Machine knit stripey vest front
Originally uploaded by Big Sister.
A few weeks ago, Jenny got a great deal on a sweater machine at a garage sale. In an incredible show of generosity, Jenny brought this machine over to my house last week and encouraged me to test drive it for a week. For the first few days I cursed and dropped stitches and generally felt like this was not going to enhance my knitting life at all.
Then yesterday I knit what you see above. Now, I am still a novice so I would say that it took me about five hours to knit that including a number of mistakes that I had to go back and fix, re-doing the neck decreases (operator error), and remounting the work. If I hadn't made any mistakes, I would say it would have taken half as long. Either way I couldn't have knit it by hand as quickly. The stripe sequence comes courtesy of Kiss Your Shadow (I love this program and encourage even non-knitters to play with it).
My hope is to make a significant dent in the Cascade 220/Patons Classic/Naturespun stash that I have. Unfortunately, the vest front is only 80g of my voluminous stash. This might become the year of the stripey vest round these parts.
p.s. Thanks, Jenny!!
p.p.s. Next to it you can see a little green sleeve being knit on Addi 2s in Gems Pearl. This took me a very long time to knit.
it looks great! i especially love the stripe sequence. bring on the year of the striped vest!
Posted by: jenny | July 31, 2006 at 02:27 PM
The stripe sequence is wonderful. I keep thinking about a knitting machine for those "small needle" knits, but then I fret about the lack of space in the apartment. Can't do it...or can I?
Posted by: Gina | July 31, 2006 at 04:38 PM
You did what?! I love it! So cute and even at 5hrs its like a speed trial compared to any other knitting. I want to see more!
Oh and thank you for the name suggestion on my blog...I so saw that coming :)
Posted by: Rachel | July 31, 2006 at 05:46 PM
Gurl, you did not teach yourself that! You fully rock. Ya know, Gail has 2 knitting machines and did a lot of work on them in the 60's. Sarah still has a couple of the Jackie O. style cardigans, 3/4 length sleeves and no buttons. One has a matching shell. They're lovely. Tragically, all in wool so I cannot wear. Regardless, that is lovely and you are awesome. I kinda think you're a genius.
Posted by: anne | August 01, 2006 at 09:31 AM
Great vest, I can't believe it only took 5 hours! And the stripes are very cool.
Thakns for the dental advice, I ended up at UCSF and they were very helpful!
We should have another Berkeley/Oakland KnitOut this fall.
Posted by: cordeliaknits | August 01, 2006 at 11:00 AM
Fun! And I don't see why you couldn't expand quite easily to stripey pullovers and stripey cardigans...
Posted by: alison | August 03, 2006 at 09:12 PM
Holy crap-ola that is one good looking sweater! Can't wait to see the sleeves.
Posted by: Bonnie | August 07, 2006 at 10:39 AM