March First Mania

I've been knitting while not blogging, in case you've been wondering. I knitted four pairs of socks on my temperamental Auto Knitter. They are labeled and ready to go to Richard, my hair stylist. It being March and all, I used green labels. I think he'll like these: subtle, wild, very subtle, slightly wild. What do you think?


They were done using 60/30 slot cylinder/ribber. There is a two-inch 1x1 cuff, and eight-inch stockinette leg, short row heel and custom-length foot. The yarns are Regia, Inka, Regia and Marathon respectively and each pair has the ball band with three yards of extra yarn tucked into a cuff.

Who knows? Maybe he'll need to darn one day.

Getting the Auto Knitter to cause me less grief gave me the confidence to uncover the old Gearhart and change to the 100/50 cylinder/ribber. Now that gave me Grief with a capital G!


After much trial and error I was able to get the cylinder in just right so that the machine worked smoothly. Now if only I can get the tension and the weight coordinated. The few tubes I've made with lace weight yarn are full off holes and lengths of unlatched yarn from dropped stitches. I have to crank very slowly, watching to make sure every latch catches. I might need to tweak the timing a bit or adjust the yarn carrier. I'm working on it. However, in the meantime I'm in a machine sock knitting mood and lord knows I have the sock yarn stash to support the mood. So today, between blogging and decluttering (yes, that is still going on), I hope to hop on the Auto Knitter and ride out a pair of socks or two. That's one of the benefits of having multiple machines. You can have more than one project going at a time and we all know how much we love to do that! Which segues very nicely into . . .

UFOs being worked on? Yes, that is still going on as well. Unfortunately the baby kimono is no longer a favored object and was well on its way to being added to my UFO list. Oh no, that's not supposed to be happening! Last night I decided to add a few rows to see if favor would return. Hmmm, maybe it did a little. I will make an effort to finish before the shower date. Finished, it might be worthy. The Abundance Afghan is growing by leaps and bound in the interim. What interim you ask? The one in which I'm deciding on what to work on next. Sally's Favorite Summer Sweater had been the choice except I keep getting put off by the cable cast on of a zillion stitches. Perhaps with Knit Picks needles the task will be less daunting. Those pointier tips might be just what is needed. I'm glad I thought of that! Blogging is good for the mind.

Bona Fide Knitter