One year of lost time.

It's been almost a year since I posted anything on my Blog.

A couple of heartattacks contributed to the lack of updating,
a few stays in hospital and trying to recover (not very successfully)
all contributed to not being able to catch up with my hobbies.


From now on I won't be making any promises which I cannot keep, instead
when I am able to I will put things up.
The rest will have to wait.

Happy knitting, Milla

Passap Pintucks-on Pinky

As promised
on Oz MKers'
Group site.
Design= my own original -large & small versions.
 Almost forgot to mention that the Locks on this Pinky had an HX conversion done years ago.

A couple of very old swatches.

Some of my Friends& Helpers

These are some of my Helpers & friends, the remainder is stored.

My Equipment

OldKnits & Swatches from way back

Sorry about the poor quality of Photos, but these are very OLD.

Old Knits & Swatches

Brother and other jacquard variants +preparations

An example of different width and height  using 

same no.of stitches .

Please read captions.

These  'cats examples' show the importance

of swatching to determine suitable technique and appropriate yarn 

so the knitting results in

correct size picture and is not distorted.

Information re settings etc will follow after more pic. uploads.

 More Jacquards Variations in May 2009 + a carriage setting for
Tuckrib Jacquard!

Fine Knitters Brother 120 - Singer 370-comparisons

There is a great difference between the size of the stitches
between these 2 machines.

The samples are knitted using doublebeds and very fine settings, except for the top one.

Frostflowers-graphs & swatches

For the holidays, if someone cares to experiment !
Happy knitting. 

Another Lace Autoedging Brother KM

Problem fixed!



This is a swatch reformed from the Susanna Lewis book (original punchcard design page 223) to an automatic electronic pattern which increases &and decreases the side automatically.
I've gone through the process 3 times
and haven't found out why there is a
fault in the side edging after a full repeat (on the other- plain side) 
Maybe I need to get away from it for a while to get a better perspective
on the problem.
Just looking just now at the first row
I think I can spot an irregularity in theDesign.

8hole Feather & Fan and Variations-conversions to KMs

The graph for the handmanipulated (doublebed) F+F below
is the same as the Brother Swatches in the Slideshow of the same name.
I would like to make it clear that all the patterns were converted 
from handknitting in both "DK7's Lace Tool and the Brother
lace cartridge " for doublechecking.
Downloaded to the PPD then uploaded back separated to DK7's (LaceTool) where
the gartercarriage rows were added to the graphs and the .pat files
including "Input" for background-0  lace-1  knit rows-2
and garter-3  saved, so that the Brother KM has all the necessary 
info in it's window as one knits along. 
Not forgetting that the Garter Carriage does NOT preselect! 

This proves that all FF laces no matter how many holes they contain.
Fern=4, Feather and Fan=6, Peacock=8 or multiple hole as in the red or yellow samples of wave laces can all be done in either 
DK7's Lace Tool or Brother Lace Cartridge.
Most handtooled laces can thus be converted.

  

Easy Handmanipulated Lace on Doublebed Machines

The idea came from this old Missoni original!



 It's up to the knitter whether they want to Transfer all sts. to
Backbed, straight after having done the handmanipulations
or knit one row first on the front bed and then use the garter carriage  U100 -transfer to back bed and knit 5or 6 rows ?
When done, use the transfer carriage again to move all sts. to the
Front bed and repeat the process as often as you like, changing 
colours as often as you wish !


It's a faster process than using a Brother KM(lace C) & it's Garter carriage for the actual knitting.
Admittedly it's worryfree and can be  preprogrammed, but waiting 

for the GC (turtle) to finish knitting or purling, before changing yarns
can be a pain.........


This is a special for Passap or  Superba machines using 
either an U 80 or U-100
Or for the Superba, the special garter carriage.

For transferring all sts, from Front to Back beds then reverse

Automatic Lace Edging (Brother)

An older automatic edging  which is a bit quirky in that 

it doesn't behave the same way on different machines.

One of the last Brother Laces.

Still working on it as I feel the 

 outside edge is not wide enough!Guess this will have to wait until I really need an automatic edging.

Finally managed to do the pattern 
for the Empisal Leaf edging
so they both face in either direction.                          
Sorry I forgot to add that all these edgings were done fully automatically by the Lace carriage 
and the knitcarriage.
All the information for the increases 
and decreases are contained in the 
.pat file! 

If there were any handtransfers,manual increases or decreases used,
then I would NOT consider these edgings 'automatic'!

Same Lace pattern different results

These swatches used exactly the same pattern, the only difference 
is the rows of plain knitting inbetween the transfers.

My new toy,finally found it

Finally found what I wanted to
play with on my LK-150.
It should arrive within a week. 

A difficult handknit conversion-12 hole wave!

Yellow MKed , no purl rows inserted, as it was purely a test from the handknit red swatch,if you look closely you will notice that there are 4 sts.
reduced onto ONE needle
in the centre.
Pretty but somewhat difficult to knit on the machine.

Can't get away from Lace

One more Lace andGarter, the idea came from the blue handknit.

Yellow swatch is a comparison between Lace and Fine Lace, no wonder I am not too keen on Fine Lace.

More lace variations

I've come to the end of my Lacevariations for now.

There are only the Threadlaces left & the fine lace 
which I don't like particularly as it doesn't  have the finess
of all the other options of lace .

Above is a doublelength
Threadlace.
On the right = single 
length.
How yarn can effect Laceformations, this photo shows Harmony by Bendigo wool (an 8-ply which pulls in when knitted)

Brother Mesh & Tuck Laces and 2- 370 singletransfers.

Mesh & Tuck Laces

Another type of Lace-has possibilities!

Patt.397=a normal Threadlace pattern knitted using Brother 

        Main Bed & Ribber.

Pattern 403 another Threadlace pattern done on Doublebed,

both are useful for yarns which

are not exactly smooth.

Some other patterns lend themselves to the same 

type of knitting, but can result in different textures

when the second yarn is a woolly Nylon,the knitting

appears raised,as in embossing! 

Lace Offsets or not

To offset or not?
Some Lace Patterns lend themselves very well to Offsetting and improve
when thus handled, yet amazingly some offsetting becomes detrimental to the general look and appeal of the changes.

The Webshot Slideshow of changed patterns from the Stitchworld 940
book is a good example of patterns which have benefitted by being
offset, yet the reverse can be said for other patterns.

Showing are 2 examples of a handlace-converted pattern, which I
did in both versions.
The comparisons speak for themselves!

 

Lace & Fairisle design emphasis

This will be the last Lace & Fairisle trial for a while,
the floats used here are tiny as one can see!
There are many more possibilities for this type of filled Lace,but since I don't intend using 

them in the near future , I will be changing to aome other techniques for while. 

Old Designer Lace Combos

I found these 2 patterns -first Taj by K-Kinder's Lace Book.
Second in an old MKM publication by D-Coutts.

I had to change both graphs to suit my way of knitting them.

They both look very pretty; but not to my liking the very long floats!

An Operator Error turns out as a new Technique?

This is the result of not having one's mind on what one is doing!
Instead of pressing in the Fairisle button I managed to press both
buttons as for Threadlace.

Actually I rather like the result.

More Brother Lace & Fairisle combinations

The graph including lace& fairisle for 134 SW.

4th row of Lace knitting will select 1st row of Fairisle needles, PARK LC at left-off bed!
engage MB carriage on rightt side KC II knit 2 rows, PARK on right side.

Make sure the carriage is parked on the right rails, then start at left with Lace carriage.........
At NO time should both carriages be on the bed simultaneously!

Finally feel just a bit better (at least I am able to sit for a while
with the help of painkillers)

So have tried to make a couple more pat files & knit the swatches.

Just to show how one can use a Pattern from the Stitchworld book (930-940)
& add the Fairisle component to it.
I personally prefer these type of small patterns as they lend themselves
better for this type of combinations (if one looks at the back one can see
the small floats of col.2).

Ideas which work & some that don't!

On the previous theme of Lace & Fairisle;
I did convert another Lace Handknit to MK-ing,
but this pattern really does not lend itself to what
I wanted to achieve.
In order to make it look reasonable the floats would
have been too long (my pet hate).

So this one gets shelved & I'd rather use it as it is
or "offset" photo at side---------------->

Or maybe it's just me, not thinking clearly at the moment
due to a bad Flu.

Fairisle & Lace Combo

Fiddling around on the Brother 940 as usual, thought I
would try my hand at a combination Lace & Fairisle;
it's been a few years since I've indulged in this type of Lace.

The small pattern file was one converted from a
handknit graph not so long ago,
was curious how it would look if I inserted some Fairisle.
Here are the 2 versions, one plain lace & one COMBO.