blocking board

Wow, I can't believe I haven't used one of these before. I'm working on a sweater for my hubby.  This one will be a first for me, I'm knitting 3 yarns as one - 1 3ply and 2 2ply. some black wool, the 2 ply that was too thin to make a full size sweater on a 200 bed. I even tried tripling it to make a 6 ply but that still didn't work - the gauge was still too small.  So I added a 3 ply Patons Lace acrylic with mohair and wool blend.
So I really wanted it to look nice for him.  I decided to make a blocking board.  I used a project board - the ones used for school projects, a ruler and marked off 1 inch increments. I pin the sweater to it and let the steam fly and now the sweater is just the right size and shape!

Starting to get the hang of this

I got the intarsia for my Toyota yesterday, I am really excited now.  I just wish I could quit work and do this full time. Unfortunately there are little things called bills that must be paid every month, and I have yet to find someone to buy my knits.  Of course I have noticed that when I make something specifically to sell, I lose the love of doing it, not sure if that makes sense, but that is the best way to describe it.

Anyway, I am thinking about taking another approach to this knitting thing.  I’m having so much fun with the intarsia that I will be making an intarsia sweater this weekend, freehand.  I did a fjord scene the other night ( got the pattern online) and even though I messed up a few spots – didn’t carry one color over far enough or something of that nature, because it was hills an a river, you couldn’t tell on the final product.

  But yet it looked so nice ( I thought so) I thought why not apply that to a sweater- that way I would not have to sweat it by making sure I counted perfect- as long as I was close- who’s going to know?

Intarsia

I did my first Intarsia this weekend. I took Monday off of work since we were getting a new refrigerator (yeah!). Since they delivered it in the morning, I had the whole day to practice on my machines. I got my intarsia carriage for my singer 155 back in November 2010 and tried it once; I just couldn’t get the hang of it. The instructions really didn’t seem that simple to me and I gave up. I felt bad about that since I had paid a pretty penny for the carriage. Last week I saw an Intarsia carriage for my Toyota on EBay, I really wanted it because the last time one was listed I got outbid, just couldn’t bring myself to pay 50 for it. Since it only started at 25.00 I put a bid on it, and found out on Saturday night that I won! I was happy, but then it was time to get to work. I had one carriage that I never used and now was getting another. I found a great video on youtube of how to do basic intarsia YouTube Intarsia Video.
This was just the thing I was looking for, very basic very simple, she only uses two colors to start with and it showed me how to understand how to work the yarn. So I watched the video and then watched it again and went off to try my best one more time. I started with just one color on one side and another color on another side.
Then I got bold- I decided to try three different colors,

I was really starting to have fun now.

I wanted to do a pattern, but it looked like everything I could find on the web, was way too advanced for a beginner like me, so I decided to try the simplest thing I could think of, a cross. Of course not having a pattern to follow, it is not proportionally accurate.
I needed something more. I finally found a great little dog paw print pattern, it was a little bit more of a challenge, but that made it even more fun.

I think I’m hooked; tonight I start on the alphabet.

Today is the first day

My name is Pam and I love to machine knit.  I have had a knitting machine for over 20 years now but just started using it this past year.  Thanks to youtube and the wonderful knitters out there who have shown me how to use my machine, I now am able to make clothing and accessories with it.
I will be posting about my projects and my mistakes (which i am sure there will be many :-)