Yeah, that’s
me! I admit it…over the past few years, I’ve developed a yen for yarn spray. It
came on gradually – I started off using it on the fine gauge machine – it
was almost impossible to get anything done on that machine without yarn
spray. I was using it with WCD on the standard gauge...if you’ve never used yarn spray, let me explain – the carriage seems
quite stiff and hard to push; you may have ‘floating’ or tucked stitches – where part of
the row does not actually complete the stitch, the yarn is only caught by the
hook of the needle and looped above the stitch of the previous row – some of
this is caused by having the stitch size smaller or tighter than the machine
actually wants to perform at. Most times a hard twist yarn - particularly
rayon and cotton - is more difficult and troublesome to work with and yarn
spray takes the hassle out of it. Also, it will generally sort out any static problems. So the increased use, I hardly noticed, until
one day I realized I was putting it on almost everything. It became my secret ingredient, like grainy mustard. Now, I was using Lori-Lyn- it had a distinctive vanilla scent that I did enjoy and I thought maybe that was contributing to my incessant p-s-s-s-t-t, p-s-s-s-t-t! Came the day that I used my last little shot of LLYS and found to my dismay that it has been discontinued, out of production, NLA…rats! What will I do? It may be the end of my machine knitting career!
Then one day I called Mike Becker at Distinctive Knits – www.dknits.com – actually, to wish him Happy Birthday – he always wonders how, or more to the point, why, do I remember his birthday? I’ve never told him, but it is the same day as my favourite Granny’s birthday (who has long past but never forgotten) – don’t tell him, let him think whatever – anyway, in the conversation, he told me he had a new product – YARN SPRAY!! OMG Mike, it’s a good thing many miles separate us! ;-))
I got my order
from him just before Christmas – 2 bottles of the precious liquid, a couple of
new sponge strips for my LK150 and a few other goodies – I could hardly wait to
give it a shot – get it? Give it a shot, press the button, a little burst of TLC…So, the new stuff, called ‘Super Industrial Yarn Spray’(SIYS), is non-aerosol, a good thing. It comes in a nice little 10 oz bottle with a pistol grip trigger spray, with a stop/go control – no odour, stainless, no silicone, washes out easily – it’s all good! The label states: yarn and sewing thread spray lubricant eliminates friction and static…keeps yarn running smoothly! What more could you want? I did want to give it a good testing before I gave it the MAO stamp of approval and here it is, kids! I love this stuff – I even used it on a mercerised cotton on my LK last week – I did a little cardigan for KnS in an all-over tuck with a finer-than-usual-for-me yarn that was misbehaving – I was knitting it at T3 if that tells you anything (pretty tight, small stitches) – that, combined with the hand-selected tuck was giving me fits until I grabbed Mike’s little bottle of magic – hey, I think he should rename it! – and sh-s-s-s-t, sh-s-s-s-t, problem solved!
I used it on the 4ply wool Geezer remake, sailed through that with no aching shoulders and this week tried it on a slub cotton project that made the knitting a breeze – my little tip: put the yarn in a plastic bag, pull the bag open, give it a quick blast of the trigger on either side of the cone, push the bag back up and knit 40 rows or so – the machine will let you know when it needs another shot!
And I don’t miss the vanilla flavour – light a candle if you want that! Tell Mike I sent you but don’t mention Granny…
KnS - knit'nstyle magazine
LLYS – lori lyn
yarn sprayNLA – no longer available
OMG - oh my gosh
TLC - tender loving care
WCD – wool crepe deluxe
MAO – mary anne oger
