A Day With My Knitting Machine

I keep an eye open for projects that I can make on my knitting machine.  It is an LK150 (for a while, I called it the LK 148 as I had two broken needles.  Repaired now, the machine is back to the 150 status.)

On ravelry, my main source of knitting information, I saw this pattern

 

 -  for a lacy, open, machine knit scarf.  At first glance, the pattern was gobbeldy gook to me.  But leaving it  beside my computer where I could study it daily, the light finally went on.    Yesterday, with an entirely, empty afternoon in front of me, I decided to give it a go.

There was a ball of Kauni yarn in my stash,  purchased at Fun Knits on Quadra Island during our 2008 trip out west.  Since we are planning another trip to the same locale at the end of March, it is imperative that I empty my shelves  in preparation for more yarn shopping.  A good enough excuse I thought.

The pattern called for 5 repeats of the lace pattern across the width of the scarf.  A wider shawl-like piece seemed better in my mind, so I increased that to 7 repeats and used the entire 100 gram ball of Kauni.

 

 I have a spectacular piece.

Easily knit in an hour or so, with gorgeous colours, but  - for me - too wide and too long to be comfortably wearable.  It will be  re-do.  But I absolutely love the pattern.

 

 And I love how fast I was able to  knit this up on the machine.  I learned lots about my machine in this not-so-little piece:  leaving needles out of work, occasionally skipping needles normally in work and just how easy it was to create this thing of beauty with some mechanical ingenuity as my helper. 

I see an intense love affair developing with my machine.