Baby It's Spring Outside! (2007)

Spring! Printemps! Bron!


Språng! ربيع Primavera! весна


Welcome friends from around the world! Welcome Spring and welcome back COLOUR!



Thank you to everyone who has signed on to the Frappr World Map. It's great to see who makes up this global community of ours. I hope those of you living in the Northern Hemisphere are enjoying the Spring season as much as I am. I trust you have been busy and creative.

Life for me always takes on a new level of energy and my daily routine shifts to accommodate the longer daylight hours as Spring takes hold.

It infuses all of the senses; the sound of birdsong, the smell fresh cut grass and rain, the feel of soil in your hands and the warm sun on your back. I always thank God for good vision as watching plants come to life, leaf and bloom is truly wonderful. The colours put forth are mesmerizing. Greens and Pinks are my favourites in flowering plants but just look at the intensity of the yellow in these blooms!



 


This love affair with colour is why I have such admiration and respect for yarn companies who specialize in hand dyeing their yarns, creating such marvelous, intense colourways with plant and animal fibres such as the following from Colinette of LLanfair, Wales and Blue Heron Yarn of Eastland, Maryland, USA.




Colinette Jitterbug Sock Yarn



Blue Heron Rayon Metallic, Beaded Cotton/Rayon and Rayon/Cotton Seed hand dyed yarns.




Blue Heron Yarns display at Village Yarns.


Close up of Blue Heron Cotton/Rayon Seed worked in Moss Stitch.




The wall of Sock Yarn at Village Yarns. Ahhh, choices! If you have never knit a pair of socks, either by hand or machine, give it a try. Your feet will love you for it. Cotton blended with Wool and Nylon are perfect for those of you with hot, itchy feet. Trust Mr. Size 13 here.




Lush Life.
Zoe loves laying in the lush, green grass in our back yard. She has favourite spots to lay and sleep throughout the day. When she chooses to go outside of course. I must admit the lawn is rather overgrown in comparison to our neighbours manicured lawn next door, but I did finally get part of it mowed yesterday. I'm not so uptight about having "the perfect" lawn anyways. I don't really understand the desire to have this patch of green that you won't even walk on and any and all plants pushed backed to the perimeter. Not for me. I am in the process of converting the entire back yard to one huge garden. Of course that takes time and money to do so but in 10 years or so it should be complete. There is plenty of time. I enjoy the transformation and the process.





Zoe is a Bouvier des Flandres, which is a Belgian herding breed originally. I adopted Zoe when she was 3. Now 10 years old, she is slowing down dramatically but still energetic if there are cats, raccoons or squirrels involved. As a breed, Bouviers typically have very thick, coarse curly outer hair and a fine, dense undercoat. This requires constant brushing or they mat badly. 


In the spring I always have Zoe shaved very short to keep her cool and clean. Well, to a dog this is a shaming process and for two weeks I had a very depressed dog on my hands. If you have a long hair breed of dog you will understand what I just went through. It is only in the past week where she has come out of her shell and is her engaging, affectionate self. She looks very awkward initially, but as her hair grows in she evens out. I will keep trimming her until September and then she will have 8 months to grow her coat out again.



On The Needles:
Pictured is Prism Yarn "Cool Stuff" (yarn on far right), a hand dyed yarn featuring an outrageous combination of over 50 yarns in one ball, all colour coordinated in various textures. The colour is "Rio Fantasy". I have combined it with Colinette "Parisienne" lace weight Kid Mohair. I am trying to keep things simple by alternating the yarns every two rows with Garter Stitch in a Short Row technique. This way you get to see all the textures and colours that are components of the "Stuff" yarn.



If you have never knit with Prism Yarns (www.prismyarn.com) I suggest you give them a try. Prism has an outstanding and very sophisticated colour range and the quality of the yarns are second to none. I have waited a long time to work with Prism "Stuff" as it retails for $69/skein Canadian and is therefore on the "precious" side shall we say. The amount of work and thought that the company puts into their "Stuff" line of yarns is incredible. I have tried to replicate this yarn for customers by combining various other yarns in our store and it just doesn't work nor does it come close to the product they produce. For one customer who was trying to match a certain colourway of Prism she had at home, I got up to 22 different yarns which were well over $200 in price and no where close to what their yarns consists of.


Laura Militzer Bryant is Creative Director for Prism Yarns and an award winning artist with an outstanding colour sense. This is definitely reflected in the yarns her company produces. I am thrilled to be taking a workshop hosted by Laura at The National Needle Arts trade show in Columbus, Ohio at the end of May. TNNA is the largest needle arts trade show in North America. I have been invited by Karen Dinner of Village Yarns to attend the show and participate in their "New Buyer" programme. I will definitely report back to you on what I see.




A big Thank You! to those of you who wrote with kind words about my "Mohair Love Affair" in my last post. I had hoped to have pictures to put up for this entry on blocking the piece I was knitting - but someone forgot to save the photos to his memory stick and doesn't have them on this computer. I will update you.


Upcoming Posts
How do I accomplish all this? I take photos as I work on my own projects. It's really that simple. If I think the processes and techniques I am using would be of use to someone then out comes the camera. The average number of photos I take per project or technique is between 300-500. Think about the number of steps involved and it adds up. Trust me. Then there is the editing, uploading and writing of the text and blah, blah, blah. I just get antsy because 3 months have gone by since I last posted anything new. But we can only accomplish so much in a day. Until I go live with video or learn a faster way to put these on the net, Blogger.com works just fine. Slow but good.


Two topics I have been working very hard on are meant to be companions to the Basic Instruction Book. These will hopefully assist knitters with learning the Principle Parts of their machine and how to operate their Superba knitting machine, maximizing all the wonderful features. I will be dividing this into two parts, focusing on the following:


Superba Principal Parts: The Double Bed Knitting Machine




Superba Principal Parts: The Carriage




Basic Cast On Techniques



Garter Transfer Lace Carriage Basics

Superba FORMA Pattern Driver:

Basic Circular Socks:





Sock Toe and Heel Variations:





The 16 x 16 Grid Programmer:





Double Bed Stitch Techniques:




Japanese Stitch Symbols & Patterns:





New Arrival


I received my Superba System 624 Selection Box from England recently. Now all I have to do is wait for the knitting machine to arrive and I can start using it! I bought this on Ebay to have as a back up unit. Remember, these machines are not made anymore and parts are very scarce, so it's wise if you're serious about knitting to have spares. I'll do a complete post on this model when the machine arrives. Here's a peek at what the Selection Box looks like.



The Superba System 624 Selection Box has over 100 programmed stitch patterns stored in its memory. Using the function keys you can manipulate the length and width to achieve large stitch repeats.







On the back of the box is the memory cartridge, which according to the manual can be removed and other pattern cartridges can be inserted. I've never seen any information regarding other memory cartridges but now I will be on the hunt for them.



The System 624 Selection Box comes with a plastic sleeve which slips over the box for programming your own designs.


You can program stitch patterns up to a maximum of 24 stitches wide and 60 rows long.




The programming guide slips over the Selection Box itself, and then you slide your design sheet in through the guide. This helps align each row to be programmed. You enter a new pattern row by row, one stitch at a time just like on the 16 x 16 pressure pad models.


For comparison, here are three of the five Selection Boxes produced by S.I.T. Group Superba ®. Left to right: the 16 Stitch Programmer, System 624 Selection Box, and the Light Scanning 60 Stitch Selection Box.




The 624 Selection Box in Front of my White 1502 for size comparison.





Friends Called Family
My siblings and I gathered in London, Ontario at my sister Barbara's to celebrate Mother's Day with our mother Genevieve. I am my mothers tenth child and while not every brother and sister were able to attend, six of her ten children, plus grandchildren and great grandchildren enjoyed a fabulous Spring day to honour this grand lady.


Pictured below are four generations of my family. My mother Genevieve on the right, my sister Susan in the middle, granddaughter Meghann on the left holding great granddaughter Maya. Priceless.




This was my first opportunity to meet Maya and she is adorable.



My sister Barbara is a wonderful hostess and a fabulous cook. The menu was Grilled Beef Tenderloin with a Shrimp & Scallop Hollandaise sauce, Grilled Sweet peppers with melted Goat Cheese, Asparagus, Potato Salad and Strawberry/Blueberry Spinach Salad. Dessert was an assortment of fresh pies baked by my mother and Chocolate Fondue with fresh fruit. Lot's of Belgian beer - love Chimay! - and assorted wine made for a fine feast.



Barbara's son Jacob took over as the Grill Master.



Being such a gorgeous day what could be better than a game of Bocce. Canadese style of course.



The women kicked ass of course!




My sister Genevieve with Maya.




My brothers Robert and Michael.



Yours truly pictured with my mother Genevieve and brother Robert. I got all the height genes in the family!


Our grand nephew Avery, happy to be catching pollywogs in the pond.




My niece Meghann and her husband Derek.



My sister Susan, her grandson Avery and daughter Meghann.



Pretty baby!

Susan with grandson Avery.


A very happy Uncle.




There are no friends like Family. God Bless. Patrick Madden.
Toronto, Ontario CANADA
superbaknitting@gmail.com

Superba Knitting: A Lace & Mohair Love Affair

The view in the photo below is of Village Yarns, a yarn shop in Toronto where I used to work. This store carried the most wonderful selection of hand knitting yarns, many of them very suitable to knitting on a Superba Knitting Machine. Mohair yarns were one of these.

Karen Dinner, the owner of Village Yarns, stocked all weights and varieties of Mohair including the lovely Lace Weight varieties from yarn companies such as Madil, Rowan, SR Kertzer, Filatura di Crosa and hand dyed Mohair from Fleece Artist, Hand Maiden, Prism and Alchemy Yarns of Transformation.
I am very partial to mohair as a fibre and Lace Weight Mohair in particular. The light, soft, lustrous, gossamer qualities of finely spun Mohair are dyed in an endless colour range and truly a feast for the senses. Many varieties, including Madil Kid Seta, Rowan Kid Silk Haze and Alchemy Haiku were blended with silk for a divine hand when knit.


No one comes close in my opinion to Laura Bryant, Creative Director and master dyer at Prism Yarn in Florida. Laura's colours are a treat for the senses. Prism Gossamer lace weight Mohair above in Mohave and below in Arroyo colourways.



Wraps, sweaters, shawls, blankets, and gloves are just some of the possibilities when knitting with this weight of yarn and there are hundreds of wonderful garment patterns available, especially from Rowan and Prism.


As the owner of a Superba, Singer, White or Phildar brand knitting machine made in France, we have knitting machines which knit these fibres with exceptional ease.

It has been my experience that Mohair knit on Japanese knitting machines snags very easily on the Sinker Posts (what we refer to as "Flow Combs" on a Superba) and one has to frequently check that yarn is not caught on these posts that separate each needle, or the machine will drop or skip stitches. This is not to say this doesn't happen whilst knitting mohair on a Superba, but not nearly as often. The shape and angle of the Flow Combs results in less "hairs" getting caught and wrapped over the combs on a Superba.

Please save me the suggestion of waxing my mohair before using it or putting it in the freezer. Forget it. I never wax my yarns. Never will. You can tsk tsk all you want but I've seen the results and, well - yuck. I have not spent the money I have on gorgeous yarns in fabulous colours, many of them hand dyed, to then take them home and coat them with a petrol chemical that may or may not wash out. If it won't knit up on the machine as is then it will on two hand knitting needles. Luckily for me a Superba handles Mohair like a dream.

I first began with the idea to Needle Felt some Kid Mohair roving onto a swatch of kid mohair knit in simple Stocking Stitch technique.

I used a skein of Rowan Kid Silk Haze Mohair for the Stocking Stitch base and needle felted over this using Fleece Artist Kid Mohair sliver. This is for a needle case I am making for my Addi Turbo hand knitting needles.

HAND TRANSFERRED LACE ON A SUPERBA

In these photos I am working with Madil "Kid Seta" lace weight mohair.

The machine I am using is my White model 1502 (same as a Superba S47, Singer Memo II/Singer 600) and the stitch technique is hand transferred lace. The lace technique section is being worked on the Back Needle Bed in the Stocking Stitch setting.

This style of Lace is the same as achieved in hand knitting. A "Yarn Over" is paired with a decrease in the same row, creating this style of lace fabric. This is not just simple eyelets.

This Gauge Swatch was for a shawl I knit as part of a christening outfit. The lace pattern is a repeat of 14 stitches by 18 rows. The stitch pattern is formed by working 16 rows on the Back Bed (BB) and then all stitches are transferred to the Front Bed (FB), then two rows of plain knitting are done, then all stitches are transferred to the Back Bed (BB) and the stitch pattern repeats with all transfers being done by hand using a Superba six-prong transfer tool.

Below is the Garter Transfer Carriage I used to transfer stitches from the Back Needle Bed to the Front Bed to create the contrasting rows of Purl Stitch.

Note: You could also use the standard Transfer Carriage as all needles are transferred between needle beds, not just selected stitches.

When knitting a Lace Weight Mohair on a Superba Knitting Machine I offer the following suggestions:

1. Always wind the Mohair into a Mini Cone using a Yarn Winder and push this down onto an empty cone. Note: Click on the highlighted text to take you to my post showing you how.

This keeps the mohair off the table surface and away from lint and dirt. Especially when knitting white, like I am.

2. Constantly dust the machine and table whilst knitting to remove dirt and be careful of getting oil from the needles and needle beds on your hands. I am transferring a lot of stitches so I wear an apron to wipe my hands on. I have tried wearing gloves but I can't stand them.

3. Always cast on using Waste Yarn and a Ravel Cord to begin. This is how I knit practically everything.

Begin with an "Open Cast-On" technique and work at least 10 rows of waste yarn. Unthread your carriage and work one row with a Ravel Cord. Then work a "Closed Cast-On" technique, such as the "e-Wrap Cast-On" over this row of Ravel Cord.

4. As for Stitch Size, set the tension nice and loose please. Mohair needs room for the loose hairs to expand and fluff out. If the stitch size is too tight, it will end up felting and looking like a wet Bouvier I know. Not very appealing and such a waste of a gorgeous fibre.

This Lace Weight Mohair I am knitting on Stitch Size #10.

5. Ease off on your weights. I have a 172 stitches cast on and I am knitting this using two medium weights with the machine knitting just fine. As shown in the photo below, I added a third medium weight in the centre of the comb when it came time to transfer stitches using the Garter Lace Carriage. With this kind of knitting, dropped stitches are disastrous if they run. I remove the third weight when I resume knitting and transferring on the Back Bed (BB).

6. No fast knitting with this particular technique. Occasionally the hairs will curl around needles or a flow comb (the metal teeth separating the channels the needles sit in as pictured below) but most important, notice with this transferred lace technique how the fabric is starting to undulate? You can see it along the contrast line formed by the blue Ravel Cord.

7. As you begin transferring stitches, the needles which have 3 stitches on them (in hand knitting this would read SL1, K2tog, PSSO) will cause the fabric to push downwards along this continuous line of decreases. The resulting empty needles (Yarn Over or YO) will actually raise the stitch pattern upwards. This causes the undulating you see.

The other result is that there is very little "tension" on these needles from the weights or comb as compared to their neighbouring stitches. So do pay attention to the rows completed one at a time.

The amazing thing for me as I worked this technique was how effortlessly my Superba/White knitting machine handles this technique. The machine just zips along!

8. When using the 6-prong transfer tool go slow at first to get used to picking up and moving that many stitches at a time.

TIP: You might find it helpful to hold your needle pusher against the needle butts to hold them in place as you transfer the stitches onto their new needles.

9. As a safety measure to ensure the stitches will knit after transferring, I push all my working needles to position 3, set my Needle Return Buttons down and knit. The needles will knit back into working position 1.

TIP: Hand knitters will run a thread (known as a safety line) through a row of stitches that have plain knitting so that in the event something awful happens like dropped stitches, the stitches will only run to this safety line and no further. This way you won't have to re-knit the whole piece if you drop a stitch and need to unravel your fabric. The "lifeline" will stop any unraveling at this row.

10. As with all fabrics when knitting the full width of the bed, mind the Racking Lever located between the front and back bed on the left side. When you begin knitting, ensure your Cast On Comb does not catch on this and get stuck. Otherwise the comb will stop pulling on your fabric and the machine may start skipping stitches.

NOTE:
I continued the topic of Knitting With Lace Weight Mohair in more detail beginning with this post.

Take care and I hope you found the information presented informative.

Patrick Madden.
Toronto, Ontario CANADA
©2004-2010