Week two of the machine knitting group saw us explore both some fundamentals and some ambitious experiments. We also had a new machine to play with – a brother KH900 electronic – and a new member – Cath, who started experimenting with the Knitmaster chunky.
First up – tension squares – Iris took us through this important exercise for working out the size of knitting produced depending on your machine, yarn and tension dial settings. It was interesting to see the variation produced in our samples. By working out the number of stitches and rows per 10cm sq, it makes it easier to work out the size of garments / banners / cat blankets etc that you want to knit, provided you stick to the same yarn and tension settings. Good practice at any rate.
Terry, who only set up the knitting machine for the first time last week, was keen to explore the possibilities of THREAD LACE knitting. This was something new to me, but together we worked it out, combining and extremely fine yarn with a medium yarn to create some intricate and beautiful lace patterns. Terry was made up with the sample, but this was also really interesting for me as I think it may have some implication towards methods of knitting film. One for the future…
Finally, Iris showed me how to replace the sponge bar on the KH950i – relatively simple once shown, but extremely useful to know.
