I decided to stop worrying about the sizing and just make a darn pair of socks, partly for practice and partly to get a feel for using real sock yarn on the machine. I got my replacement 54-slot cylinder which looks good and should be usable, but it’s still soaking in Marvel Mystery Oil for cleaning. So this is on the 72-slot cylinder. I used some Opal from my stash.  Here are the two socks and the setup bonnet, separated by waste yarn.

And here is the pair, after Kitchenering the toes.

Unfortunately, too many things distracted me from counting rows, so I tried to wing it by putting my foot up to it and saying, “looks good enough…” So the first sock (on the right) looks big enough for an elf. The second one fits me but is loose, especially around the ankle.

Here is the heel. It went pretty smoothly, except that one time I forgot to make sure the latch was open, so the stitch was dropped.  After cursing and taking off the weights, I managed to pick it back up.

Even though it’s not a wearable pair of socks, I learned a lot about adjusting tension while using real sock yarn to get a nice fabric and to minimize dropped stitches.  I asked Tim to model the socks for me, but he took them off his feet and put them on his hands.

Then he put the setup bonnet on his leg.

My silly boy!

In my spinning, up to now I’ve been so enamoured of the 2-ply barber pole color effect, that I’ve never learned Navajo plying before. So I decided to give it a try. I spun up some singles of undyed Coopworth from a Spunky Eclectic sampler.

After letting the singles sit for a day, I did my first Navajo ply!  I looked at a few YouTube videos for reference.  This one was the most helpful.  As you can see, it’s rather uneven.  I also had a problem with the singles breaking several times, since I wasn’t super careful when I was spinning them.  Next time, more twist! 

I do like the way it looks nice and round. Here it is on the niddy noddy.

Skeined up:

It’s about worsted weight, 67 yards.  Here it is close up:

It’s a nice technique. I’ll probably use it with fiber of relatively uniform color when I want a 3-ply look-alike, or when I want to keep different colors separate.

Ooooh, two posts in one day!!

As promised, here is the setup bonnet in action. Basically, I took the loops of yarn between the picots and hooked them over every other needle.

From that point, I put on some scrap yarn, then the actual yarn for the sock. If you put the sock yarn directly on the setup bonnet, you can’t get it apart without cutting one or the other.

I made a basic hung hem, then cranked a tube.  You may notice I have a new yarn carrier, the slotted version from Roxana Baechle, who also made the instructional DVD’s that I have.  It’s much nicer than the yarn carrier with the little hole you have to thread the yarn through, especially when I’ve made a mistake and had to frog - with the slotted carrier I don’t have to cut the yarn when I make a mistake. 

After knitting a length of tube, I set up for the heel by raising half of the needles to take them out of knitting. Then I knit back and forth, raising 2 needles at the beginning of the first 2 rows to minimize the holes, then 1 needle at the beginning of every row after that. It’s basically the equivalent of a short-row heel on a handknit sock. Then at the midpoint of the heel, I push 1 needle back in to knit at the beginning of every row, until it’s back to half of the needles again. It’s important to keep tension on the lengtening heel, or the machine will drop stitches. For this purpose I bought fork weights, which are just bent forks with weights attached to them. This is how I attach them.

After getting all of the heel stitches back into knit, I push the other half of the needles back in and continue to crank tube for the foot. Then I knit another “heel” for the toe to be closed by Kitchener stitch. Here’s how the heel turned out.

Nice, huh? It’s still too loose for my foot, even with fine acrylic baby yarn and pretty tight tension on the 72-slot cylinder. I will try the mock rib, and I am still awaiting my replacement 54-slot cylinder. Can’t wait to play some more!

After a long hiatus from my wheel, I was inspired to get back to it by this:

It’s alpaca/merino/silk fiber in Dublin Lake from Kris, The Painted Sheep. Absolutely yummylicious fiber, and beautiful colors! It was wonderful and very easy to spin.  I managed to get the whole 4oz of singles on the bobbin.

I wound it into a center-pull ball.

And here it is as a 2-ply. I was lazy and didn’t measure the wpi, but it is worsted-ish.

Skeined up!

Up close. I love how the colors blended together.

I got about 110 yards. I think it would make a nice scarf.

I’ve been making good progress on the Legare 400 circular sock machine.  First I made a set-up bonnet, which is basically a knitted tube with a picot hem, and is used to cast on to the machine.  I’ll post pictures of it “in action” later.

It’s made from Patons Kroy, nice and sturdy. I used a similar technique to make this baby hat, but I tightened the tension towards the top and then threaded the yarn through all the loops at the top to make this baby hat. I added a pompom, but didn’t get a picture of that before I gave it away.  It was the first time I tried to make a pompom by hand, and was really not that spectacular, so don’t be sad that you can’t see it.

The yarn is Filtes King Color Baby, and I used less than a skein.  I wasn’t sure if the baby will be a boy or a girl, so I figured that a yarn with blue and pink in it would be appropriate.  It’s more blue than pink, so I chose the picot hem to be a bit more “feminine.”  So it’s kind of an androgynous hat!

I also played around with the tension. Here are the extremes of gauge I can get on the machine, using 2/24 acrylic yarn:

And here is the first heel I turned! I kept dropping stitches, but managed to pick them back up.

Finally, here’s my first practice sock! It’s sport weight baby acrylic yarn, which I have been told is not the easiest yarn to use on the CSM.  It was somewhat difficult to crank, but it is complete, even with Kitchener’ed toe!

I used the 72-slot cylinder, so with sport weight yarn it came out much too big for my feet.  Next I’ll try it with my 2/24 acrylic, to see if I can get the right size.  I will also try mock rib, meaning that I’ll take out some of the needles rather than having them truly ribbed with purl stitches, since I haven’t figured out the ribber yet.  The 54-slot cylinder I got with the machine has such a rough surface that it’s unusable, and even after soaking in oil and cleaning it, I can’t even put needles into all of the slots.  Fortunately, my eBay seller is going to replace it for me, so I’ll be able to experiment with that one too.

Hopefully soon I’ll be confident enough to use actual sock yarn!

Okay..  I have no pictures of my sock machine or knitting this week.  So I’m stalling with this:  The Tim and Shoe series.  I posted it to the HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY thread on the Ravelry message boards, which is basically a bunch of cute pictures that make us happy.  So I thought I’d post it here too, since I have nothing else to post for now.  I’ve ordered a new battery charger for my camera, so more sock pictures to come!

This was Chris’s idea, and it’s his size 13W shoe.

2 weeks, so scrawny!

2 months

3.5 months

5 months

8 months

1 year - by that time he wouldn’t stay still for the pictures anymore!

And now, he tries to put the same shoes on his feet!

Following all the advice I got on Ravelry, I went at my Legare circular sock machine from eBay with some Marvel Mystery Oil and a toothbrush, and started cleaning it up.  There was a lot of black oily guck in it.  I wonder when the machine was last used - that stuff could be decades old!  After much effort and some visible improvement, the oil was still coming off kind of black, but I got impatient to see if the machine would work.  So I put it together and added the cylinder spring and needles, which I bought new.  The whole thing is heavy and needs a stable surface to be clamped to, so I got a Black & Decker mini-workbench which I assembled (thank goodness for my visuo-spatial skills - the instructions were not easy to follow).  Then I started cranking! Casting on requires a set-up basket or bonnet to get the knitting started. A simpler method is to use a mesh bath scrubbie, which is what I did.  On my first try I got a tangled mess.. 

The yarn carrier seems to be able to adjust only up and down, and was either too high for the needles to catch the yarn, or hitting the needles. I think I probably bent some of my needles fiddling around with it. Then I put a piece of paper towel between the yarn carrier post and the place where it attaches, so the carrier head is a little further from the needles, and it’s just right!  Now it’s close enough to feed the yarn into the needles, but not so close that it’s banging into them.

So I’ve got a tube!! Many dropped stitches, but a tube nonetheless.

There is a set of very informative DVD’s that I’m getting for my birthday from my sister Pat - once I get them I’ll go over everything more carefully, but at least I know the machine is not a dud. Yaaaaay!!

The craziness continues…

I have been a devoted Yankees fan for a long time, and when I lived in New York I went to many games, including the postseason.  Since moving away I haven’t been back, but with this being the last season before moving to a new stadium, I thought it would be good for Tim to experience the old, historic stadium at least once.  I got tickets to the game on May 3, against the Seattle Mariners.

Despite the overcast, gloomy weather, the atmosphere was festive.

There’s that beautiful field.

Grandpa met us at Yankee Stadium.  (Daddy is not a sports fan and finds baseball incredibly boring.)  He bought Tim this Yankee bear hat.  So cute!

Here you can see the new Yankee Stadium looming.

It was Military Appreciation Day, but due to the overcast sky the scheduled flyover and parachute team demonstration was cancelled.  Here they are, anyway.

Here’s Johnny Damon. I tried to tell Tim, “he’s half-Thai just like you!” But I think he’s too young to understand what that means. Johnny had a great game, with a big upper deck homer and two doubles.

The ever graceful Derek Jeter:

Mike Mussina, who pitched an excellent game.

Tim enjoyed joining the crowd’s cheers of “Moooooose!”

I think Ichiro is pretty cool, but that is the girliest batting stance in all of baseball.

In the end, the Yankees won 6-1.  A very nice ballgame.

I was impressed that Tim managed to stay relatively sane through the whole game. He had fun saying “hi” to all the people around us and high-fiving everyone, though he did see some people drinking beer and asked “can I have apple juice too?”  He wasn’t too happy when we told him there was no juice at Yankee Stadium.  Still, it was lots of fun, and he said he wants to go back!

For extra pictures, see the Flickr set here.

So… even though I don’t have enough time for my knitting and spinning obsessions, I became fascinated by this after seeing it on the Lime and Violet Daily Chum Blog. Maybe it’s because I don’t have enough time for these things, and I think that it will save me time. I know that won’t be true, at least in the beginning, but I am a slow sock knitter, and I have a ridiculous stash of beautiful handpainted sock yarns that would look great in plain stockinette. And I’ll be spinning more yarn than I have time to knit. Plus, I have a birthday coming up!

So… I found the Circular Sock Machine group on Ravelry and learned as much as I could from the message boards. These machines can be up to a hundred years old or more, and can be bought in refurbished and working condition for tons of money, or “as is” for somewhat less. There are also new machines being manufactured in New Zealand, but those are the most expensive, close to $2000. Given that I came out of residency with a very large amount of debt, I figured that I shouldn’t be spending thousands of dollars to make socks at this point in my life. So I decided to look on eBay for a machine that would involve more work and some risk that it might not actually knit, but would cost a lot less. Here’s the machine I bought.

Beautiful, no? It’s a Legare 400, a Canadian sock machine which according to many is very solidly made and reliable. This one comes with two different cylinders (54 and 72 slots), a ribber (36), and a bunch of accessories. The photo is from the eBay listing. Unfortunately, after I placed the bid, I found out that Risa was selling her refurbished (and definitely working) Auto Knitter, and that she lives in New Jersey, only 20 minutes away from my Dad! And that this particular eBay seller is a mixed bag in terms of people actually being able to use their machines - the one Risa bought had parts from different manufacturers and was not usable, though others on the forums said they were happy with theirs. But at that point it was too late, no one else bid on the machine, and I was not able to get out of the deal. So this machine will be coming to me.

I am nervous but excited at the same time. I’ve already gotten lots of support and advice from the CSM group on Ravelry, and I’m looking forward to taking apart the machine, cleaning it, and figuring out how it works. My dad also likes gadgets, so I’m hoping he’ll become interested and be able to help me.  For inspiration I’ve been looking at the Soxophone Player’s blog, as well as a post by Dave Daniels at Cabin Cove Mercantile, who was able to restore a machine from the same seller to make beautiful socks (I did not see his “BEWARE THE BLUE BACKGROUND” warning until after I placed my bid).  I hope I manage to do the same.

So… crazy, right?  That’s me!!

Happy Mother’s Day!  This is the first year Tim actually understands what’s going on. He made me a little scribbled card in preschool, and when he said “Happy Mother’s Day” to me this morning I just turned to mush.

I’m making slow progress on my Bleeding Hearts Stole, but I continue to enjoy knitting it very much. I still can’t get over how beautiful Kris’s yarn is.

That’s just me trying to hold it as open as possible using my toes.. I’m sure it will look much better after blocking!

This past weekend we went to the CT Sheep and Wool Festival. It was surprisingly overcast and cold, so we were thankful to have our sweaters. Tim ended up wearing both sweaters that I brought for him!

There was tasty food.

Tim and his Baby Surprise Jacket got recognized by several people, including CTJen, who had arranged to have Nutmeg Knitter buttons made for the event. Check out some cute animal pictures in her blog post! (I missed them because I wasn’t carrying the camera most of the time - my dad took these pictures.)

There were cute, fun things for Tim to do.  We petted sheep and bunnies.

Hanging out with Daddy so Mommy could do some shopping.

I hadn’t blogged about this previously, but Chris randomly decided to shave his head on Tim’s birthday. He had asked me if I think he should do it, and I thought he was joking so I told him to go ahead. I was completely floored when he came down from the bathroom with his head half shaved, asking for my help. What a crazy husband I have! Right now it’s at that cute duckling fuzz stage of growing back so I’m enjoying rubbing his head.

Anyway, back to the festival. Tim did get a bit tired and cranky, so thankfully it was a nice, small event. Much more manageable than Rhinebeck!

We had an informal Ravelry meetup. Some of my SnB Newington friends were there, including Kris, Paula, Jenny, Amy, and Debbie and her delightful daughter Leah, and I met some new friends as well, including Christiane, Beverly, Susan, and Deb. I didn’t catch everyone’s names though.  Please leave me a comment if you see yourself in the picture!

In terms of stuff, I was awfully tempted by some sinfully soft yak/cashmere/qiviut yarn, but it was $36 a skein, so I passed.  I did buy some beautifully dyed merino and merino/tussah spinning fiber, which will hopefully get me back to my poor neglected wheel (darn work).  I’ll post pictures of those later.

We were planning to go home after the Ravelry meetup for Tim’s sake, but he decided that he liked the music and didn’t want to leave!

This is the Scamp sweater I knit for him before I started this blog, but details can be found on my Ravelry page here.  If you’re not on Ravelry yet, what are you waiting for?  Please go and join!

So we stayed and listened to the Irish/Celtic music, by Full Gael.  He liked it so much that he went up to the musicians afterwards, and we even bought a CD!  We left in a good mood.  It was a great day!