July Knit Club Meeting

We had July's Knit Natter's meeting at Barbara's house.Pat Tittizer brought her circular sock knitting machine, a beautiful old Auto Knitter on an old sock knitting tripod stand. Some photos of it are included here. I was quite taken with the stand. Pat had been knitting, but she hadn't gotten her ribber going.

I played with it a while - made things worse, at first, until I realized that the needle butts were above the cam and not coming up enough to catch the yarn.

Things got better quickly after that. Then I realized that it has quite a few old, slightly damaged needles, and as we got those out of the way, I got it ribbing on enough needles that I think Pat will be fine on her own.

I demonstrated the sideways baby sweater discussed in the last blog post.

The pattern for the sideways baby sweater is long, but I think I'll just include it here after my long description of the rather interesting techniques in it last time:

Sideways & Almost-Seamless
Baby Cardigan

by Diana Sullivan

Right front: Set machine up for ribbing, 63 stitches from R31 to L32 on main bed and alternate needles on ribber for 1 x 1 ribbing, outside needles on top. Both carriages plain, tension 0 (T0), knit zigzag row.

Hang ribber comb, 2 large weights, T1 both carriages, set for circular knitting, k 3 rows to complete selvedge. Set carriages to plain, both T3, knit 5 rows and then make buttonholes.

This simple buttonhole is made by transferring a stitch from the ribber onto the needle above on main bed to the right. The first ribber needle to transfer 25L, transfer to MB to 24L. Make sure and put empty needle back in B position. Transfer 12L on ribber to 12L on MB, then 1L ribber to lR on MB, then 12R on ribber to 13R on MB, then 24R to 25R on MB. Make sure all needles returned to B position. K 5 more rows in ribbing. This completes the front band.

To bind off the rightmost 7 stitches, transfer the ribber stitches for the first 7 stitches onto MB needles (3 ribber stitches get transferred), then do a latch tool bind off and free the stitches from the gate pegs.

Leaving the leftmost 7 stitches in ribbing, transfer all the other stitches to the main bed. Turn MB tension to T8, leave ribber tension alone. K15 rows. When knitting with the ribber with so many stitches plain, it may be necessary to put the needles in E position so they’ll knit off okay.

After the 15 rows, cast on an additional 10 stitches on the left side in ribbing, using a ribber e-wrap cast-on. You go counterclockwise around the ribber needle, then clockwise around the upper bed needle and so on. Now on needles L42-R24.

K1 row to the right, then place a 7-weight hanger and a small weight on the newly cast-on stitches. K10 rows this way with the ribbing on the left and the rest of the bed plain.

Transfer the ribbing stitches up to the main bed. Drop the ribber, change to regular fabric presser, all stitches now on MB, reduce the weight a little, K19 rows.

The leftmost 27 stitches are the armhole opening, the stitches on right are the body. Put the body stitches onto a garter bar as follows: Bring needles to E position from L14-R24, put on a short length of garter bar and hang it from the gate pegs. Put empty needles out of work.

Needles in the armhole position go to E position. Set carriage to not knit E needles. Unthread the machine but don’t break the yarn. Move the yarn out of the way over to the right.

Sleeve: Bring every other needle on the left of the needles in work into work, in other words, 44L, 46L…to 68L to B position. Bring the carriage from L to R, it won’t knit anything because some needles are in hold and the other stitches are on a garter bar. After it’s on the right, thread it with a length of contrasting yarn hung between the beds, with a clothespin hanging on the free end, on the left of the stitches in work, knit across and it lays it in the needles newly in B position.

Unthread contrast yarn, put clothespin on the other end, and then hang claw weights from the contrast yarn. Bring out in-between needles so there are 27 out to the left in B position. Carriage in part, move to right without knitting anything and thread garment yarn from over hold needles, under fabric presser and then into the feeder. Take carriage out of part, knit across, lifting yarn up a little as you go from right to left, and it’ll go into every needle on the left. Put the needles that are in hold to D position so they will knit. RC000, K4 rows and decrease 1 stitch each side, needles in work using the full-fashion method. Also take one of the claw weights and move it just to the left of the garter bar group of stitches so the sleeve will move downward. Decrease on both sides on rows 13, 21, 29, 37, and 45. After row 45, K8 more rows to row 53. Hang a triangle weight holder and a large weight somewhere near the top of this knitting. Unthread the carriage, change to ribber arm, bring ribber carriage over so it’s lined up with MB carriage, thread with sweater yarn, transfer every other needle to ribber to make the sleeve cuff. Change MB tension to T3 to make the cuff. K10 rows ribbing ending with carriage on right, transfer stitches from ribber to main bed and bind off. That completes a sleeve.

My preferred method of binding off ribbing is to knit one row loose, transfer loose stitches to main bed, pull needles to E, and use latch tool to pull a loop through a loop.

Put empty needles out of work. Put ribber bed down and ribber covers on.
Pick up the garter bar stitches and put them back on needles. Pull the sleeve out between the beds and fold it right sides together. Hang the needles that are on contrast yarn on the next 27 empty needles and remove the contrast yarn with the wrong side facing you. Be careful not to twist the stitches. The yarn running through the stitches is going to turn one stitch to the right and the next to the left, so you have to see which way the stitches are turned and put the transfer tool in correctly. Remove contrast yarn and double-check the stitches placement on then needles.

Back: You now have a little inside-out sleeve hanging toward you. Put it between the beds and add a claw weight. Change to regular fabric presser, T8, RC000, K94 rows.

Sleeve: Make exactly like first sleeve.

Front: Sleeve between the beds, right sides together. Rehang the garter stitches. Then, to their left, rehang the sleeve stitches in the same way as the first sleeve. Put on regular fabric presser, T8, K18 rows over the two groups of stitches.

Change to ribber arm, MB T8, RB T3, bring up ribber, thread the ribber arm. Transfer every other stitch, first 8 on the left hand side of the knitting to the ribber bed and K10 rows. Increase the weight at this point using a triangle weight hanger. K10 rows. Cast off first 10 needles so first needle in use is on MB. I use a latch tool cast yarn and have to pick the yarn off the gate pegs. K14 rows, MB T8, RB T3. Transfer EON from main group that’s still on top bed to get back in 1 x 1 ribbing, e-wrap cast on 7 more stitches in ribbing at right, change both beds to T3, K10 rows, then do a loose row transfer up and bind off. (After the first row, use a 7 weight hanger and small weight to secure the 7 cast-on stitches.)

Finishing: Sew sleeve seams and shoulder seams. Pick up stitches for back of neck and knit band; pick up stitches along bottom of sweater and knit band. Bands are 10 rows of 1 x 1 ribbing.

More free patterns may be found at http://knitnatters.com/.