Tuesday, March 20, 2007

How I Spent March Break

Started the first weekend of March Break by buying this! Put a little dent in my 'liposuction fund'.

It's a Singer Memomatic 327, standard gauge (4.5mm), 24 st punchcard, with built in Knit Contour, and also has a ribber (too shy for a photo). Rob is concerned that it is 'too old' (punchcards are archaic now he says). However, I found basically the same machine for sale new. However, to buy all three parts (the knit contour is now separate), it would cost $2077!!

What is going on with that link business? It wouldn't stop highlighting as I typed. So, I paid $150 for the machine. I think I should find out if the lace carriage and intarsia carriages will work with it!!

It took a bit of work to get it going. The book doesn't tell you that weights are needed. There is no cast on comb or hem, just a couple of claw weights. Once I loaded up the weights, it knitted fine!



The bottom of this swatch is punchcard #18 used for slip stitch. The wrong side is actually the right side, however it doesn't show up on either side because I think the tension was too loose. Then I tried the same card as a slipstitch Fair Isle.

Weeee!! Now I have to go hunting for more punchcards!!

I have a huge cone of this bright red yarn, and quite a bit of the green. It's called "Pine Green" but in one blob, it's too bright too. I do have some other cones to experiment with. This yarn is FINE! I have some dark blue and some moss green that would make nice...shirts? It's so fine it doesn't feel like sweater material!

I'm having a hard time finding patterns though. I got 4 magazines from another guild member, but even the 'advanced beginner' ones seem too hard, are written too vaguely, are ugly, or for different machines. I know I can chart up my own plain things, but I want to do something with the punchcards, and not look like 4 rectangles sewn together and called a sweater. I'm beyond that!

7 comments:

steel breeze said...

If you don't mind making your own, there are PDFs of the Brother standard sets of punchcards at http://punchcards.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/. Not sure what line your machine starts on - Brother starts on line 7

zehava said...

lucky lucky!

one day i'd love to get a knitting machine :) but i think we need a bigger house first... it's already overflowing!

Miriam said...

I'd be interested to hear more of your experience with the knitting machine. I've wanted to get one, but haven't ever taken the plunge. I found one at a 2nd hand store once for about $50 and ALMOST bought it, but I didn't even know if it would work.

Adriaan said...

I'm interested in hearing about your success with using the lace carriage with this machine (I have the same, along with a few of the Singer documents that were written on a typewriter(really shows it's age!) Including a book called Memo-Matic How To Do.)

TracyKM said...

Adriaan, I found out that the lace carriage will not work with the 327 because the needles are not the right type (flexible). Someday, maybe I'll get one with a lace carriage though I feel I don't give the machines enough attention now that I have three plus all my sewing, music, blogging, work...

Adriaan said...

I have a brother KH588 and it is one of those models that come with a lace carriage and the needles look the same to me so I have wondered. I've heard that the 360 is similar to the 327 in regard to it's sinker plate and such. I'm a bit swamped like that too, with all 27 of my sewing machines and my 5 knitting machines all requiring their own attention.

TracyKM said...

I believe the 360 is identical to the 327 except for the needles :( If I had known this, I might have waited, since they're fairly readily available. But I didn't have much time to decide, or research (there wasn't a lot on the internet) and the price was great. I like handknitting lace though, so at least I can do that.