Knitting Machines and the trouble with them, Plus Pocket knitter

So I have two brother knitting machines set up and have been playing with them. That brother 210 sure gives me a pain in using it. The stitches on one side or the other tend to not want to knit properly.

What happens is this. The first couple of rows knit fine, then there will be a row where the end stitch (usually on the left side of the bed), won't knit off the existing stitch. It holds that stitch for several rows before I discover it. You can see this in an earlier blog posting I did.

So I took out all the needles and the retainer bar and cleaned them and the machine. It was really hard to clean this one with the brush because it has these weird sinker hooks and needles.

Machine was put back together and it still does the same thing. All the needles are find, the sinker hooks move easily, the carriage parts move just great, and the retainer bar is straight and cleaned. No I do not need to replace a "sponge bar" as this machine doesn't have a sponge bar. It has a permanent metal retainer bar and as I said it is cleaned, straight, no nicks or any type of damage to it.

My only other guess is there is not enough weights at the beginning to hold the work right. Not enough weight, how can I get more weights on there. I had six claw weights to begin with. I now have four more that I did a buy it now on from ebay. I put two on one end, two on the other end, and spread the rest across the center area.

So the right side is now knitting perfectly, but the left side, yep you guessed it, NOT knitting off the end stitch. This is so frustrating. I worked for hours last night on it. This time change gave me more energy when I finally got time to go to those machines.

So the other machine. The 930. I was playing with it, the electronics patterning part, doing some swatching of skip stitch patterns that are built in. I did several and see a couple that I really like. Then I got to one to try and the stitches all knit off perfectly except for one needle on the right. That one I didn't notice was developing a problem and suddenly the carriage wouldn't move. I had actually damaged the latch on the needle.

I have had problems with that side before so I figured that there was a needle latch that I didn't catch when I checked that had a starting problem. So I switched out the needle and tried the pattern again. Same needle now with a bent needle.

I went to groups to discuss my problem and some say check my tension on the dial. Maybe the tension is not right for this yarn, but I have knitted from this same cone at a few different tensions and the higher where I have been told to try will make a very stiff fabric, but I will still give it a try.

Oh for those of you just getting into machine knitting be sure to check out the youtube videos on knitting machines. There are some really good ones. I have watched most of the ones for the bond machines and then I watch the ones from Susy Ranner. I like those last the best as she also shows where there is problems and how she deals with them. (Susy's vidoes actually got me going on setting up my machines to work with instead of storing them).

The last time we went shopping I didn't get much for knitting purposes. The only thing I actually bought was a couple of Pocket Knitters. I have looked at them before but the price for one was higher then I wanted to pay for a cheap little comb like tool. They had a lower price at JoAnn's so I got a couple.

Ok why did I buy two of them? Well, the tool that comes with these is not one that I would really like to use with these hand knitting tools. I will actually use a knifty knitter tool as it will work better, but the tool that comes with these is perfect for putting with my knitting machines. It is a transfer tool. Yep a single transfer tool for much cheaper then I can get a transfer tool anywhere else. Oh I have several transfer tools but most of those have the 1/2, 2/3, or 1/3 (for those who do not machine knit but have seen a transfer tool from the pocket knitters, that little bar with the center opening is different/same for the machine transfer tools. The difference being that these tools can have multiples of one bar with hole on one side and two or three of those bars, shafts, on the other side).

So there was a dual purpose in purchasing two of the pocket knitters. The tools with go to the machines, and the knitters themselves will get a different tool used on them.

So that is it for now on the knitting machines.