Sydney Royal Easter Show 2012

I meant to post this last month. oops.

This year the show featured "Fabulous Fibre" in their central display in the middle of the craft pavilion. The big square was shared a corner each, the machine knitters with the handknitters, spinners and felters. The weather was rainy, with a few days of sun.

Anyways, here are some photos of our corner, taken just before the public descended, some items were on loan and items from all over the state donated for the Winter Warmers display then on to the Red Cross.We had lots of people do some samples of machine knitting to hang on the front of the display and we can use them in future displays.

Our corner of the display

Some of our items on display

I had a lovely time knitting in the corner and chatting to the passers-by. We had a lot of them when the there was a downpour throughout the day. That and we were opposite the cake decorating!!!

Edit to add:  Here is me:

Hi there! Me at the show.

Making Continuous Hats

I've finished up all but a couple of those fluffy balls I had in a box. The box is going into the recycling and those couple of balls are in a bag, ready for me to make some hats for May's Australia's Biggest Morning Tea - which we are having at Epping club, and as I was making the last ones for Lyn's clinic I've taken some photos to show continuous hat making. The pattern is Sandy's Chemo Hats

Cast on EON 60-63 stitches T4

Use the ruler to bring up the needles to transfer

 bring up the other needles inbetween,

T8 knit 4 rows,

T9 knit till the yarn is still on the floor - 40ish rows.










Transfer needles for 2tog,
T4 knit 2 rows

good thing, leave everything where is it

knit a couple of rows of waste yarn

Add weight to WY and knit another hat

I like to put the hats directly into a plastic garbage bag

Really keeps all this mess together until I'm ready to separate them.

on the last one knitted, pick up the stitches and run a darning needle through them and leave it until all the hats below are separated

Then go to the first one knitted and I separate my way back up the hats. Run a thin circular needle through the live stitches, cut the last stitch on the opposite side to the thread, run the darning needle through the live stitches, throw the waste yarn into a rubbish bag and the newly separated hats into a pile until I sew them up later.

I cut the first stitch of the WY after I pick up the live stitches and pull it to remove the hat from the one above.

I like to have all the cut up waste yarn in a separate rubbish bag and the ready to sew in a pile.

and then I sew them up. Voila continuously knitted strips into Chemo Hats.

KX350 + 1 panel = 176 needles ready to go = Fraank

I bought a new top for my knitting table - A Plaank for Fraank

I have a new piece of 44 needles to put into Fraank

Turn him over and remove the last plate and end

And snap the new section into place - it has a slot

And put the end piece on and put the plates back and screw back into place

I removed the centre screw and relocated the clamp to the end

New needles and sponge, it's plastic is discoloured, but it works a charm.

Some Zoomy Vests

My stash on Rav 6 Mar 2012

I've been working on getting rid of my old WIPs (works in progress). I decided to start finishing them this year, starting with the nearest to finished. Well I finished the body and started on the sleeves. The more I did the less I wanted to finish it, wear it or have anything to do with it. So I decided to NOT finish it, and undo/frog it. So that makes two things I've put back into balls.

 But what started this epiphany, was... I need to make another blue/black vest or three. The ones from last year have suffered from "wearing them all the time".  I have one redish tone one that I can walk out the door, and I machined and hand knit - green! Two green vests. Great! I don't know what I was thinking, just getting them done. Which brings me to my Zoomy. Lauren and her Dad brought me back two packets of 10 Zoomys in different blues from their road trip home from Melbourne, in Dec 2010. Sadly my old Zoomy vest - well I don't think even the needy will want to wear it. It's rubbish. But backtracking to my WIP hand knit problem, I really didn't want to start another handknit until I made them go away. Problem solved, it's no more, it's back into balls.

My Shalom Vest with elledot (Leila's) buttons

So onto the Zoomy. I really need vests, so I made a replacement Shalom for the one that I threw away, and have started a Heather Hoodie on the other packet.

Heather hoodie in progress

And now I'm back to machine knitting. I'll finish off my second Lana Vest this week, then I'll think about whether I pack up Yoko and do something else one of the other machines. Maybe I'll make another Shawl Collared Cardi on it before I do.

Lana Sweater in progress - only sleeves to do

And I went to Spotties and bought some cotton jersey to make some long body/sleeve tees for this winter. I'd like to get them done next week, ready for the cool weather, which I don't think is too far away. I got some nice easy to wear ones from Primark, three plain cotton jersey ones from Lauren's trip to London, year before last and the three I brought back from my trip to London. I must admit I like the 100% cotton ones better and I'm so sick of stuff that is too short. So this year, I'm getting rid of all the too short stuff.


That's enough to be getting on with now I think!

Put Your Pattern on Your Kindle

How to put a pattern on your Kindle so it's easy to read and what do I need on each page?

Here are my three pages I prepared for the Lana Sweater I've just made:

Three pages each one is pasted in separately

I downloaded the .pdf,
then "printed" to onenote.
then select all and ask it to copy to text.
then copy it into a new onenote page.
then set about into editing it into something I can use, different yarn and bigger size, for brushed (shrink when washed) cotton.
I tried making a .pdf directly from one note, but the margin and the font size was too small to read.

Next
After working out what I wanted to do - which is the three pages I've put above, I put each pages into Publisher - I made three pages - then enlarged each section to take up a whole page.
Then made a .pdf
then sent it to my kindle
which was lovely and here it is

One Kindle Page is one page in Publisher/Word no need to magnify

If you don't have publisher, you will need to do your pages in Word - I suggest font size 30+ so it's nice and big. Remember one page in Word/Publisher is one page on the Kindle screen. I do not want to fiddle about with enlarging half of it and missing something, and I want to be able to read it easily.

Next:

What does it all mean?
I try to get rid of all redundant information. I write what I understand and what I don't need is the "how tos" that are on the original pattern. I need to know what setting I need on the machine, how many stitches and rows and when to do something.. basically just that... I don't need words like Armhole Shaping, begin neck shaping - transfer stitches to main bed.

I use the row counter = RC000 to tell me that something has changed. I'm beginning a new something.
I'll run through my back notes :

Back

CO 100, 2:2 ind rib, means cast on 100  = R50, L50 - in Industrial ribbing, (11.11.11 etc on both beds) I only count the main bed not the ribber, if there are two T numbers, I'm doing ribbing and I don't care what the number of needles are on the ribber, there are two under each empty needle.

1R T R + R reminds me to change the dials 

90R T3.2 + 3.2, means after casting on, knit 90 rows with 3.2 on both stitch dials

RC000 - always tells me, something's changed and I will put the two ribber stitches onto the single empty needle. I always do this so I can leave out these words too.

T5.1: +1 ev 6R to 120 sts -> RC72.The single T #  tells me I'm on the main bed increasing 1 stitch each end every 6 rows to 120 sts, then knit straight to row counter 72.

RC000 - oh you know what this means!!!

-8sts next 2R, means I've started my armhole shaping and take off 8 stitches the next 2 rows

-1st ea end ev 2R x15 = 80sts means dec 1 sts each end every 2 rows to 80 sts

-> 78RC means knit straight to row counter 78

-9 sts next 4R (S/R) means using short row method, minus 9 sts each end for 4 rows

Take off and I always knit one complete row across all stitches before I do this but I don't need to say it cause I always do it.

There you are then, what I do for me, so when I'm at the machine, I know what setting to use on the machine and when to do what so I can make one of these, for instance:

Lana Sweater before it was washed

Kindle me Happy

I got a Kindle for Christmas from family, who told me that I could download .pdf files and I could make them from Onenote. I also knew I could make them from Publisher.

The first try was from one note:

... which I couldn't get large enough print, or reduce the margin. Maybe there is a way to do that, but, next I tried from Publisher. One page in Publisher is one page on the Kindle. Perfect!

And here I am making my latest top on Yoko, Lana Sweater in Wild Lavender 8ply Cotton from Bendigo Woollen Mills. Kindly stashed by myself over a year ago.

Chemo Hats and Headband Cast On Comb

My friend called the other day, she was not having a good one. Instead of going to the hairdressers to get her hair dyed a delightful red/brown, she had to get it cut off as great big chunks of it were coming out. Is my friend Lyn worried about the Chemo, radiation or operation.. or even that she has cancer? Nope none of that, her prognosis is excellent - she will be in good health again on the other side of all that - no, no, not my dear friend, she was really down about her hair. So I thought I'd make her some new hat hair until she gets a wig later this month. And here is her happy self, wearing one and clutching the other:

She loves her new hat hair so much she wore it to the clinic for her radiation treatment and they were quite taken with her hair, so I asked her if they would like some at the clinic and they said yes, so last Sunday I made them all in a single line.
And here they are, I had all this stuff in a bag to send to Vinnies, I must be meant to keep it to make hats!!! Who knows? I took three packets to Lauren when I went to London last year, the bright and colourful ones and here are the brown ones. I was going to make trauma teddies - instead I'm making hat hair!! Oh well, as long as it's something!

I haven't had any success with the same single bed cast on I use for the other Singer/Silver Reed machines. e-wrap works, as does the double or knit back e-wrap.

Sandy sent me a make your own cast on bomb thingy like the Brother one, out of bobbypins and while I was at the hair place I saw a wire tooth metal headband that I thought looked very promising. So I bought one. Well it really works well. I threaded a bit of wool scrap through it, but.. I really think some hat elastic like the Bond set up would be even better. Anyways, here is a photo of it at work: