The Ant and the Grasshopper, Revisited

The Ant and the Grasshopper, Revisited

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Knitting pal scarf

I finally have the first scarf off the knitting pal.  It has to be edged.  It has curled, but this will give me a chance to practice the pie crust or worm trim on the pal.  This should be interesting.  I will wait till I have the second scarf done that I have started tonight.

You know I love the service from paypal.  Those agents are so quick to help a person with a problem.  Nice people working for them.

Knitting Pal and crocheted square

I am still working slowly on the second Wool Eater square.  It is almost done but I am switching between this square and a scarf on a knitting pal. 

The knitting pal is an interesting tool.  It works very much like a knitting machine but with additional functions.  You can knit many rows at once by using more needles and complete pieces quite fast.  You can knit forward and backwards on several needles at once.  Using multiple colors on the needles you can do some very interesting knitted pieces.

One bad thing I have found about the pal is keeping the stitches on the pegs.  So many times I have had projects that I walked away from and came back to find that stitches had popped off and run.  Bummer, it means starting over.  It is extremely hard to pick up those dropped run stitches.

Now when I walk away I place a cast on comb (from a knitting machine) on the fabric along with a couple of weights. This helps hold those stitches on those pegs so that they can't just relax and do their own thing.  

Want to see what the knitting pal can do?  Search a bit on youtube and there are a couple of videos there.  These are great as learning the pal can be a bit of a frustrating mess.  The instructions are not all that great that come with the pal. 

This scarf is being done with only one segment of the pal, two tools but holding the same color.  One row, left to right is a plain row, the row right to left is a reversing of the stitch (saw in one of the youtube videos), where you pick up the stitches and flip the new ones before placing them back on the pegs.

I have one more scarf to do for a couple of grandsons and plan to use the pal again, but might use as many as three or four tools, same colors to make it a bit faster.  I only have a little time to work on these in the evening so they are slow going.

I have to decide what stitch pattern to use on the second one.  I am leaning toward a stitching back and forth over four pegs two to five times then moving on to the next four.  I will have to do a peg count before deciding how many moves to make.

I have been allowing this knitting tool to sit too much when I find it such a unique tool  to use.

My sample so far of the Wool eater pattern. Only five colors and it already fits on the top of a TV Tray. 

Had to post this question.

If a man yells "you lie" in a room full of politicians, How do they know Who He is talking to?

Hat and scarves

This is the loom knitted hat I made for Athea.  The body of the hat was created on a green knifty knitter loom.  the ear flaps and edging are crocheted.  Front view.  Athea tried this on and darn she looked cute in it, but then she looks cute in everything.


The first ear flap is in the darker color.

Second ear flap in the other color.

Scarf is done in crohooking.  This is a reversible scarf.  See following pictures.

Side with lighter color.

Side with darker color.

Scarf made for Tanner.  Knitting machine Brother KH 230 with ribber.  I am just learning the ribber. Racking pattern II but I decreased the amount of needles used.  Edging is half double crochets then a round of single crochets.

Bit of a closer look, some pictures didn't turn out too good.  This is actually a dark brown like the picture above.

Scarf for Mason.  Work on the same machine with ribber.  Pattern stitch is Racking of English rib.  Edging is crocheted crab stitch or also called reverse single crochet.

Sorry I took a bunch of close up but none turned out. This is the best of the lot.

Now Athea wants dark blue scarves to go with the boys dark blue snow suits.

Blocked

Since Christmas I sit at the machine and can't think of even how to cast on. So I turn away and leave it sit there.

So I started a cro-hooked scarf with yarn my daughter bought to make her one. That one at least requires little to know thinking beyond the fact that I need/want two more moez cro-hooks in larger sizes. Have to check that out today since Val told me where to go to find their new site.

I am looking for a decent knitted snowboarding hat to make on the machine. So far I have found a couple with the types of earflaps I want but darn they are crocheted not knitted. Got to keep looking.

Working on things

In the week before Christmas day my grandson wanted to spend the night. Since the room he would normally sleep in was filled with unwrapped Christmas presents I had to take down the machine in my room to make up a pallet bed for him.

After that night I decided not to put the machine back up till Christmas presents were wrapped and out of the way. So I simply put back up the table to use for wrapping. On Christmas Eve night I put the machine back up.

Still I have not knitted on it. To late after machine was set up on the eve, busy Christmas day with family and yesterday every time I looked at that machine my mind went blank. Suffering a total burn out.

So instead of using the machine I have been doing a crohooked scarf for my youngest daughter. She had bought some homespun yarn for this scarf and asked me to make her one. I tried on the machine, it hated the yarn, started a loomed one didn't like it, then a crocheted one and again not getting what I wanted. So here I am crohooking it and I am loving the way it is looking.

Now the only thing I have worked on in the last couple of days is that scarf. Crohooking to me is a bit slower then some of the other yarn crafts I do but very often worth the little extra time. I am using a yellow moez crohook and they are just simple elegant to use, so smooth and nice feeling in the hands.

I have only a couple of the moez crohooks and have been meaning to order more. I need a couple larger then the ones I currently have. Someday soon I am going to have to get around to ordering them. This scarf is coming out so nice that I would like to see something done in the larger then the yellow hook. The trouble is I can no longer find their website. Guess I should check out their yahoo group and see what happened to the site.

NOTE: The yellow moez hook is a 12.7mm. It is quite large compared to the ones you normally find in stores.