CSM Lesson 3A -Part 1 (Lots of photos)

I was asked if I could show how you get started with the CSM. Essentially "casting on". Since I was ready to start the next lesson I thought why not do a photo journal of sorts showing my progress through the lesson. I will break the lesson up into a couple of different parts so there aren't too many photos to download at one time.

This first part is all about getting started. I'm using a set-up bonnet.....the one I made in the last lesson.  The set- up bonnet needs to be placed on the needles.....a stitch every other needle.

Not every needle will be accessible so the cylinder will need to be advanced forward by cranking the handle. The photo below shows how high the stitch sits on the needles. A bit of weight from below (gently pulling the set-up bonnet down by hand) will help the stitches settle down on the cylinder.

Once the set- up bonnet is in place, waste yarn is threaded through the yarn mast and the yarn carrier. The tail of the waste yarn is placed in the center. When you start cranking the needles will pick up the yarn and stitches will be formed on every needle....like magic!  =)

Weights are used to keep the piece pulled down so the stitches sit on the edge of the cylinder. If the piece is allowed to ride too high on the needles ( not properly weighted, tension too tight) things start going wrong and it's not pretty (skipped stitches, dropped stitches). No need to ask me how I know. Let's just say " been there, done that".   =)

After a few rows of waste yarn have been knit, it is time to join the working yarn ( the good stuff being used for your project). This is done by clipping the waste yarn and unthreading it from the yarn carrier. The tail is put in the center of the piece. The working yard is threaded up and the tail is positioned so it goes in front of a couple of needles ( so it gets caught in the knitting) before being put in the center of the work.

The photo above shows a few rows of the working yarn already knit. The next step is setting up for picots.....which will be another post.  =)

CSM - Lesson #3

In this lesson you learn how to make a set up bonnet for the CSM. What exactly is a set up bonnet? And why do you need one? A set up bonnet is like casting on (or making a foundation chain) for the CSM. It gives the needles a foundation upon which to build. Just like casting on does for knitting......or building a foundation chain does for crochet. Makes sense. While you can start a project without a foundation upon which to build it just makes things easier.....and that is always nice.    :)

With learning how to make a set up bonnet comes the acquisition of some new skills. You get to learn how to make picots and how to do a hang hem.  My first attempt at this was last night (the smaller one with the cylinder size on it). I did pretty good although I found it a bit challenging to move a stitch from one needle to the next. Felt like I was all thumbs! It went much easier the second time though. A light bulb went off and I finally caught on to what I was doing. Sometimes the simplest things stump me at times.    :) 

  Once I accomplished that then I had to find my beginning tail for my working yarn and bring it up. The idea behind this is that it brings up the first row of your working yarn making it easy to pick up stitches and place them on the needles. Okay, for some reason it didn't sink in that I needed to pick up the purl bumps of my working yarn from the first row. For some reason I picked them up from the second row instead. Duh!!!! I discovered this when I went to finish the hem and wondered why my knitting was unraveling. If I had picked up the first row it would have essentially locked all those stitches in place giving you a smooth transition from the hang hem to the rest of the piece. Something I learned with my second attempt. You can see the difference in the photo below. 

The second bonnet turned out longer because I wanted to use up the rest of my yarn. I like the tension on the first one a bit better. It's not as loose as the tension on the second one. Overall I'm real pleased with how I did on both. I even used my first set up bonnet to make the second one ( reason you can see some of the stitches sticking up on it). Worked beautifully! Now I'm ready to move onto lesson #4.......learning how to make an advanced set up bonnet and learning even more new skills in the process. Sounds like I should buy some more practice yarn!   :)

More Blooms (with pictures!)

With all the rain we've had lately the flowers have been going nuts......even with the very cool temperatures. I even discovered a tiny little Johnny Jump Up growing in the middle of flowering Thyme and Bee Balm. The Dragon's Blood is budding out like never before. In one container it is threatening to overrun the lavender in there.....it's that happy.  :)  There are even more roses in bloom than before. How all those rose blooms are finding room is beyond me.  It's definitely a sight to behold.   :)

My New Sock Machine!!!! (Lots of pictures too!)

My loving hubby finally did it. He's been talking about it for years......and it finally happened. My new Earlbacher Gearhart circular sock machine (CSM for short) arrived about two weeks ago. It was super exciting.....and a bit intimidating at the same time. I spent an afternoon carefully unpacking everything and getting it all set up. Set up was fairly easy thanks to a wonderful video on set up done by the maker of the CSM. Then I spent the next couple of days just looking at it, reading through the accompanying lessons, and watching more videos. Went through my small stash of sock yarn and pulled out all the skeins I thought was good for playing with, making sure to set the good stuff aside for when I knew what I was doing. After all I don't want to mess up the good stuff now do I?  :)

After a few days of looking at it and cranking it empty I finally decided to give it a try with yarn. Started off with learning how to do I-cord. This involved removing needles and using a set-up bonnet. I got the hang of I-cord pretty quickly and moved on to lesson 2.....tubes. This is the lesson I've been lingering on for the past week or so. With tubes you also learn how to adjust your tension and how to take your project off the CSM. My first tube became a neck warmer . I used a bamboo/wool/nylon blend sock yarn. I also discovered that if the tension is too tight the bamboo will slip out of the needles making quite the mess. After the neck warmer I had read somewhere about making scarves but never found any directions on it. So I figured why not make a very long tube and then simply finish the ends by hand. That is exactly what I have been doing. So far I have made 5 scarves and have finished them either with a 3-needle bind off, an I-cord bind off, or a picot bind off. The 3-needle bind off has become my "go-to" bind off. I had tons of fun doing the picot bind off and can foresee using that one a bit more. The only one I wasn't real crazy about was the I-cord bind off. I think I just need more practice with it.

What's next you ask? Lesson 3..... Learning how to make a set-up bonnet. And maybe making another scarf or two. After all, I am getting pretty good at it. I can crank one out in less than an hour and finish it by hand in about the same amount of time or less, depending on the bind off of choice. Talk about instant gratification!!!!!   =}

 

Blooms

Just a couple shots from the back garden. The first photo is of the climbing rose bush.....which seems to get bigger each year. The second is of one of the two trumpet vines. This one has a really pretty "split" flower that the hummingbirds and hummingbird moths just love to visit. The last is of my pink foxglove.....

Halo

Halo is the "fuzziness" of a yarn. Not all yarns have halo. It all hinges on how a yarn is spun and the fiber used. Softly spun yarns with shorter fibers tend to have halo. The fibers aren't all contained by the twist and are allowed to "poke" out of the single thus creating halo. The more the yarn is handled the more halo it will have. Some spinners feel they have to brutalize a freshly plyed skein of yarn through thwacking and whacking on a hard surface in order for the yarn to "bloom", thus creating halo. I find that my yarns will bloom on their own through gentle handling. Why this small treatise on halo? As I was picking up my latest project to work on I noticed how lovely the halo was on it. Gives it a soft, almost ethereal look. Very lovely.

Heavenly Herbs

Here is my latest creation! The pattern is all mine. =}  It was knit using KnitPicks Palette yarn. Colorway: Coriander Heather.......100% Peruvian Highland wool. I had wanted to use handspun for it but didn't think I had enough yardage for it. My "approximate yardage needed" figuring skills suck! I was way off the mark. Oh well. Lesson learned. 

The scarf came out beautifully! It is about 16" wide and 75" long. It used 735 yards (not including the gauge swatch....which I did knit) and somewhere around 35 hours to knit. Finishing it was sweet sorrow. Part of me was tickled to finally finish it. Part of me was sad to see it end. It had been my long term project for quite some time.

For those interested, I hope to have the pattern available for purchase by the end of this weekend. You will be able to find it on Ravelry, Craftsy, and my etsy shop. Here's a couple more photos for you to enjoy.   =}