Machine Knitting

| Sonia Knits

Last weekend I took a class in Machine Knitting! I’ve been a hand knitter since childhood, but I’ve never had a chance to try out knitting on a machine. Growing up, mum had a knitting machine, it was a ‘punch card’ one, I can tell she was pretty proud of it. None of the kids could get near it, for good reason!

I’ve seen this class come up now and again at the Thread Den, and last Saturday was finally my opportunity to jump straight in.

Lorena (from Loré Loré) was a wonderful teacher. The class was for absolute beginners to Machine Knitting, with the promise of being able to make a beanie by the conclusion of the all-day class. It did not disappoint… and it was kind of fun. I mean it was quite a lot of fun… if it was easier to obtain a vintage medium-gauge machine in good working order, I would be machine knitting right now. Oh dear!

As it turns out, my mum did away with her machine years ago. Who’d have thought I’d pick it up? And I still haven’t, it was a fun little foray into the dark side of knitting. I don’t think I’ll ever get into weaving (you need a lot more room for a loom), but a knitting machine, is just not that big…

Mum’s birthday is coming up this week and I had a wee little pre-celebration with her yesterday. These cakes were also shared with 2 of my siblings who did drive-bys. The little party celebration ended up being a nice little catch-up without fuss. I’ll be away next weekend when Mum gets to have a shared party with one of my sweet nieces, you can never have enough cake.

What is my life?

| Sonia Knits

That’s what I’m thinking when I look down at this! What a sight! Progress on my Amina sweater has been slow, on the front at least, the back piece is nearly done. I have been unwell this past week or so, making working on the intarsia front difficult. But I’m feeling positive and excited, I’m up to row 9 on the chart!

In the mean time, I’ve also done a bit more research and found some invaluable Intarsia tips from Rox on YouTube:

This video is just what I needed. I learned that bobbins aren’t the only way to go! I decided to make ‘butterflies’ for the small sections that have only a few stitches. Just that change, has helped a lot. I might make more sections into ‘butterflies’, but I’ll do a few more rows before deciding. Rox has a lot of technique videos on her channel and they’re well produced, so I’ve subscribed.

Despite my little progress, I’m having fun. It feels like I’m painting with my stitches, I love using colour in my knitting, even though these are the exact colours assigned in the pattern. I’m starting to think about my next projects… better press on then.

Colour Blast Socks and a New WIP

| Sonia Knits

My Color/colour Blast Socks are complete and aren’t they cool. I don’t put this down to my knitting of course, but Stephen West’s super fun design. The high contrast sections, I think are really clever and remind me of optical illusions, which I also love. Whilst I’ll never do another mystery shawl (they take too long! and you don’t get a sweater at the end of it!), I’m so glad I participated in this first Surprise Sock-along, and it won’t be my last.

I have cast on for my long awaited Amina Sweater. This is from La Bien Aimee’s first book Worsted. I cast on for the back piece first, which is non-patterned, and it’s a ‘piece’. I haven’t knitted a sweater in pieces for, I don’t know how long, so this is weird. But I’m doing it, all in the name of Intarsia! I was probably half-way through the back before my thoughts turned to the front. The back was getting super boring to knit!

I realised I was going to need some bobbins, and a lot of them… 33 or so, no kidding. I put a ‘little’ order in to Sunspun and my friend Karen who works there, brought them to knit night. They’re by Clover and I can highly recommend them.

It took me about 2 nights to wind them all up… I also wound up quite a few of the main colour on the paper bobbins you get for embroidery threads. That’s because there’s small sections of this colour that are only 1 or 2 stitches wide, and I thought it would be wise to reduce the weight of the bobbins where I could. I considered doing parts of this as stranded colour work, but I thought that would end up messy and just a big mess… compared to now, ha ha.

I’m taking it slow, I’m up to row 5, and have about 22 bobbins attached. This is what real patience is about. I wish some of the people who have knit this, wrote more notes on their Ravelry page about it. I just wanted to share the 33 bobbins note for size 4 rant with someone! Perhaps I’ll need to start writing notes on my own Ravelry projects pages.

I hope to be back soon with more progress on the front, it is definitely a stay-at-home-knit.

Bendigo 2023

| Sonia Knits

I’m just back from a wonderful break in Bendigo. The Australian Sheep and Wool Show in Bendigo was this weekend, but we headed up earlier on Wednesday to take make it more of a mini break.

We visited the Bendigo Art Gallery, which had a retrospective of 90 years of the Women’s Weekly Magazine. It was a great exhibition, which had a lot of nostalgia, especially for people whose mums made birthday cakes from the Birthday Cake book. My mum made the train for one of my older siblings, and perhaps one or 2 other cakes, perhaps the witch for my older sister? I remember looking through the book, and dreaming about my next birthday cake. I’m not sure I got one? The recorded interview with the cake maker/author of the book was interesting and priceless… just glue the pages of the tip truck cake together… hahaha. There was also a fashion display (it was impressive), and a bit of a crochet and knitting display, not to mention some great historical displays about women.

Friday, show day arrived, and I attended the Women of Wool luncheon once again. I think this year, the organisers did a great job of selecting the speakers. It was great to listen to inspiring, smart women.

I went back to the show on Saturday and I had a great time hanging out with Damian, his mum, friends, and sheep; as well as purchasing some lovely souvenirs of my time in Bendigo. I’m already planning for next year.

Surprise Sock Along

| Sonia Knits

After declaring I would not participate in another mystery shawl knit along… Stephen West announced his Surprise Sock Along! How could I not join in? Four weeks for knitting a pair of socks is more my speed, and I’m excited.

Unexpectedly, the very first clue dropped just after work on Thursday. Normally with Stephen West’s MKALs, his clues drop closer to midnight. I took this as a sign to cast-on right away.

The first clue on the right sock is done, and I’m about to cast on my left sock. I’ve decided to do the mirrored instructions for the left sock, because, of course, they’re going to look great mirrored! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Stephen West is a genius. I’ve loved knitting the first sock clue, I’m sure the rest of the sock clues will be as enjoyable.

The beauty of having a yarn stash (that would be me), is that I hadn’t decided on what yarn I was going to use until cast-on evening. The yarn I selected is Patons Patonyle, It is such a great sock yarn. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next…

RK2023 Cowl, an old WIP and a new cast on!

| Sonia Knits

This long weekend began with the kitchenering of my Richmond Knitters cowl. The colour work pattern was devised by Brent from Carla Meijsen’s Magic Motifs book. Deciphered, the motif says ‘RK2023’ i.e. Richmond Knitters 2023. Each year for the past 5 or so years my knitting group, has agreed to knit a particular pattern to wear to the Sheep and Wool show in Bendigo in July. Normally it’s a jumper, but this year Brent spearheaded the idea to use this colour work pattern and to make whatever we wanted!

The yarn I used is from some deep stash. The pink is Cleckheaton Country and the natural colour was some random yarn I picked up in Maldon (? or some other country town) from a boutique store that was selling garments which were hand-knitted for a label ‘Lorinda Grant’ (I think, this is going back 15-20 years), there was a small basket of balls in natural colours and I thought it made a nice souvenir, I selected 2 balls, the second colour was a mottled medium/dark grey. I’ve blocked the cowl now and it is lovely and soft, I’ll try to have a modelled photo for you next time.

I’m not sure which jumper/s I will be wearing to the sheep festival. But I have finally cast-on for my Amina Sweater by Sylvia Watts-Cherry (Rav link). The yarn was a Christmas gift in 2021, so it is a long awaited for cast on.

The garment is knit in pieces, which is pretty unusual to see now. The front is in Intarsia with drop sleeves. I’m really looking forward to knitting this, I’m finally back to sweater knitting!

I am slowly knocking off some old projects, so it was time to pick up my Nimue crochet blanket. It’s been about a year since I’d worked on it, and I was feeling a bit anxious about whether I still wanted to make the thing! I need not have worried.

I put this project down last year when the realisation of my Spinning Certificate work sunk in. There’s still quite a ways to go, but I’m having fun and it’s interesting without being too challenging so far.

Craft Room update

| Sonia Knits

I saw my chance to rearrange some things up in our house this week whilst Damian was away for work. I didn’t have a lot of time, so there was really no time to lose. Tuesday night after work, I began by migrating D’s books into my old yarn shelf which now resides in the hallway. I dusted and wiped things clean, sorting his books in a logical order into his new bookcase; my part-time job as a teenager was a library shelver 2 nights a week at my local library. It was/is so satisfying to shelve books in order. The migration took hours and hours and then on Wednesday night after work, the work on the craft room continued, I was exhausted, but determined to achieve my goal of finally having my own room for craft.

We had grand plans for new shelving, new flooring etc… but at the end of the day I was just desperate to have my craft room space.

I was planning to purchase baskets to fit these new shelves, but after unloading ‘most’ of my yarn into the shelves this weekend, I realised that I liked seeing all of my yarn, baskets would obscure the view, as well as take up valuable shelf space. The plastic is not pretty, but I don’t want to leave my stash unprotected from dust or critters (not that we’ve ever had a moth problem (touch wood). The feeling of seeing all my yarn in one place is a mixture in equal parts of JOY and then OVERWHELM!

The room is still a work in progress. My tetris skills have been sharpened. There’s going to be a few difficult decisions still to be made, and that’s going to take some time. There’s still my craft and knitting books and magazines to be resolved. I want to keep everything, but I know that I’m going to have to make some choices.

When Damian arrived home, I didn’t get into trouble! And he was quite complimentary on how I rearranged things. To be fair, I’ve had a lot of time to think and dream about this craft room, I’m just relieved to finally have this space.

A different April

| Sonia Knits

April is normally quite a joyous month for me, because it is my birthday month! But this year Damian and I both got Covid before Easter. It’s taken us 3 years before catching it this first time (and hopefully our last) so we’ve done pretty well to dodge it so far. Our plans for Easter needed to change, including my very kind brother who collected these final Burch & Purchese cakes and delivered them safely around Melbourne to family members. It took Covid for us to realise how bad an idea it is for us to live so far apart…

Bunny Behinds by Burch & Purchese

I am hopeful Burch & Purchese will come back because it is/was my go-to place for special cakes. In fact, they are doing a pop-up for the King’s Coronation, if you’re the patriotic sort like Darren.

Whilst I was unwell, not a lot of knitting was going on… I felt like playing/planning with my stash, but after sorting out 3 or 4 pairs of scrappy socks I was exhausted! And, after doing an hour of knitting on the couch, I napped for an hour!

But I have cast-on some new things now, whilst my Stephen West MKAL shawl is still going on…

I’ve cast-on my Richmond Knitters ‘Bendigo’ project, which is going to be cowl. The motif (imagined by Brent) was created using Carla Meijsen’s Magic Motifs. I’ve also cast-on some socks from the yarn Danni dyed specially for the Richmond Knitters last Christmas. I’m still working on my Mystery Shawl, but it just seems to be taking forever, hopefully I’ll have a finished object photo for you next time. Can I say now, I don’t think I’ll participate in the Westknits MKAL this year, it’s just too slow knitting and not a lot of instant gratification. Can someone please remind me come October.

Birthday Cake by Lux Cakes
Our Spinning teacher Jane talking about the Spinning Certificate
My class and some of my teachers at the presentation
Yay, I got my certificate!
My final project on display
My plying class samples on display

Last weekend was very busy, catching up with ALL the things, belated Easter and birthday celebrations (Lux cakes, did a great job in filling in the B&P gap), visiting my sisters new house, my Spinning certificate presentation and going to a Footy match!

During our illness, I didn’t leave the house for 10 days, just because… and it didn’t seem all that strange. We are homebodies, and especially since the lockdowns we’ve had in Melbourne, I think we are changed forever.