 |
| Child's jumper knit in indigo dyed cotton |
I was young and in a hurry - no time to read instruction manuals and I'm afraid everything I produced was mostly too large or misshapen to be worn. I knit everything from the perspective of a hand knitter and tried to run long before I could walk. The machine was put away and forgotten about until we moved to the countryside.
I tried again in the early 1990s thinking it would be great to knit clothes for my two children. I went to knitting exhibitions and stocked up on lovely yarns I was sure to use. My head was bursting with ideas for patterns. The problem was that I still needed to learn how to use the machine properly and my ideas were very ambitious. The children were demanding of my time and the result was headaches, bad tempers and piles of ravelled yarn. I put all my crafting stuff under the spare bed and forgot about it. I gave most of the yarn away.
The knitting machine has always nagged at the back of my mind but now I was worried that after all these years it wouldn't work. Uppingham Summer school has run machine knitting classes for a number of years with a superb teacher called Beryl Jarvis and this year I joined a class. Beryl told me what I needed to do to get my machine running again and in the meantime I learnt new skills on one of her brother machines.
This little sweater may not look much but I made it in a day, it has come out to the size I was aiming for and I don't have a headache.
Story with happy ending and a grate jumper. This made me smile, think your experience is very similar with so many others.
ReplyDeleteI have also knitted with indigo cotton, have not washed it. I read on the label after knitting a summer top with lace that it would shrink 20 % after washing! So we will see, soon.
I'd forgotten about shrinkage with indigo cotton but was fortunate that it it didn't shrink even after tumble drying. However, my fingers were deep blue after knitting. I hope you are lucky with your lace top.
DeleteSometimes, it's not the right time or place. There's some Zen koan about teachers and lessons that shokai has told me before. I have a Serger, still in its box, never used, that I bought at least eight years ago. I'm just waiting for the right time. I thought this summer was going to be it, but turns out it wasn't... apparently, it's time for chop saws, table saws and band saws.
ReplyDeleteI've been worrying about your fingers ever since I read your post on Facebook.
DeleteThey run a very tight ship at the Sculpture studio at GSU. We had demonstrations, supervised practice and there are any number of young, tatooed sculpture students to call upon. We can only work outside of class when a studio monitor is present, so I think my digits are fairly safe. We get to weld for project #2 and then then work with concrete for #3. But first, I have to put something together in wood...
DeleteThank you for leaving a comment on my blog and how wonderful to meet you! I was born in Wiltshire, England to a military father and German mother.
ReplyDeleteYour indigo cotton top looks great! Bravo for using your knitting machine and isn't it wonderful when (what you plan on knitting) comes out exactly the size you want!