Sunday, February 03, 2008

Various updates

Sloane Pullover
Sloane3
Here's the new cabled turtleneck pullover. It's coming right along. Yarn Thrower, you'll be happy to know that I did remember the short row bust darts. And I have just about completed the waist shaping, so maybe will get the body finished in the coming week.

Spinning Every Day

I'm not really a joiner: don't do a lot of memes or knitalongs or such. But there is a movement afoot to spin every day in February. I didn't officially put my name in for this, but I think I'm going to try. Even just 10 minutes.

The You Make My Day Award
In other meme-ish news, I've been blessed with the You Make My Day award by Marie Grace, Molly Bee, Cindy at Baxter Knits, and Yarn Thrower. Thanks ladies! I feel like one of the popular girls at school!

Funny timing on this, because last weekend, after Last Saturday Knitting, I was reflecting on what a wonderful group we have and how it's all because of the internet.

The award instructions read as follows:
"Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times."
My You Make My Day awards would go right back to the same gang, plus a few:
Teleknitter, who spins amazingly and chats with me online when we should both be working.
The Linnet Knits, who has taken up weaving as well as spinning and knitting.
Wendy at Knit and Tonic who is not only a big time famous blogger, author, and designer but someone I consider a friend.

OK, I know that's not 10, but if I keep going to get to 10, I'll soon find myself at 40, so I think I'll stop now. But you should know, if you're reading this then you make my day!

Knitting Machine Surgery
Last night I did some surgery on one of my knitting machines. The LK-150 is a great beginner friendly single bed machine. I've had mine about 10 years. Mr. SABLE got it for me lightly used. In the last year or so, I noticed it was getting more difficult to run the carriage across and began to fear that something expensive was going wrong with it. In the machine knitters group on Ravelry, I learned that a common cause of this might be something called the sponge bar. Clicking through on the Ravelry advertiser who sells knitting machines and parts, I ordered a new sponge bar for $6 and spent last night replacing it and cleaning all the needles while I was at it. You have to take out the 150 needles to do the job. Which means, you have to put the 150 needles back in when you're done. It's not a job I would want to tackle very often, but has made a world of difference to this machine!

Stay warm! Happy Knitting!

4 comments:

YarnThrower said...

Your Sloane pullover looks amazing! I LOVE the cable!! (Also, had complete confidence you wouldn't forget the bust darts ;-)

I can't remember a better winter for knitting. Plus, my seven year old is sick right now, so I've spent the past two days at home, just sitting and knitting! I have to keep him company, right?! So that means that housework is out...

dale-harriet said...

Wow, that counter is neat! Taking out and replacing 150 needles? that sounds waaaaay to fiddley; puts me in mind of macrame, which I tried only to realize that getting the durned little bobbins woudn up was about as strenuous a project as I wanted to undertake! (But then - you're brilliant at Fair Isle....)

Trillian42 said...

Oh, that Sloane pullover is going to be spectacular! I love the cable you are using!!

Sarah said...

Sloane is coming along nice!

Thank-you :).