I love knitting machines. They come in all sizes and types and it is so interesting to watch them work. Ok, not to you…. but they’re interesting to me. I bought a CSM, circular sock machine, years ago. Some of the parts were missing so my husband and I have slowly found new parts for it. It’s been mostly working from the start and I’d been able to make socks on it but I wanted to make pretty socks on it using the ribber. Well, Jim found the last piece needed to make the ribber work a few months ago! It was a funny little piece that needed to be bent to fit my machine and some friends from Madison helped me bend the little bugger. (it was dramatic, let me tell you). There’s lots of ways to make socks, some with a hemmed cuff, some ribbed all the way to the toe, some just plain knit, but I think I like a mix of rib and stockenet stitch.
Don’t be concerned with all the messy waste yarn, that all cleans up soon. This is how the socks look right off the machine. You crank the handle of the machine to make a circular knit then use short rows to make the heel on half of the needles, put all of the needles in work again, crank away until you get to the toe and then short row in the same direction as the heel and pull the sock off on waste yarn and WhaaaaaLa! You have a sock when you kitchner stitch up the seam at the toe. Oh…… don’t give me that “you have to seam up the sock? that’s too much work” gunk. Even when you hand knit a sock you’ve got to do something similar for the toe, it’s either kitchner stitch or a magic cast on. I did this pair in a few hours while drinking coffee and playing with the cat, how long does it take you to knit your pair of socks? This is the process for every commerical sock you buy. :)
Posts Tagged ‘sock blank’
My Circular Sock Knitting Machine
Posted by FiberArtCafe on April 11, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blank, CSM, hand dyed, machine, machine knitting, sock, sock blank | 2 Comments »
Tiring but fun weekend
Posted by FiberArtCafe on February 8, 2009
I’m so glad it’s Sunday so I can rest! I’m beat. Well, the Janesville Knit-in was a blast. It was nicely organized and full of helpful people. I was a bit worried about getting into my first event as a vendor, but it went well. I really enjoyed talking to everyone that stopped by, it was a nice group of women. Everyone was very encouraging, so in hind sight, I wish I had gotten more sleep and worried less! I’ll have to remember that for next time. :) I brought more then enough things for people to peruse and made lots of sales, even talked to a few stores about wholesaleing and teaching so that was a nice bonus.
I’ve got to send a big thank you out to my friend Pat who helped me set up, thank you Pat, couldn’t have done it with out you. :) My parents showed up at the end and were able to see my booth, that was nice too. Thank you all for making it a good experience!
Susan
I should also thank my wonderful husband, Jim. He had to stay home with Hans who had surgery on his knee last Tuesday. We’ve started calling him “Gimpy” :)
Here’s a few of my favorite photos from the show.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Dear Dog, Dear Husband, hand dyed, hand painted, indie dying, Janesville, Knit-in, knitting, knitting machines, sock, sock blank | Leave a Comment »
2 Month Blogiversery
Posted by FiberArtCafe on December 3, 2008
Tomorrow is my 2 Month Blog aniversery. Can’t believe I’ve gotten 350 views so far. I’m so grateful to everyone for stopping by and hope that I’ve entertained you. Please keep looking. :)
I’ve been busy getting some work done before the Holidays so I haven’t had time to post anything. I’d like to post more regularly. I took some photos of my dog, Hans, out in the snow. Yesterday I let him out and he stuck his whole face into a snow bank and came up looking like Santa with a white beard. I didn’t have a camera, so today I was prepared.
Here’s Hans playing in the snow:
Running in the yard:
and coming back with snow on his nose to check on me. Click on the photo to better see his brown/green eyes. He’s the sweetest dog in the world:
Here’s some projects that I’ve been working on but haven’t posted.
socks made with both ends of a sock blank. each sock is a reverse of the other. I’m planning on making the stripe until it gets close to the heel and then a intricate fairisle pattern around the cafe.
These socks were made from one of my patterned sock blank. They have a short rowed heel and I’ve made a cable pattern for the back cafe portion of the sock.
These are the socks I just made for my husband on my circular sock machine.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: circular sock knitting machines, CSM, Delafield, dog, hand dyed, hand painted, Hans, playing, snow, sock blank, socks, Standard Poodle, storm, WI, Winter, yarn | 2 Comments »
It’s a windy, blustering day out
Posted by FiberArtCafe on November 7, 2008
I stare out my window as the leaves are falling to the ground. Fall is a nice season, I think it’s my favorite time of the year because you start to bundle up in wool sweaters. It makes me nostalgic for the times I flew kites with my girlfriend Lissa in middle school. We had an art project at school and made a huge dragon kite. It didn’t fly well and crashed straight off, but then we tied the string to the cheap plastic kites you could buy for a dollar….. and they soared into the sky. :)
Here’s some of the yarns I dyed early this week. Hope you enjoy looking.
Green, Brown and Teal Red, Orange, Gold and Brown
Greens, Blues and Brown Purples and Brown
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blue, brown, fall, green, hand dyed, hand painted, kites, knitting, knitting machines, purple, red, sock, sock blank, sock sheet, wool, yarn | Leave a Comment »
Green and Blue Blanks
Posted by FiberArtCafe on October 17, 2008
Last night I dyed a bunch of sock blanks and fell in love with one of them. I used several different blues and yellows to make the greens below, then added some browns as a neutral. It turned out great. I’d love to keep it for myself, but I promised Kerri that I’d make knitting samples to include with her display….. so here’s what I’m going to do. I wound off the blank into 2 separate balls, then rewound one of them so that the colors were reverses. Then I’m going to use both ends of one ball to make a striped sock. The reversed one should be a mirror image of the other sock.
As you can see from the photo – the colors on each side of the blank are different enough to show up against each other (the two blues look like the same color in the photo, but they aren’t. the one on the end is washed out from my light source.). Cool eh????? Can’t wait to knit it up but I don’t have time to handknit it (oh, how I wish I had more time) so I’m putting it on my Brother 965i. That’s an electronic knitting machine with a ribber. I’ve already started the toe and will now devide it up between the main bed and the ribber bed and knit in the round. The toe part looks good, now I just have to hope that it transfers W.O.P. (“with out problems”). I may do the top rib by hand, machine knit ribs are too elastic.
I was also going to work on a lacy scarf with two skeins I dyed last week. One is hot pink with chocolate brown and the other is golden browns with a bit of green. The yarn was dyed in skeins, so they will have a regularly spaced color change. I’m thinking of alternating those rows with random widths, just have to work out how to hide the carry overs. There’s a web site to generate random stripes on the internet from Kiss your shadow: http://www.kissyourshadow.com/stripe_maker.php. it’s a nice program, but can never get the graphic to print out. (it does print off a list of how many rows you want to knit) I took a seminar from Iris Bishop last month and she had a simple way to make lace on a knitting machine that I wanted to experiment with.
hot pink, Brown, and golden yellow
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blue, brown, green, hand dyed, hand painted, hot pink, knitting, Knitting Machine, leg warmer, sock, sock blank, sock sheet, wool, yarn, yellow | Leave a Comment »
