Sock Knitting Machine

I'm getting a lot of interest in sock knitting machines lately so I thought I would post a picture. This is my Victoria compound sock knitter. I purchased this one from Jacquie Grant in New Zealand several months ago. The unique thing about this machine is that the compound cylinder is to make children's socks. I leave it set up with the compound just for that reason. I have 3 other sock machines for adult socks and I'm patiently waiting for the arrival of the New Zealand Auto Knitter (NZAK). That's the new machines being manufactured in New Zealand by Jacquie Grant. Shipping begins any day now, I can't wait!!
I have been saving lots of sock projects so that I could break in the NZAK. I'm asked often how long does it take to knit a pair of socks on a sock machine? For me, it's about 2 hours! I'm slow! Others make a sock in 10 minutes. Don't ask me -- I don't know how they do it!!!

This is my niece Michele with the Snowdrift Aran sweater that won the 'Merit Award' at the local County fair last week. Michele has lost weight since I knitted this sweater, but she says she likes it this way so she can layer it with other clothes. She was so worried that the sleeves wouldn't be long enough! They are plenty long!! Good Grief!

This is the "Snowdrift Aran" from Knitters magazine, Winter 2004. I used Cascade 220 cream colored yarn.

The ribbon on it is Merit Award! That was a complete shock to me. The FLAK sweater was a lot more complicated and I considered this sweater to be easy. The comments from the judge were, "Beautiful job knitting in pattern the hem,cuffs and collar are wonderful!" The comments on the FLAK sweater were, "Beautiful knitting, twisted rib very interesting with the rest of pattern stitches." Both sweaters received all excellent marks.

This is the last article I entered in the County Fair this year. Hand painted sock yarn that received a blue 1st place ribbon! I included one sock so everyone could see how the dye would look made up. Comments from the judge were, "Neat Dying! Thanks for including your sock to show the pattern. Beautiful pattern!!" I received maximum points for everything except 'Preparation for exhibit'. The judge deducted 2 points because I didn't use figure 8 ties on the skein. It still took First Place~

Hummmmmmm!

I love the hummingbirds! Here is my husband making friends this summer. The first photo was taken last summer, the last two were taken this summer. You can see by the red throats, most of the little hummers are males. The females are olive green all over.

My Children

Today I talked to two of my three children. They are always so concerned about me and my health since their father died 15 years ago. What these adult children don't know is that I'm enjoying life more now than ever. No clock to watch! I get up when I want to, go to bed when I want to! Retirement is great!
I spend a lot of my day knitting or dying sock yarn, preparring a fleece for spinning or just enter a post on this blog. All the things I always wanted to do, but didn't have time. Now I have all the time I need.
I think I'm going to the County Fair today to check on my sweaters to see how others see my knitting. I'll post the results later. That's all for now. Ta Ta

I knit this sweater for my Mother in law about a year ago. It had a simple crew neck. Recently she asked me to change the neck on it because it was too big and she likes collars up close to her neck. I am really happy that she told me about the problem and I was happy to fix it for her. I don't often knit for others except my daughters.
This was interesting to work on. I removed the front bands because the crew neck ribbing was first then the bands applied after and over the top of them. Luckily, I still had the yarn left over in my stash.
I pickup the stitches around then neck, keeping in mind the neck needed to be smaller. After that it was easy to just knit the collar in stockinette stitch for most of it. The 4 stitches on each end were done in 1 x 1 ribbing. Then the last 4 rows were also done in 1 x 1 ribbing to prevent it from curling up.
I am a little concerned about the pointed collar ends, if she doesn't like it, it will be easy to rip back and stop the increases earlier in the collar.

I took this picture in June 2006. The fawn is so new that his/her ears don't stand up straight. This mom has no identifying marks.

This is Mt. Baker, this is the view from my back porch. I took this picture in January 2005 when we were developing our property to build our home. We situated the house based on this view. You can't really make out the water of Puget Sound through those trees, but we can clearly see it from our deck.

This is my hand painted sock yarn. I'm really enjoying the creativity of making the yarn intricately colored to look professional. This yarn was painted late in July, 2006 and then half of it was knit into a sock to show off the colors. I love this!

This is one of our resident deer with her baby. I never get tired of seeing these beautiful deer. We call this one "Earring Mom", if you look closely at her left ear, it looks like someone pulled an earring out tearing the ear flap. This is her identifying mark.

The baby was born early summer 2006.

This is my "Flak"! Follow the Leader Aran Knit-a-long. Several of us followed Janet Szabo through the process of knitting a sweater that fit! It was lots of fun joining people from all over the world on the internet. This project started in January 2006 and I finished it in July.

Tomorrow I will pack this sweater to the Island County Fair along with another sweater that I knitted for one of my nieces to be judged. I'm curious what others think of my knitting. Only time will tell. Wish me luck!