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…

that hole theory...

Got the rose hoodie put in the mail. Dee got it and she loves it! Called to say how pretty it was and the best news, it fit perfectly! I was so happy!

I wanted to tell you what I learned on these last three – they were all the Bonita cotton, so all knit at the same stitch size. I had swatched the floral mesh stitch pattern in the rose and swatched the red mesh in the actual colour, same stitch size. The gauge was a bit different, rose floral was 26 sts and 40 rows and the red mesh was 25 sts and 45 rows to 10 cm/4 inch. http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/07/whoops.html

The blue was made first. I liked it but on the red one, wanted it longer, added 12 rows of faggoted border (3 cm) and the sleeves a bit longer (15 rows plus the faggoted border, 10 cm). http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/06/you-know-i-didnt.html

Thought the red was perfect so made the rose one same size but because of the gauge difference, less stitches and more rows. At the end, after washing and drying, buttons on and done, they weighed within 5 grams of each other! So much for my hole theory! The red mesh one looks very airy and full of holes – the stitch pattern is 6 rows X 4 sts, 24 sts total and 4 of them (6%) are holes. The floral design is 60 rows X 60 sts, 3600 sts total repeat with 351 of them being holes (10%) … so the way I see it, the holes have nothing to do with it!

Anyway, I’m still working on it! ;)

Back to things I’ve learned – record the yarn amounts used in each piece – this will help if you get into a yarn crisis and must adapt the plan (more on this next time!).

Yarn marks are essential – hang one for the centres of each piece too, as well as the 10 cm increments for seaming at the edges.

Another thing, you know, you start out with a plan - for example, the sleeve having an underarm length of say 45 cm and you knit that according to your swatch (if you  made one) but how does it turn out when the whole thing is assembled? For future reference, I always record finished (after wash and dry!) measurements so I can judge just how accurate the final garment is to the original plan. When making for someone else, especially when sending away, this can be very important if, say, they want another one but maybe the sleeve shorter – you’ll know what they have and how to change it!

what I’m watching…Marvelous Mrs Maisel – love seeing the ‘50s and ‘60s fashions – that girl can rock the swing coat and it’s fun to see who shows up in each episode – that was Lord Merton from Downton Abbey who played Jane Lynch’s butler and that’s the guy who played Christy’s (Mom) ex-boss… OMG, is that Mr Monk?

And, so excited! Crave just put up Season 19 of Project Runway! Can`t wait to get into that – love me some Christian Siriano!

PS - Dee sent a thank you - 3 full cones of Yeoman's Cannele in 'marsh' - green!!! I must have died and gone to yarn heaven! Now, really excited!!

the same but opposite...

I really did think I was being so smart. Last year, I made that awesome denim lace jean jacket – here was the plan - https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/02/jean-jacket-re-visited.html

As with a lot of my knitting lately, some of the issues - https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/03/knitting-knightmares.html

Here’s what it looked like finished - https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/04/denim-done.html

After wearing it a time or two, I decided that the sleeves were too long – they have a buttoned cuff, meant to sit at the wrist and, obviously without thinking it through, I made the sleeve length like I would my regular sleeve without cuff, that I’ve been pulling down over my hand to act as a glove, you know, for opening doors and stuff when you didn’t want to be in contact with whatever. Also, not sure if you noticed but the sleeves were a different colour. When I made it, I did have two different dye-lots of the denim, one being slightly darker than the other, but I figured it would all come out in the wash.

Well, it didn’t and when I was wearing the thing, as I glanced down, that lighter-shaded sleeve bugged me a bit. Add that to the sleeve length issue and I got my first brain wave! I could remove the sleeves, shorten them, over-dye ‘em and Bob’s your uncle! Yeah! (she later said to herself with an eye-roll.)

Brimming with self-confidence, I pulled the sleeves off. Unravelled them down to row 100, counting the rows down from the underarm (that I knew from my notes) as I reeled the wool winder, cleverly, I thought and, not breaking the yarn, re-knit back up to new desired length (20 rows less than original), reshaped the sleeve cap with shortrows as per usual. At the top of the shortrowing, I like to knit a full row to get rid of the wraps, then do an RTR (remove, turn, rehang) and knit another row, which creates a nice purl stitch ridge, then take off on the garter bar, to join into the sleeve opening. But, if you read back, this sleeve has to be inserted into the circular opening on the body so did the RTR, K1R thing and then knit  4 more rows of the sleeve yarn so there would be enough yarn to join the sleeve in the same over-dyed colour. Nifty, huh? Then knit 8 rows waste yarn and cast off – ya don’t want it unravelling in the dye job, right?

Did the dye thing, stove top method, so far so good. Rinsed and dried the sleeves. Removed the waste yarn and carefully unravelled the last four rows, down to the purl ridge. Still okay but prudently decided that new waste yarn was required. It’s still flat, easy to do. Got the sleeves attached, all done. Gosh, darn…sleeves are the perfect length but…

jibber jabber...

You’re probably thinking that after all those ‘mistakes’, I’d either abandon the rose hoodie or re-knit it. Now don’t get all judgy on me! I just kept on going, figuring that my impeccable finishing techniques would save the day.

Being extra careful, things went well. Bands, buttonholes, all the putting together, no problems. All was done! Thought it looked pretty fine. I was going to post it off to Dee without buttons – she said she had some, but I couldn’t resist. How could I tell just how good it really was without giving it a good try-on? ;)  I sewed on suitable buttons that I’ve had for eons - she can change if them if she doen't like 'em! Wow! looks pretty good, fits nice, and, as often happens, the colour has grown on me! After wearing it for the better part of an afternoon though, I decided the hem needed some extra attention. On the back especially, likely because of the shortrowed curve, it seemed to be curling up slightly. 

In Band Practise, there is a trim called Baton Rouge (#4) which I’ve used on several garments, both mid and standard gauge and, on the bottom of it there is a tip that says “Add this step any time to add extra weight to edge. Hanging the other way, adding another row and cast-off also counteracts curling edges.”

The hem used already was the same as I did on my original lace, button-front hoodie, just like on Me-Cozy, an ewrap, K1R, loose row and chain cast off. http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/04/deja-vu.html

What I did:  Purl side facing, hang the cast-off chain, picking up both sides of chain.

Manually knit very loose row (main stockinette tension here was already T9) – don’t break yarn - and chain off, taking last stitch to opposite end of needle bed.

Turn piece to hang knit side facing, again hanging both sides of the chain-off.

T9, K1R.  Manually knit very loose row and chain off, ending by pulling tail through last loop.

Beautiful! There is so much happening on the garment, with the complicated-looking large stitch pattern, the pockets, the front bands and hem, I defy anyone to say there’s anything wrong with this!

  

a comedy of errors...

Not really anything funny about it! Don’t know if you remember but I did say I’d like to re-knit that blue Floral Mesh, just for practise really and to use up the rose-coloured Bonita. http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-holy-grail.html

It’s not my colour and it’s not like I really need another button-front lace hoodie…my friend Dee jumped on it and said she even had the buttons! Well, why not? It would give me a chance to get my money’s worth out of charting out that 60 St X 60 Row stitch pattern!

bad sponge bar

As usual, started off with the sleeves, both knit up perfectly, not a dropped stitch in sight. I didn’t get back to it right away and everything sat for a week or two, more likely two. Got started on the Back and wouldn’t you know, it was like the jinx of the machine knitting gods was living in my room! I had kept track of my time on each piece with the blue one and, it’s sad to say, I used to know better than this! This Back, I spent twice as much time on – dropped stitches and mostly, not-transferred, therefore not lace, stitches! Now, back in the day, my usual advice, know when to cut your losses, know when to quit! But I persevered, got ‘er done! Three and a half hours!! instead of the one and a half for the blue one! I knew what was wrong, it was that freakin’ sponge bar. But the piece was done and off the machine.

Took another week off and guess who forgot all about it? You’re right! Now, on top of it all, ‘she’ forgot to re-position the N1 cam after the hem and knit the first front centred over 2-3 Left instead of 0! Oh man! I thought it was time to hang up my transfer tools!

Another week went by, made the second front with the same mistake. Kept saying to myself there was no way I was going to be able to give this thing away – the shame of it! But plodding on, and congratulating myself for my stick-to-itiveness, the next big dilemma, the pockets. Again, a brain fog took over, forgot all about the N1 thing and trying to match the pocket patterning to the front, made them correctly! Ar-r-r-r-g-g-h!

Things I learned on this one…check your blessed sponge bar! I added that to the top of my cheat sheet!

it's 2022...

Omigosh! I’ve been having conversations with you, in my head, over the past couple of months. They’ve been full of excuses, apologies, promises and whys…I’m ashamed of myself and I’m sorry! So I ran out of yarn spray. So I couldn’t get any better buttons. So what if I can’t just drive down to Minnesota. Big freaking deal! My health is fine, my family’s pretty much okay too, so where do I get off feeling sorry for myself? Huh! I’ve given myself the proverbial kick in the butt and here I am, again, promising to do better.

I was knitting and trying to keep busy but feeling like I had nothing new and exciting to say, doubting whether I was still relevant and realized that was really based on, was I ever relevant? and you know what?  Been taking myself far too seriously! what the hay? If you don’t like what I’m talking about, you can just hit delete or whatever! I still have things to say, knit and share!

I left off with that blue ‘Mesh Floral’, in my continuing saga of the perfect, longer, button-front hoodie. From there, I knit it again in red Bonita, the same yarn as the blue, using the all-over lace mesh, very holey ;)! 

In my defense, I think it was still summer or at least early Fall when I started it. I got the pieces knit, relatively quickly, no real issues, until the putting together. Somehow I forgot just about everything I knew! I attached the hood to the neckline, without really thinking, saw that I had forgotten to do an e-wrap cast-on at the beginning of the hood. No big deal, but, not according to Hoyle, aka, MAO. Then, I saw that usually I like the joining seam to be on the outside so it doesn’t show when the hood is down. Also neglected to put the chain across the fold row of the band for the front of the hood and forgot to put that band on before attaching hood to neckline, necessitating the use of waste yarn for this operation instead of the quicker garter bar. 

Concentrating a little harder, managed to get the remaining parts done without messing up. A little deflated (my ego, that is), I knew that no one else would ever see or notice these glaring (in my mind) errors!

Made myself a cheat sheet!