Beading on the Knitting Machine

I've seen many patterns for beaded items made on the various knitting machines.  I had sort of passed them over, since I knew that beading while handknitting involves pre-stringing all the beads and I had no idea what would be involved with machine knitting and beading.  I had seen sketches of beads going over the heads of stitches, but just how does one do that?

When I went to the seminar, beading was one of the topics.  Eileen Montgomery has written many patterns for beaded items, so she was the perfect instructor!  And oh my, it is easy.  Really, you are basically slipping the bead over the head of the stitch.  But how?

She uses a 0.6mm crochet hook, and usually 4mm cube beads.  Michaels' sells 4mm cubes beads by Toho, but there weren't very many colours.   She usually uses a different brand, sold at a beadstore.  I'm scared to go into the bead store that is located way too close to my house.  I got some clear cubes by Toho, and a bag of assorted colours, round beads that looked like the holes were big enough for the 1mm hook, which was the smallest I could get.  I used blue beads from the assorted pack on the pale blue scarf for my sister in law.  I had no problem with the crochet hook and beads; the hard part was deciding how to fit the beads into the pattern.

I wanted to do more with beads, and thought the purple scarf I was doing at the club meeting would be a good option, since there were purple beads in the assorted pack.  However, I had two issues.  I thought there was just one shade of purple bead, but there turned out to be two different ones in the pack.  That's okay.  The other problem was that the yarn was quite a bit thicker, and I had difficulty getting it pulled through some of the beads.  At the beading, I just put those ones aside and tried a different bead.  But then I was running low on the purple beads by the time I got to the end.

I had just read a tip by a MKer who used dental flossers designed for people with braces, instead of a crochet hook.  I haven't seen them, but it sounded like a short length of floss, and a plastic tip.  He placed several beads at a time on it, then bent the tip into a hook shape.  Previously when I had tried HK beading, I had used floss to make a loop that pulled the yarn through the bead.   I wondered if I could do something like that.  I grabbed a bit of beading wire that Lucy had abandoned since it was kinked and tangled, and cut off about 8 inches.  I bent it in half.    I slipped one end through the stitch on the needle, up to the bend, and slipped the stitch off.  Then I slid the bead over the two ends of the wire, and pulled the ends of the wire so the stitch (in the bend of the wire), is pulled through the bead.  I pulled it through far enough to get enough of a loop to slip back on the needle.  It took a bit of muscle, but worked REALLY well. 

One good thing about this is that the yarn is contained by the wire, so textured yarns, or loosely plied yarns, are no trouble, like they were with trying to hook it all on an itsy bitsy crochet hook.  You can probably also use smaller holed beads, but not too small  :)  Expect to see more beaded items here!

Purple Passion

Monday was the Machine Knitting group, and it was planned to be a "work" day--bring whatever you need to work on.  I figured that would be a great time to do some swatching for mittens.  When going through my yarn, I found a couple balls of summery yarns, perfect for more scarves, but not on the Singer 327.  I take the LK150 to the meeting, so they would be great for it.

I started out, castin on L15-R16; IxIIIxIIIxIIIx....IIIxI  (there might have been two needles on the ends).  I did a chain stitch cast on, chaining one for the out of work needles.  Then I knit the first row manually (because the carriage wouldn't do it, LOL).  T8.

I put the center needle of each group of three in hold, knit 3 rows, cancel hold, knit two rows.  If it were a thinner yarn, I would have tucked for 4 rows, so it would have been a little easier on the brain.  For the beads, I knit the first row of the two rows of knitting all the needles, then slipped the bead on the stitch that had been tucked, and knit the second plain row.

I was a little more than 1/2 way through the ball of yarn, when I realized it wasn't very long.  I ripped back to the top of the beads (I had done three rows of the beads), then while keeping with the pattern, I gradually decreased on the sides so I was down to three less sts on each edge.  However, when I got to the other end, I was distracted, and excited to be almost finished, and forgot to increase back out...after knitting a row or two of the bead rows....ripped back, did the increasing gradually, started the beading again, thought "I think I can knit a bit more without running out of yarn", ripped back the beading....ran out of time.  Packed up everything, but got it right back out after I got home.  Finished it up, casting off with the latch hook, chaining one over each empty needle.  I even got it blocked out on Monday night, though I had to leave it overnight.  I gave it to my SIL today, when I went over to help get her apartment ready for her mother's visit.

I think she liked it :)

Yarn:  "Rumba" by Chanteleine (French company?), 50g, 112m/123yd

54% acrylic, 46% cotton, 19sts/24rows on 4-4.5mm

Yarn In:  7754gr

Yarn Out:  9051gr+ 50gr = 10001gr!

Balance:  2247gr more used than bought!

Costs:  $287.71/156 days = $1.84/day

I'm not sure about the number of days I've been doing this.  According to my last confession, this should be day 154.  However, my daybook says this is the 151st day of the year, plus the 5 last days of December, brings me to 156.  So, I'm going with that.

I also have another ball of this yarn, in a pretty fuchsia....

Scrambled Eggs

It is often said that lace knitting in it's unblocked state, looks like nothing more than overcooked pasta.  Mine looks more like scrambled eggs.  It's actually "Omelet" from knitty.com.  It's been over a year, and it's been cast off, washed, and shook out.  I will get around to steaming the points (I don't want the whole shawl to grow) on a day when it's not already steaming here.

Bizarre, how Blogger thinks I want pictures one way, when I had loaded it a different way.  Not that it matters all that much this time, LOL.  All I can is, if you're going to make "Omelet", don't use superfine yarn; use something with a bit of heft, so you're not doing a bizillion repeats of the main chart.

Secret Scarves

My sister in law started dialysis right after Easter.  She originally had a fistula put in her arm, but it failed, so she had to have  a port put into her neck vein/artery.  As can be imagined, she was upset about this.  I had been asking for ways I could help out, and she wasn't coming up with anything, so I took it upon myself to apply the knitter's belief that we have a gift that should be shared.  Most knitters have knitted items for charity, or as thank you gifts.  It's what we do.  We enjoy the process of knitting, perhaps using new techniques or yarns we wouldn't use for ourselves.  A bunch of scarves would also fit in with my goal of reducing my stash, right?

I've already shown the first three scarves--purple/green, black Magicolor, and grey tuck (just scroll down a ways to see them).  I ended up with a total of nine!

This is the entire stack.  From the top:  purple/green Patons Lace; steel gray tuck stitch; white penguin; Magicolour; blue with beads; black; mint green; white; white with rose; and yellow.

Blocking the scarves was a learning process.  I got better at it as I went along.

The rose is made with the left over Patons Lace from the purple/green scarf.  It adds a tiny bit of fuzzyness, and I love the shading effect.  For this, I learned how to use the Magic Cams and do a single motif from a punch card, rather than having the motif repeat along the row, or having to make the scarf narrow so there'd be only one repeat.  Purple is her favourite colour, and I like the song "Every Rose has it's Thorn"....thorny things can be beautiful too.

Another version, this time with a little penguin.  She had made a comment about her bus coming early and having to do the "penguin hussle" to get to it.  He's so cute!

Most of the tuck stitches look pretty similar!

Here's a close up of the little fella after her was blocked.

This black scarf...I don't like the yarn.  It almost holds it's shape on it's own.  But every gal needs a black scarf!

 This is a butter yellow scarf.  The yarn is the same one I used when I made the large piece of Imagination Fabric for my niece.  It has a shiny effect with one of its two strands.

 Blocking two scarves at once.  It takes longer than I expected to put in the wires and pins!

 At the seminar I went to, we learned how easy it is to bead on the machine.  Really, it is.  The hard part is picking the beads and pattern.  Most of the tuck stitch patterns I was using were very vertical, so I did simple rows; three at each end.  I definitely want to do more beading, and I've been looking at my old Knitwords to find some patterns!

 This is a mint green scarf (seen in the picture above of the two scarves blocking, this is the other side).  Not my colour, and I'm not sure it's her's, but I don't really have much in the lightweight, summery colour type yarns. 

 I really liked the fabric of the blue scarf; it's an icy blue, the same yarn as that yellow.  I think the one below is the green one...the colours are really washed out on my computer.

Another view of the black one, I think.  The front--knit side--is a vertical rib, and the back is like a honeycomb.  All these (except the Magicolour one) were done on the single bed, Singer 327 standard gauge machine.

I have a few other scarf ideas, but I'm not sure when I'll get to them.  And I just don't seem to have many summery yarns, for some reason.  I had hoped to use up quite a bit of yarn, but a 40gr scarf doesn't use much yarn, LOL.  I have several cones of 30gr or less that I just don't think will be enough for a scarf, and I think they could be used for 2 colour tuck, but that doesn't seem very summery to me.  Any ideas?  Some of these scarves were from never-ending cones, I'd have to knit hundreds of scarves to use those up (the grey, the yellow and blue, even the mint green still has a lot to go).

Total weight of all 9 scarves:  487gr.  Total weight of ones not already shown:  270gr

Yarn In:  7754gr

Yarn Out:  9051gr + 270gr = 9321gr

Balance:  1567gr more used than bought

Costs:  $287.71/148 days = $1.94 per day.

Cleaning the Drawer

No matter how often I clean out my knitting drawer, there's a few projects in there that I just can't seem to do something with.  I was working on Vienne but there were things I didn't like about the pattern.  I've taken it out of the drawer, and down to the basement, but haven't yet unravelled it.  Soon.  Baby steps.  I've got three felted purses (Sophie Bags) that need handles sewn/created.  One of them, I was knitting while I was in labour with Meg...who was born Nov. 2005.  Yeah.  The other biggie in the drawer was "Enchanting" by Fiddle Sticks Knitting.

Oh, I was SO excited to buy this kit.  A designer pattern AND the recommended expensive yarn.  I was worried about having enough yarn, and I managed to find another ball at the Kitchener Waterloo Knitter's Fair, uh.....I just spent 30 minutes scanning through my blog and I can't figure out when I bought it!  I was sure I was working on it while on a trip to Niagara Falls, summer 2008, but my report for KW Fair 2007 doesn't mention it at all.  I don't have the project listed in Ravelry, and it appears I've never even mentioned it on the blog (I was just scanning though, so I suppose I could have missed it).  I know I emailed Fiddle Sticks a couple times about the sizing since I just could decide what size to make since I couldn't seem to match gauge.

Anyway.  I knit it up, and blocked it.  I wasn't happy with the fit, which was probably partially due to the gauge issues and also the sudden weight gain I had in 2009.  I went ahead and did the neckband and sleeve caps.  I wasn't sure at all about the sleeve caps though.  They just looked weird.

I decided, now that I've lost weight, to try it on again, and make a decision.  I am NOT ripping this out, and I don't know who else I could give it to, but I was hopeful for myself.

 Uhhh.  Not what I was hoping.  Then I realized the issue could be the bright white bra.  So I went upstairs, and tried a black one:

 Much better, though a little dark.  And I don't like how you can see my shorts.  I think a beige bra, and/or camisole would help.

 But those sleeve caps!  What's up with those?  There was some gathering at the seam, and they seemed to be set too far back in the armhole.  And just not long enough.  I'm going to just rip them off.

I really like the top, and I think I can wear it now, maybe a few more pounds.  I have 80gr (384m), plus the sleeves (so I didn't need the extra ball), and maybe I can use that to make a shawl of some sort.  I will say though, this yarn (100% silk) has a strange, seaweed smell.

Fair Isle on the LK150

When I first got the LK150, I had over-optimistic goals for my first few projects, considering I had 3 kids 5 and under, the youngest being only weeks old, LOL.  I planned out a wool cardigan, knit in the usual manner, but then I was going to knit wide Fair Isle button bands to sew on.  I got quite a bit of it done, but following the Fair Isle instructions in the manual just got to be too much for me. 

Recently, I was using the intarsia carriage at our machine knitting group, and part of the picture involved small segments of the same colour separated by a few sts of another colour.  Rather than starting a new ball, I decided to try doing it with the same ball.  It worked fine.  I did a bit more experimenting with the idea.  Why not use the intarsia carriage to do Fair Isle?

Why is this sideways?  This shows how the intarsia carriage puts all the needles in C position with the latches open.

 Here, I've used two balls of yarn, pink for the hearts, and purple for the background.  I laid them in the appropriate needles, going from the carriage to the other edge, one colour first, then the second colour.  I let the balls drop down to the floor, and hold a bit of tension on them as I start the carriage across the row, making sure the latches are open.

 I noticed that one of the colours was not staying under the needles of the other colour.  This resulted in some sts being knit with both colours.  I just fixed these sts by hand.

 I then made sure that the unused colour was tucked under, by bringing the needles slightly more forward, but not too far forward, so that the carriage would still knit them.  I also used a bit more tension on the yarn (by hand) as I went across.

 Then, I decided to try working both colours across the row at the same time.  This resulted in the yarns getting twisted around each other quite a bit and I thought it would make the row hard to knit.  It was a bit of a push to get it started, but I had no doubled stitches and it actually went quite quickly and easily.  I think I liked this way better.

This is the end result.  I see I had one boo-boo.  Well, when you're working from the backside of the knitting, it can be tough to see the pattern emerge from under the floats.  What I liked about using the intarsia carriage is that you only need to pass the carriage once per row.  All the other techniques, using the regular carriage, have you taking two passes.  This can complicate things with the row counter, and if you're doing any increasing/decreasing.  Doing Fair Isle this way is certainly not as fast as if you had the Fair Isle carriage (or using a punchcard machine), but it's probably faster than handknitting, and is certainly do-able, if you have enough patience and quiet time :)

I Fell.

I don't normally go for knitting trends.  I never made Jaywalker socks, a Clapotis, or a Dead Fish hat.  Trends in the machine knitting world are a little less obvious, since we don't have a mega-site like knitty.com.  I never made a faux fur scarf, or even a two colour Noro striped scarf.  I've been watching the current ruffle scarf trend and shaking my head.  I'm not much of a scarf person.  But, much of my knitting is not for me. 

And then, I saw this.  I will say, her picture didn't sway me all that much.  So, make sure you go to the Ravelry.com link!  Isn't that ingenious?  Now THAT, I can get into.  Although it doesn't look very wide.

So, today, I decided to go to Michaels and see if I can get some beads, after learning how to do it at the MKing seminar a couple weeks ago (alright, I was really needing to go pick up my shoes from the repair shop, which was on the same road, and thought I'd go into Home Outfitters to see if they had the new caramel macchiato for the Tassimo that I had seen at Staples but at no grocery store, and Michaels is in the same power center as HO).  I found the beads that were recommended, though the smallest crochet hook was 1mm and 0.6mm was the recommended one.  I'll try it anyway.  While browsing around I thought I'd look at the fancy yarns.  They had two of these net yarns, one was Premier Yarns "Starbella" with really nice colours, and the other was "Sashay" (Red Heart?).  It had glitter, but I didn't like the colours.

 I picked up two balls, one for me, one for the secret scarves project.  However, I just looked at that pattern on Ravelry and it says 60m, and these balls are only 30m.  Insert big frowny face here.

So, I need to find an unusual pattern for these yarns, I want to limit it to one ball.  If necessary, I will do the secret scarf as a ruffly scarf, she'll like that, but that's not what I want for me.  Suggestions?

Yarn In: 7554gr + 200gr = 7754gr
Yarn Out: 9051gr
Yarn Balance:    1297gr more used than bought
Yarn Costs:   $271.46 + $16.25 = $287.71
Average:  $287.71/142 days = $2.03/day