February 2014

This month we had a talk about the Brother Knitleader and Knitmaster/Silver Read Knitradar with a short demonstration. The key benefits being that it enables any garment shape, pattern and tension to be knitted. All that is needed are the garment shape outlines being drawn to correct sizings and the tension square per pattern being correctly knitted, treated and measured. The knitleader/knitradar can then be set up accurately and shapes be knitted to size.

The decreasing and increasing happens to correspond to the outlines moving wider or narrower as the pattern moves in the tool when it reaches armhole and neck shaping or doing sleeves. Running the machine without yarn is a good idea to see how many rows and how many stitches will be needed for shaping if you want to make it more even overall in the shape or check how many it will be. It doesn't matter too much to be so exact as long as you are consistent each side and to match backs to fronts. Writing it down is best as key points to make sides and shapes match. Experience helps and less dry runs could be needed with confidence.

It is more important though for raglan shaping to get shaping even. Knitting without the yarn the number of rows to be worked with shaping and the stitches to lose or add over a number of rows in advance helps to calculate an even approach for backs, fronts and sleeves that need to match exactly and the fully fashioned shaping look good. For example:
Starting with 61 either side of 0 knitting the length to armhole
Decreasing both sides to start the armhole raglan from 55 each side of 0.
A dry run showed rows to end of armhole was 86 rows.
Stitches ended up going from 55 each side to 11 each side .
So losing 44 stiches each side in 86 rows, thats either 1 each side every 2 rows or 2 every 4 rows.
2 every 4 rows makes a lovely fully fashioned pattern. 

As well as the basic knitwear shapes it can help with other patterning like stripes that can be marked and then when the line is reached on the sheet to change to next colour its really visible compared to reading written patterns and charts. Intarsia can be done by drawing the coloured shapes within the garment shape and the colour changes will show clearly. Another idea is placement of small patterns. A piece of lace within a garment shape can be placed exactly where it is wanted as a single repeat design or even smaller design. this can be intarsia, lace or a fairisle.

Once the tension is worked out and the needle rule selected, each mark on the rule is a stitch on the needle bed so placement of small patterns can be easily applied.

The competition once again was very inspiring.
Annette won the beginners only entry

The advanced group had a lot of entries shown here in reverse order.
Gillian produced two cute hats
Phyllis made a Long Buckby Machine Knitting Club pattern of a Grigna cardigan with waterfall front edges
Sandra made a two colour sweater in Shamal
Valerie a beautiful delicate lace scarf
1st Marcia produced a lovely 3 colours in a row jacquard sweater with intersting neckline shape, her first venture into jacquard.