Like Riding A Bike

It's like riding a bike. Once you get on a bike after a long time they say that it all comes back to you. With regard to my machine knitting I think that I have fallen off my bike!

I struggled last night trying to get the ribber to work. I read the manuals once again and then resorted to reading the forum for machine knitting on Ravelry. From them I gained the insight that it might be something to do with the sponge bar. No we are not talking cakes here but rather a long slim bar made of metal with a sponge liner that fits underneath the needles under the machine bed and holds the needles in the correct place for the carriage to pass over with out jamming. When I took mine out it was like a flat pancake and perished. Hopefully this is the problem so I have managed to order a new one online which isn't easy when I have such an old machine. If it works I will give a big thank you to the Ravelry machine knitting ladies.

As I could not knit I decided to check everything else on the carriages. I found that one little wheel cog was clogged up with old wool and wasn't turning properly so I loosened the screw to get the wool out. Big mistake. Of course I dropped this minute screw on the patterned carpet. I spent an hour last night searching the carpet with a flashlight and after another hour this morning I finally found the tiny screw. Next time that I do anything like that I will make sure that I do it over the table with a cloth to catch anything that falls off. I am so glad that I found it as parts for my machine are next to impossible to find as it is so old.

For the sake of my sanity I decided to leave the machine until the sponge bar arrives and so I settled back down to the crochet that I started for my younger niece. I still can't get back into her knitting.I am awful with knitting. I have to go from start to finish without stopping or I put it down and then stop. I am, as you know, a crocheter at heart. I like the crochet top that I am doing now as although it takes longer as I am crocheting into the row below on every row I do like the close stitch pattern. My elder niece saw it yesterday and she also liked it. I did find out when I got to the armholes that I had forgotten to shape slightly outwards. My niece is so slim that I don't think that it will matter that the back is a tad small. I can always make a larger size for the fronts. As I am making the top a big longer I think that the shaping would have been in the wrong place anyway as it was meant to increase at the bust line so I should have put the shaping higher up rather than at the beginning. I am sure that it will be all right in the end. The day that I crochet a pattern from A to Z without changing something will be a miracle!

I got an e mail this morning from my elder niece and she said that she wore her Moiselle cardigan yesterday afternoon and it was so lovely and warm. Better on her back keeping her warm than in my stash room in a plastic bag.