number ten...

And eleven! Yeah, I’ve been knitting away, kind of ignoring you and just getting on with my lace projects, feeling bad for leaving you hanging! Been meaning to give you my run-down on the front bands, buttons and holes – how, how many and stuff like that, so here goes.

On that last bunch, the three Bonita cotton ones, https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2022/02/my-hole-theory.html I really paid close attention to the spacing of the buttons and my conclusion: 8 - 19 mm buttons, spaced 8 cm apart (from centre of button) works best for the length of this garment – the front band is about 65-68 cm\25.5-27 inches in length, 21mm\7/8 inch wide. On the blue one, I had 6 - 23cm buttons, spaced 11 cm between and there’s a little bit of stretching, gaping between when buttoned which can be sort of unattractive – trying to avoid that! On the red mesh, used 8 – 19mm buttons and it’s perfect (did the rose one the same but the buttons were slightly larger, not a big deal but optimally if you had all the right options available, go with the 19mm size.

Tip: When making the buttonhole band, instead of having to count needles to the next hole, use the straight side of the needle selector and measure 7 cm (to get 8 cm centred) between first and last needles of prospective buttonhole – see photo at right. Start the top buttonhole needles from neck end of band, 4 needles for hole, 7 cm to start of next hole,  4 ns, etc down and leave any excess/extra at bottom end, eliminating the need to have evenly spaced holes right to the bottom.

Just finishing up another laced, button-front hoodie in ‘thistle’, Forsell’s Pure New 4 ply wool for sister Janet – her birthday last week and she really does love that gold one I sent her last fall, so I’m happy to make another for her. The stitch pattern is from Gossamer, from Serial Stuff 3, and the hem is from Tumbleweed, KW No 53.

Number 11, in the light blue Bonita cotton, is for my next-door neighbour, Susan, just because she’s a great girl, hope she likes the colour! The stitch pattern is from Lacy Twin, way back, cover of KW No.20 https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/07/cross-knitting.html  – I had remade the twinset for myself in black WCD – totally classic! https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2020/03/schemeing-vees.html

My year of lace carriage is just about complete…in my mind anyway - never really started out to spend the whole year on this but it kind of became a bit of an obsession - you know how I get…and it’s not like I really have to stop lace carriaging, like, you’re not the boss of me! I can do what I want and truly, I still love that thing. In fact, I have been toying with the idea of a lace, button-front hoodie in wool crepe deluxe (be still my heart! – am I ready for it?) and I still have that green Cannelé cotton…

the elephant in the room...

The sponge bar, a.k.a. needle retainer bar, is a touchy subject. It’s not mentioned in any techniques books or resource manuals that I’ve ever seen. And hearsay, yikes! So much, do this, don’t do that…and I have, in the past, given little hints here and there but I thought I’d put it all together here. First, for the beginners out there, almost all flat bed machines have a needle retainer system which is some sort of foam strip that holds the needles down in the channel. You need to have the correct one for your specific model. I admit much of my knowledge is with the Silver/Studio/Singer genre but have had experience with Brother/KnitKing and I think the basics are the same. The weather/climate and how your machine is housed plays a large part in how long the foam strip will last. If you’re in a warm climate, no air-conditioning, the heat will play a part in how fast that bar will retain elasticity , same as a home with forced air heating in the winter – no set rules in how long it will last, but…

How to know if it needs to be replaced? In certain pattern stitches, like tuck, maybe the tucks are not knitting off properly. Maybe the stitches are not actually tucking when they should. Mistakes in patterning will show up. Sometimes, if the foam strip is really bad, it will even show up on plain stockinette where the stitch doesn’t knit off properly, making a tuck where it’s not wanted. When hand transferring, like cabling, manual lace, or increasing and decreasing, if the needles are moving up and down as you attempt to fit the three-prong or a multi-prong tool onto a group, causing more work than it should be, these are indications that the sponge bar is loosing it’s holding power. I generally notice when the hook part is elevated above the flat bed when the needles are in A or B position.

When a brand-new strip is inserted properly, the front of the needle in A or B position should be sitting firmly down on the metal.

My guidelines for the sponge bar (and lace carriage work - the touchiest one): Swap it out between pieces. I always have at least 3 bars. A brand new one (never use for lace knitting – it will be too firm and the needles won’t transfer properly, not enough give!). Save this one and break it in on a stockinette project. Mark the date on it with a felt pen when it’s first inserted. The other two, (both somewhat used, at least one or two projects on each) use to swap out, if necessary – if it’s working and lacing properly, keep going – this is only when problems occur! - for each new piece, giving the second one a day of rest between pieces.

Check the give on the needles – Bring needles to B and press down – if there is a quite noticeable distance, consider replacing.

Try to complete one full piece per sitting. The bar won’t suddenly collapse and if it’s working well, go with the flow!

May all your lace transfers transfer!

P.S. I don’t like the idea of taking the bar out of the machine while you’re away – you may forget how it went in…I once had a customer who put it in upside down and then called for help…yikes!

back in the day...

The other day I was chatting with favourite grandson Nate – we were talking about his family going to Edmonton for the March break, next week. I told him the last time I was in Edmonton was like 2003, maybe, and I went there to be on a TV show. I gave him a very quick snippet, said that I was pretty sure it was on YouTube. Before I knew it, he had it dialed up on his screen! He was thought it was pretty cool that his Grama was on YouTube! Wow, a blast from the past! I figured, what the hay, may as well tell you too!

Wa-ay back, we’re talking 1996, pre-Knitwords magazine. I made this gold and white baseball jacket to go with my pair of high-top sneakers and it made the cover of Canada’s Fashion Machine. I used Linda MacPhee’s Crazy Jacket pattern, knit up a pile of fabrics in various stitch patterns using ‘Starlight’, a gold fingering weight hand knitting yarn and white Yeoman’s Cannelé, cut’n’sewed them into this jacket and sent it off to CFM, along with my shoes.

A few years later, my friend Vickie sent the magazine to Linda MacPhee who was doing this TV show about sewing – I think it was airing on PBS at the time. Anyway, Linda called me and invited me to Edmonton to be on the show. I went, thinking it was a good opportunity to get some airtime for knitting machines - she had promised me we could show a machine on the program. Packed up my trunk show and an LK150 and flew off to Edmonton. Went to the TV studio, had my make-up done and chatted briefly with Linda. She said we’d do a little run-through, get the feel of things and then do it for real. I said a couple of things that sounded totally dumb in my ears, said to myself, no worries, we’re gonna do it again and next thing I know she’s saying, that’s all the time we have! See ya later! Knitting machine still in the case! Here’s the link, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=linda+macphee+workshop+Mary+Anne+Oger  - it was season 1 episode 3 in case you’re interested, my part starts at about 8 minutes in.

I wanted to show more and had prepared a new cut’n’sew project, Faded Glory – later featured in Knitwords #29, Summer ’04, which is on the Knitwords back issues cd http://www.knitwords.com/previous.html as an unadvertised extra…

I did get to the mall…