Good Morning, some knitting loom and some knitting machine talk

I have been working hard at learning my knitting machines. Right now I have accomplished knitted baby booties, one pair oh so cute (from this pattern: Baby Booties but a tweaked pattern to make it a bit easier to do, advice from a group moderator).

Then I am now working on a round afghan with eyelet edges, nope don't know if this is on the internet other then posted to some groups. It has been a hair puller as a couple of numbers are mixed up, but I am getting it together. The first wedge is done and looking good with that eyelet edging.

I am now trying to get into contact with the designer of this pattern to ask permission to convert it to the loom. I will have to wait to see what she has to say about that. In the meantime I now know how to knit this type of afghan, and I will be able to convert the technique to the loom. I just need to pick out what loom.

A group member asked about a different loom cast on. She says she watched someone, a man, cast on with a weave technique. She says she has not been able to do this cast on. Well, I expect it is because of the loom being used. As I tried this technique on a 24 peg loom last night and could not get the cast on to work. I seemed to be off at the end every time. Here is what I found;

To do this weave cast on it requires a round loom of an odd number of pegs. (humm, wonder if this is why many looms were odd numbered in pegs, old type of cast on).

So I went to a 31 pegged loom and the cast on works perfectly. Starting with peg 1, holding the end of the yarn (or attaching to the holding peg on some looms, not all have them), weave in front of peg 1, behind peg 2, in front of peg 3, behind peg 4, see the method?, continue till you are at the last peg, that should be an in front of the peg (all odd pegs are in front, all even pegs in back)

Now you are back to peg 1 but that already has an in front, so wrap behind, and in front of peg 2. You should be able to see it now. You will continue to wrap in front those that do not have a strand, and behind on those that do.

Ok we are back around to the peg 1 again. Lay the yarn across peg 1, and pull the strand over, do this all the way around. Cast on row done.

The member continued to say that the man she watched just laid the yarn in front of the pegs and worked the wrap on the peg over. Well, we know that is the knit stitch, so you can do this laying flat or whatever your choice. I am continuing with the yarn just laying at the top. Tip, make sure you move all former wraps to the bottom of the pegs, from laying at the bottom there is a tiny bit more stretch to keep the stitches looser. I have about ten rows done and it is working fine, no tight stitches, but this is a very tight weaved fabric so I do not have it long enough to judge the cast on look yet.

I have received a new to me knitting machine stand. The ebay auction that I won it from said this was new, never been put together. I doubted that as many people pickup things and don't know how to tell. I was wrong in my doubts. I carefully looked over the pieces of the stand and if the bolts had ever been put on this machine you would see some scratch marks from that being done. The paint is perfect, not a single scratch on this. In fact I had to really work to get wing nuts on and moved all the way to the back of the case holding bar.

In addition the wing nuts and the bolts were in perfect condition, not a mark on either one. The legs do some some marking. It looks like they rubbed against the other legs next to them on one side but this matters not a bit. I am quite happy to have gotten a nice working stand, tilt including the safety stoppers for $63 (plus a little change but not including the shipping). This gives me four knitting machine stands and one table that we built.

Two of my other stands are also tilt stand (paid around the same price), but they did not have the safety stoppers. So does anyone know where I could buy those? I have looked and haven't found them anywhere. I watch ebay every day to see if I can pick up some, but so far no luck. I would only need one set as I only have two ribbers, a KR230 and a KR850.

Loom knitters, is your scarf curling

So you have done that scarf and gotten it to the point of coming off your loom and it curls on the edges. Now what do you do? You say you don't want to start over, but this is not at all what you want.

You don't want to frog the scarf. That is just way too much work. So people tell you to crochet around the edge, but you don't know how to crochet. Bummer, now what can you do?

There is a way to take care of this problem. Even if you have removed it from the loom you can still do this.

If the scarf has been removed from the loom, frog that last row putting the stitches back on the loom, or if you have some knitting needles put every other stitch on a needle with the other goes on a different needle for the end stitches. You just need one or two on both ends. Make sure that the back side is the same direction as when you knitted it, in other words that purled side is facing inwards.

Ok you have it back on the loom, now what. Your last stitch, leave it alone. Take the second stitch and drop it off the peg. Pull that dropped stitch all the way to the bottom rung. Don't loose any stitches off the other pegs, in fact take rubber bands and place around the peg to keep the stitches on.

Ok now your stitch had run all the way back to the beginning. Have a crochet hook handy as we are going to reform that dropped stitch to be a knit on the purl side of the work.

Pull the work back up though the loom (if you are using a round one) to get to the bottom. Now with your crochet hook and that very beginning strand, this is the one that you cast on with.

With your crochet hook going above and behind that strand pick it up with a twist just like you did the beginning cast on e-wrap. Now you have a loop formed on the crochet hook.

Using the crochet hook reach under the strand above and grab it, pull it through the strand on your hook. Do remember that if you were knitting with two strands held together, you will need to grab two strands to pull though.

Ok so far. Do the same exact thing with the next strand/two above the one you just worked. Do this all the way up back to the peg. Place the last loop back on the peg.

Repeat this process for the other side of the scarf. Now check your work. Did this lessen the curl? Yes, bind off. No go to peg four and repeat the process and then repeat on the other side.

This is called reforming the stitches.

Want a scarf with a bit of a different look? Since you have the scarf finished and you are going to drop those stitches to be picked back up why not create a little difference in the way the work looks.

So drop that loop off that second peg. Pull it all the way to the bottom. Get a large crochet hook that can handle what it to happen next.

Ok back to the bottom. Grab the cast on strand, twist it, loop on hook formed. Now reaching above to those strands you need to pick up do not grab the next only. Take two sets or even three and pull them through the first, repeat up the work.

You can do this on the ends only or do it every other peg or every third or forth peg. This is something you will have to figure out on your own due to my not knowing how many stitches you used in the first place.

You could do this on both ends and then one or two in the center of the scarf also. Play with it on waste yarn then pick and choose what you like.

You could also pick up the bottom strand, the go under the one above, grab the next and pull it through leaving the one alone. Play with methods like these to form different looks in the scarf you make.

So you know it is not too late to make that scarf do what you want it to do.