The Knittax has landed

Last week, this lovely young man dropped off his grandmothers knitting machine. Surprise! It's a later version of the same one my mum purchased on the Kingston Road in Toronto. This was before the GO train and she passed the shop every day going to and from the city to work.

My mum worked in an accounting office on Bay Street, so I imagine she walked down from the Dundas Street bus station. During the travel time she enjoyed planning the things she would knit on the machine.

She was a beautiful hand knitter, and adored stocking stitch. When I was watching Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple I notice she holds the yarn and needles the same way as my mum. Knit and purl row perfection, a amazing achievement I sometimes get, but not always.

I dusted the machine off and lemon oiled the cabinet. When the weather cools I'm going to take it for a spin. This photo is of another model more like my mom's. The cabinet that came with the machine is exactly the same though. Giving it some TLC sure brought back happy memories.

I'm overjoyed to find these two lovely people making super helpful YouTube video's specific to the Knittax.

Bos den Braver of Bos

Bos also has wonderful amigurumi patterns you can purchase on Etsy or Ravelry under the name Zabbez

Emily of  Emily Kate Made This 

Emily has brought back happy memories of mixing hand and machine knitting. Crochet and machine knitting too. Thanks so very much again. 

I'm working on the Nightshift

 This Season the Durham Knitting Guild is having a Knit Along using the pattern Nightshift by Andrea Mowry. Over 5,000 other knitters have made or are making it on Ravelry. That's a strong recommendation, I'd say. I found though that I wasn't able to purchase multiple copies through Ravelry, so it was super helpful that getting in touch with Andrea and paying for everyones copy worked. I had the copies done behind the desk at Staples on nice heavy paper. I feel we all deserve a kntting treat these days.

We liked it because it offers lots of different and possibly new techniques for the members plus it is stash friendly. It's asymetrical, cycles through main and conrast colours, uses slip stitch, rolled edges and i-cord.

This is my first goofy little swatch. To be clear, it is not a tension swatch. People who know me, (as a knitter) know I am pretty keen on the large tension swatch. I confess it took a while for the pattern to penetrate the cranial cement. It became clear to me I needed to stay focused, make a quiet hour to give it the quality of attention it deserved. Most often I'd forget to bring the wool forward before slipping the edge 3 stitches as well as sometimes  to  the inforgetting the increase at the beginning of the row. It had me grrr-ing a bit after the 5th time I ripped it out. The "Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plain" moment was that much more impactful when it finally arrived.

Making a list really helped me. I'm confident that once I have repeated it successfully a few times I might even be able to take part in a conversation or listen to the radio, while knitting this.

I am using the vintage yarn, Florica from my stash. It's a lightweight wool DK and serendipitously I have 6 colours. The label recommended a 3.5mm, but my practice swatch showed me it would be better to go up a full needle size, because of the "pinched" effect of the slipped stitches.

I do enjoy setting up for a project. Clothespins are just the right neutral for organizing colour.

This is my working legend for colour. I fold a trimmed strip of graph paper in thirds and use a large hole punch, then write in the letters from the pattern. I'm starting out with a pair of straight needles because of the small amount of stitches and the frequent turns. I'll switch to my trusty 60 cm circulars when I have about 100 stitches.

 

Ready, Steady keep the Katcha Katcha clicking...

I'm really looking forward to seeing what other knitters in the group make. I think oddments of sock yarn would be perfect for this pattern. You could switch up the colours on various rows, depending on the amounts you have. When I complete this one, I'm going to give it a go. I'll try a 3.5 mm needle for the finer yarn.

Knitting Norwegian Silk Mohair

We have enjoyed Drops Vivaldi, a classic Garnstudio yarn, (now discontinued) for many years, and still have stock of nice colours. Paula and I knit many, many things with it, mostly as a blending yarn.  The  company patterns for it remain on the site and can be knit with their own Kid Silk.

Vivaldi is (was) 280 meters of fine soft brushed yarn with 58% mohair, 19%wool and 23% polyamide to 50 grams. I used it to make cardigan 88-14 from Drops Design with  3 - 50 gram balls, that is all. It's the same amount I will need for the Snuggle Ganser from Sandnesgarn in their own Silk Mohair which has the same number of meters per 50 grams.

We especially liked using Vivaldi with a tweedy sock yarn to make the SUMMERTIME shawl by Michele C. Meadows (Free pattern on Ravelry), as well as mixing it with a DK yarn for waterfall vests. These days I see Mette Wendelboe Okkels of PetitKnit blends the fine kid mohairs with Sandnesgarn Sunday to beautiful effect for both children and adult designs. There are so many stunning sock yarn around to try.

Kid Silk Mohair is the luxury cousin in this yarn family, Kid Silk Haze from Rowan is an the example of this king of material and  has been around for quite a while. Typically, the finer version has an incredible 210 meters to 25 grams, making garments and accessories that are featherweight, soft, and easily knittable with a 5mm needle. I used it one strand to make the versatile Wisp accessory, by Cheryl Niamath (free on Knitty Magazine) with only 50 grams. When I take it travelling, it fits perfectly in a sandwich baggie, and comes out to chase the chill like a genie out of a bottle.

Vivaldi, though a good yarn, didn't have the magic of silk and kid mohair. If it were cooking, I would say the new ones kick it up a notch, for richness of colour and the softness. I am so happy see the large selection of kid silks made available to knitters these days. It can be overwhelming to choose what to stock, but that's ok, that is the happy dilemma of owning a yarn store.

This summer I decided make the Snuggle sweater (Kosegenser), a free pattern (gratis oppskrifter) available from Sandnesgarn on the Norwegian page, using their own fabulous Silk Mohair in a soft grey, though we do stock the lovely blue mix featured in the pattern photograph. Fuller than Kid Silk, it is still soft and light. The 4th size I'm knitting will only needs 150 grams, or 3 balls of yarn, amazing!

Google Translate accomplished the change to english for me. I did a select all, copy, then pasted it in my word processor program. I redid some of the spacing and enlarged the font a bit. I kept some of the direct translation because I find it so charming.

Since we have used professionally translated Norwegian patterns for over 40 years here at Myrtle Station Wool I had a bit of a head start with the instruction format, but I am confident any moderately practiced knitter can manage quite well. I chose this one now, and I look forward to trying many of the others (in Norwegian). Google Translate and I are very good friends.

As usual I made a swatch, (If you knit looser, use a thinner stick). Read through the pattern (These goals are calculated according to the knitting strength task) and highlighted the size(all targets use ready-made garments and body measurements and range of motion). A snuggle sweater, recipe by Olaug Beate Bjelland, very tasty. Thanks Sandnesgarn, always a pleasure, and thanks Tina and Chris at Nordic Yarn Imports for bringing these amazing materials to Canada for us to enjoy.

And another classic, Patons

I am knitting little cardigans for the mission work at Grace Lutheran Church in Oshawa. It's such a joy to knit portable and petite. With confidence I can declare the cardi only requires one 100gram ball. Two could make the entire layette, but it's just cardigans we need for the project.

I have knit Cabin Fever's excellent 606 Top Down, No Sew Buttons Cardigan many, many times, so I was delighted to find a similar new born sized top-down in my Aunt's Beehive Book. There is yet  another top-down design included in the book as a matinee jacket. Aunt Joan knit the design below from the same book for my daughter Veronica, in 1980's orange. It was the first time I heard the expression Dolman Sleeve. I remember it being much easier dress her because of the stretch in the armholes. Knitting wisdom for new mom's and their babies.

This top-down design has one button and the tweedy yarn for my first cardi is only slightly thicker than vintage Beehive Astra. Even though 100 grams was going to be plenty I used turquoise it is for the collar, for spark.

The first time I make something is the opportunity to learn the most (i.e. make the most mistakes). I am ready to make a second one (and a third) before the year is out, making a home for some of the groovy single buttons that have lingered in my stash for a (few) years.