Now I Know Why I Hoard

I am a self confessed hoarder. I am my Father's daughter is every way. He would never throw anything away that could possibly have a use someday. I am the same about my knitting machines. I have resisted all pressures over the years to either sell or get rid of them. Thank goodness I resisted.

I ventured into the loft today. Not a good idea with my knees and a loft ladder but I was determined to bring down this old lady from her retirement in the loft. Apart from brief visits downstairs when I had the loft insulated and boarded she has been in the loft for over 20 yrs. Fortunately I covered her up and put her away with care and I am sure that once the WD 40 has had a chance to do it's work then I will be knitting away this afternoon.

As I mentioned yesterday my friend who fosters had her last "baby" unexpectedly returned to her on Friday and as I was going to have to try to make him some cardigans or sweaters and knitting is not my favourite occupation I decided to coax this old lady out of retirement. She is a Knitmaster 120 and as such is very basic and does not have a ribber. My aim is to do all the boring stocking stitch bits on the machine and then do the ribs and finishing off whilst I watch the TV in the evenings. This takes me back over 20 yrs to when I used to knit samples for the shop and do the very same thing. I either rib the edges, garter stitch them or if they are for girls and ladies then I do a little crochet edging to finish them off.

I just hope that I can remember how to cast on as it has been such a long time. I do have the manual for it somewhere but I am sure that it is like riding a bicycle. Once learned never forgotten. I will have a few practise knits with some oddments as I can't remember what tension number is for double knit so I will have to experiment a bit before I start making anything properly.

The crochet sweater has almost hit a halt. I only have one ball left and that won't get me anywhere near as long as it should be. I have taken advantage of Texere free postage and ordered another few balls of wool. Of course now the machine is down some more wool jumped into my basket as well. Well I can 't order just 2 balls - can I? Next week is going to be very exciting as I now have 3 parcels of wool that will arrive. Nothing moves for a Bank Holiday so that will delay my parcels until the middle of the week. Excitement oh the excitement. I get quite giddy when I know wool is arriving even though I know what I have ordered.

I am going to fortify myself with a cup of coffee and sit down and try to figure out what goes where. First I think I need to wind some wool as this machine doesn't work very well unless I rewind commercial balls of wool onto the special bobbins with the wool winder. Wish me luck and hope that the old lady performs just as well as she used to. That's the machine as well as me !!