is that difficult, it’s just that Jenna is so great at making each step exceptionally clear.

I finished what may be the last pair of longies I ever knit for my kids.. since we’re not cloth diapering anymore and they’re pretty much only for the “cute” factor, I think I will be saving the rest of my “longies” stash for sweaters, hats, and other cool weather woolens.  The yarn is my own, dyed in the Red Mountain colorway – I absolutely love how they colorway knit up, and I have more than enough yarn left for a hat to match… or maybe just for a hat for me

I made my daughter a simple dress to wear on Christmas (and have plans to make many more with my fabric stash), it’s really simple, sort of an adaptation of my twirly skirt with a pheasant top bodice (similar to this tutorial but I cut my peices only about 7″ long to match the 6″ teirs of the skirt)

I’ve been working a lot on my sock machine too, I made about a dozen pairs of socks in December alone for gifts and as some custom orders, which for the most part went fairly well.  I didn’t photograph all of them since I was usually in a rush to get them sent off.  I have even set up the 1923 Gearhart I added to my collection in August up and have it knitting finally (I needed needles for it), and I even tracked down a 50 slot dial to match my 100 slot cylinder (which is not shown, that’s the 40 slot in the image with the 100 slot cylinder in the machine).  It’s in remarkable condition considering it was an ebay bargain, and while it has a few quirks, mechanically it’s in very good shape as well.  It makes the weirest sound while knitting though – a solid clicking due to the way the uplift cams are spring loaded, which is mildly amusing.

So far I’m still working out some kinks with the ribber timing and I’d like to find a solution to keeping count of my rows more easily, but I hope to soon be able to make some really fine gauge socks on it.

My two year blogaversary is coming up soon – I might just give away a pair of custom socks and possibly some yarn, so watch for that in the next week or two

Shelly and I both have a lot of ideas on how to make things go a little smoother next year (or for any CSM demo, really).

sock knitter

Originally uploaded by yi
Yeah, that’s me – I was putting tags on socks!

When you get it all right, it sings   You can crank out an entire ribbed sock with no trouble at all… amazing!

It arrived today!

Since everything looked like, well, really REALLY good, I decided that instead of taking it apart right away, I’d throw some needles in, and see what it could do.

Wow. That can’t be… it’s casting on perfectly.

Not only that, iIt isn’t dropping a SINGLE stitch. I’m almost disappointed – I wanted a challenge, right? I wanted a machine that needed a bit of work (and not just some minor cleaning). This isn’t challenging if it knits perfectly!

I swapped out the yarn carrier for a slotted one from Roxanne (which I’m not sure about quite yet – I need to get a washer or something to use as a spacer, if I leave it as is, it will hit the tension dial when knitting heels and toes), and just kept cranking away. I’d be tempted to say that this machine knits better than my NZAK… it’s very smooth.

The only problem with it? A tiny chip off the 72 cylinder… which happened during shipping (it was packed very well though, so I’m not sure how it happened, other than USPS having it for 13 days, doing who knows what to the box it was in).

So there it is.. my new to me, beautiful Legare 400. All I have to do is clean it, but it appears to be complete, it knits like a dream, and I’m quite pleased with my “gamble” on eBay. I’ve yet to try the ribber, but it seems to be fine as well.

Amazing

I finally have not one, but TWO actual FO’s from the past couple of days. They’re not socks, but both incredibly useful things to be able to make on the CSM.

First up is a pair of wristwarmers. I had wanted them to be long enough to be legwarmers for my littlest kid, but I didn’t quite have enough yarn. They’d still work for that, but they won’t really cover his whole leg, so I thought I would just keep them for me, and crank him out another pair in a different yarn later

One of the reasons I wanted a CSM was to be able to whip up legwarmers lickety-split, so I feel like this is a huge leap in that direction finally.  The pair took me longer to finish off the machine (bind-off) than they did to knit!  They’re just a simple length of 1×1 ribbing.

Then, attempting to make another set-up bonnet for my 72 cylinder, I grabbed some leftover sock yarn, but once it was worked up, I thought it was too pretty, so I ended up with a tiny little hat.  Since I just recently signed up as a photographer with NILMDTS, this was another thing I wanted to be able to do with my CSM – make tiny little hats for those babies, as a special gift from me for the parents to keep.

I need to put a pom on it still, but it’s essentially ‘done’ other than that.  I definitely see I will be making a LOT of these with scrap sock yarn… it only takes about 15g to make one.

And, as if all that wasn’t good enough, I finally got my 36/72 ribber set up and ribbing.. I’d previously only been able to rib with the 27/54 combo, and while I have only been able to get it going and keep it going with my scrap yarn, it was in fact working, I just have to work out the tension and weight to make it work with thicker yarn.

That lovely green acrylic scrap yarn is some evil stuff though.. it likes to break very easily (being a 2/24 yarn, not surpirsing!).. and it fuzzes up a lot when you’re trying to rip it out.  Not good.  I have some better “cheap” yarn coming – or at least, I hope it will be better!  I’ve been tempted to use some of my coned laceweight merino since it’s stronger than the acrylic is, but that yarn wasn’t cheap even purchased wholesale, so I’ve been sourcing other options