Back in the Game

I had a sudden urge to clean off my knitting machine table. It's in my basement, between my sewing table and the "basement fridge". It gets used as a place to set and leave things, or set things down when getting stuff from the freezer. A lot of the accessories were scattered on the floor  underneath. I've been wanting to get back at the machines, but it felt daunting. The table, and everything on it, was covered in red fluffy dust, from when I made the last scarves for World AIDS Day. Frustrated by breaking my carriage and so many things going wrong, I turned my focus to Christmas stockings and other hand knitting (and the blankets for seniors charity).  I didn't even know what I wanted to machine knit, but it felt like over the past two years, I had seen so many things I wanted to MK.

It really didn't take long to get this much done. I was actually surprised LOL. 

A lot of stuff had been "thrown" underneath. It's not organized, but it's usable.

I have these cones of yarn sitting on top of my yarn cubbies. I got them in 2010. It was a bit of an interesting story!  I got out the manual, then realized I needed a ribber manual. I think I have it on my iPad, but that's pretty much just for playing Mahjong in bed now.  Downloaded a manual to my new 3-in-1 tablet/laptop. Handy! Started working through casting on, made a swatch in 1x1 ribbing, using T3, then stepped it down to T2 and then T1.  I even washed the swatch! It fluffed up so nicely.

I did some math and determined I could do 3 panels of about 70 needles (on each bed, then take every other needle back) to get the width I needed. And it would take 250 rows, at T3.  I did two panels with one white strand and one blue strand. Even letting them rest for awhile, it was too long, and even too wide. Ribbing is so hard to measure though. Lay it out once and it's relaxed; lay it out again and it's snugged up. I can easily make the blue panels measure 11" or 14". The white section is a bit tighter because I opted to make it at T2.

I laid it all out and decided I needed to rip out 32 rows of the blue sections. The white section would stay at 250 rows. I had two cones of the white, so that's why it's white in the middle.

The white strand doesn't really show up with the blue, but I assume it lightened it. I was originally going to do white/white; white/blue; blue/blue but I didn't want to wind off a big ball of the blue so I'd have a ball to go with the cone. It's slippery and doesn't wind well. 

SK155

T2, 1X1 RIB:  24sts, 22 rows to 4"

T3, 1x1 RIB: 22sts, 17 rows to 4"

Yarn In:  2485.5gr

Yarn Out: 3,032 + 352gr = 3384gr 
Balance:  898gr more OUT than IN
Costs: $90.24/364days = $0.25/day

I had hoped to have another crocheted blanket ready to be counted, but I am out of yarn for it so I have to do some ripping. And....I picked up a HUGE bag of donated yarn to make more blankets. I should have waited till next weekend before picking it up LOL. Maybe I'll just count it as next year. But then I'm starting with a big surplus (1786gr). If  I list it now, I'll end the year with a 888gr surplus. Last year I ended with 2541gr more out than in, and less than half what I  spent this year. I don't feel I bought a lot of yarn this year, but I did have to buy some for stockings. This is the 8th year I've kept totals, and after the first 7 years, I have a surplus of 1291gr. Now I'm going to add another 888gr? Ya know what? I only picked it up yesterday because the woman was going out of town. I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist until Wednesday. Yes, I'll start with a surplus, but at least I can end one year with a deficit LOL. My blog, my rules!