mental note...

They don't work for me anymore! I need something much more blatant!
For the past several knitting projects on my standard gauge machine, I've been telling myself to change the sponge bar before the next thing. At Christmas when I was doing that 4Fhoodie, I was noticing that the needles were up so high that picking up stitches for increases and decreases was becoming more difficult and I thought to myself, I guess it's time to change the sponge bar. Then I did that circular scarf and once you're into a project, it is difficult to change out the bar so I just kept re-knitting the tucked stitches and sort of blamed it on the fine yarn and the circular knitting and maybe sticky latches. I made Nathan's hoodie in early February and it didn't present any issues - heavier yarn, not much shaping, easy work - so it slipped my mind again. I did the swatches and the actual oxymoron scarf for February and I slipped in the close knit bar, completely forgetting the sponge bar issues and everything worked fine. Socks were not a problem or so I thought.
Yesterday, completely oblivious, I set out and cast-on the full width of the needle bed  to make sister Janet my TLR cardi (http://knitwords.blogspot.ca/2015/07/my-plan-worked.html- 'my plan worked...' July 23, 2015) from last summer, for her upcoming birthday. I have enough of the watercolour WCD left over from her last dress and I thought it would make a nice outfit with the dress. So the cast-on wasn't exactly a quick and easy thing - anyway, the point was, after knitting about 80 rows and ripping back a few times because I thought the tuck patterning was messing up, I finally gave up and took the piece off - OMG! what a disaster - glad I gave up when I did! Out of the 80 rows (it's a 6 row repeat), I had three spots where the tuck didn't work all the way across but then started again. V-8 bang on the forehead! that freaking sponge bar! I pulled it out and man! I've never seen one thinner! Replaced it, knit up a perfect sleeve and life is good again!

Murphy's Law

How do you know when it’s time to get a new sponge/needle retainer strip for your LK150? Murphy says usually when you’re under the gun...I have been thinking lately that my beloved LK wasn’t quite performing up to par, but I’m so adaptable that I adjust to almost anything. Karma Chameleon could be my theme song!

Yes, the last 2 garments - I haven’t actually been zipping through them like usual and, yes, I have been hand knitting rows that should have knit just fine at a loose tension, usually - but I’ve been chalking it up to other things (not enough weight, hard twist to the yarn, wrong tension) - truth be told, I’m sure I haven’t changed this thing in at least 5 or 6 years - it isn’t really something I think about a lot...anyway, here I am working to someone else’s deadline - the yarn was a scramble to get and was left last minute and they needed this garment in their hands by the 10th of this month...I made my swatches for this project last November and have knit 5 other projects on my baby since then...

I remember now, thinking when I did the test samples - I was doing 3 rows of 1X1 tuck using hold, which means you bring every other needle out to hold, set the levers to hold, knit 3 rows and then cancel hold and knit 1 row and then throw in a loose tension row - something’s not quite right. Well, what’s happening now is that most of the row doesn’t knit, it floats the stitches and makes a lot of clinking and ticking noises as the carriage goes across - the clinking and ticking is the latches touching the magnets in the carriage because the foam strip is not holding the needles as firmly, and, generally  floating (not knitting) and dropping some stitches too...what a mess...
Good thing I have a replacement sponge strip in stock...or do I? Hummmm...there are lines on the ‘new’ sponge strip...oh, gosh, it’s not new - the lines are from the needles!! why would I keep a used sponge strip??? Oh well, I did get the job done by working carefully and adding extra weight and I’ve ordered a couple of new sponges just to have!