Lutterloh Knitting
It’s been some time since I sewed the dress in my last post, and in the interim I’ve made another Lutterloh pattern. I had said I wanted to draw out the tank top pattern on my knitleader and knit it on the Brother 940, and I did just that. I went with this simple number: I drew out the pattern on paper manually, using the Lutterloh ruler, and then cut it out and traced it onto the knitleader mylar sheets. I included the dart, even though in retrospect I probably didn’t need to. I chose a yarn and a stitch pattern (a very hard task for me). I wanted to…
More Lutterloh Patterns
I thought before I dive into Lutterloh pants making, I should try something a little simpler. Enter this dress: It’s a basic little number with a back zipper and a couple of darts. I have a similar RTW dress so I can compare construction techniques. A better place to start for a pattern system with no instructions, I think. And a little more forgiving if the sizing is not quite right. First off, the pattern doesn’t indicate facings for the armholes. It only really shows a little fold over area at the back neck. It is assumed that the armholes would therefore be turned under, but I thought that a…
Tubular Fair Isle/Pattern Knitting on the Superba
A few times someone has brought up the possibility of machines that can knit tubular fair isle, but I actually don’t know of any machine that does it automatically. Maybe a passap? I don’t know. But after my three-colour jacquard investigations using a “blank” pass, I had wondered if it would be possible to do the same type of thing on the Superba, but in the round, so you’d have a tube instead of a double-bed jacquard fabric. So I finally got around to trying it out. Am I the first person to do this on the Superba? I very much doubt it, but I couldn’t find any documentation about…
Superba Forma/Pattern Driver Sheets
If you have looked around the internet for pattern driver sheets to fit the Superba forma/pattern driver device, you may have noticed there aren’t too many to be found. I have a set that I found on eBay, but because they’re vintage, the women’s sizes are pretty small for a gal of 2022 proportions. You can find the blank gridded sheets occasionally, so you can draw your own patterns, but I didn’t want to pay money for shipping what are essentially blank sheets of graph paper. The patterns, by the way, are 1/2 scale, and drawn with measurements in centimeters, although they list the kids’ sizes by height measurement rather…
Machine Knit Elf on the Shelf Sweater
I know it’s February, and actually almost March. Consider me very early for next Christmas, not late for this past one. I made this in December for our visiting elf, but never got around to writing up the pattern until today. Here are a couple of photos of the sweater: As you can likely see, it’s a very simple roll-neck pattern. The front and back are exactly the same, and there is no shaping anywhere. For those keeners who might want to recreate this and need no further instruction, here is the (hand-drawn, not to scale) schematic: If, however, you’d like a little more detail, you can find the full…
Needle Quest – Part 2
If you read Part 1 of this series, you will know that I was on a quest for suitable needles for a Bellinky linker. They are virtually impossible to get as it turns out, and although I have a stash, they won’t last forever, and other people are in need of them as well. I won’t keep you reading for no reason: the new needles work perfectly! But not without a few adjustments, so read on if you’d like details. I received the 88×1 needles (very quickly might I add) and look how closely they resemble the Orange PYE-2 needles: I apologize in advance, by the way, for these photos.…
Needle Quest
That’s what I’m calling what I did yesterday. Over the last while, I have heard from several people looking to buy spare needles for their Bellinky linker. And there is a shop that I have directed them to, where I myself bought some of the needles after an internet search, but they are out of the size 22. What I have been using successfully is the size 140/22, in the PYE-2 system from Orange needles. I can find NO ONE else who makes this type of needle, nor can I find anywhere besides that one shop to buy them. (A quick Google will bring them up. They are in the…
Ten-Minute Dishcloth
This is a pattern I came up with out of necessity. What do you do when all the dishcloths are dirty or have wandered away, the washing machine is full, the dryer is broken, and you just want to clean something? Well in my case, you make a dishcloth. OK that, plus I have a lot of worsted weight cotton I want to use up. For me a dishcloth has to have some specific requirements: It has to hang over my tap or sink nicely, without dangling too much. Too big and it hangs all in the way of the handle, too small and it falls off into the sink.…
Three Colour, Single Row Height DBJ on the Brother and Superba – Part 2
Well if you read Part 1, you will know that I had found a method for knitting single row height double-bed jacquard, on the Superba, via a couple of different methods, but not the “offset” method that would, a) keep all the colour changes on the same side of the bed, ultimately allowing for, b) use of a colour changer. Now I must take you back to a conversation I had via email with the makers of Superbaknit back in 2018. At that time, I had been using the “Skip stitch” function to knit DBJ, and noticed that it was limited to three colours. I wanted to use four with…
Three Colour, Single Row Height DBJ on the Brother and Superba – Part 1
Recently I started exploring double-bed jacquard (DBJ) on the Brother 940 in more detail. I had only played with it a couple of times to knit a couple of the two-colour patterns from Stitchworld, as a test when I first got the machine. Recently while flipping through Stitchworld, I noticed a couple of beautiful three-colour patterns that are in there, and thought I would give them a try. Unfortunately there isn’t much information in the manual about how to knit in three colours, but I assumed I could figure it out – not much different than two colours after all – so I tried to knit #390 and was unsuccessful.…
