Cckittenknits's Weblog

Hi Everyone,

This is not good bye. Maybe a redirection and a heads up.

I have been machine knitting since the early 80’s. Yikes, that’s a long time. It’s no
wonder my interests have changed .

With the purchase of a new sock machine and sewing machines, I want to focus on quilting and making socks and some other hobbies that I have tried.

Since I changed my knitting room to a sewing room, I just don’t have room for everything. Of course, I could buy a bigger house. Lol

This is why I am going to sell my beloved passap E6000 knitting machine. It is something that can’t be stored under a bed like the other machines and I don’t want to let it sit. It needs someone new to keep her active so she doesn’t get stiff joints.lol I am letting everything go that I have for the Passap E6000 machine. She has been well cared for and much loved as you can see in this blog.

With all my added responsibilities, new hobbies and missing Passap resources (because they will be sold with this machine), I won’t be able to answer many questions regarding the future use of it. Not to worry, I plan to keep all the Passap information on this bog available for the new owner as well as any new Passap lovers. Luckily, there are many resources just like this blog for new users to learn from. There are many Passap Facebook groups, groups.io, Ravelry, other blogs and small user groups around the different states. I hope the release of good Passap machines to new users will grow the Passap community with fresh enthusiastic spirit again.

I am keeping my Brother machines because I like to make my slipper socks on the 940 and felted slippers on the bulky. So I may post something in the future about those machines, but not sure at this time. Posting also takes time away from my new adventures.

I am still getting 40 to 100 visits a day on my blog so I will keep this blog open so the information I have posted over the last 10 years on all my machines, will be available to everyone.
I will be posting the E6000 machine on the passap io group marketplace hopefully soon.
Check this link for more information later. https://groups.io/g/PassapClub/ You will need to join the groups.io to be able to read the message boards.

Please don’t ask me any questions at this time about the machine. I am not using the WordPress blog to sell it. I will let you all know where and when to find the details of what I have for sale and the terms of sale soon. It takes awhile to get it all organized.

Thank you everyone for visiting my blog and giving me praise on my projects. It was you that
motivated me to keep on learning and machine knitting. After a few tears and deep breaths, I will try not to change my mind before I get this posted. I hope to see all sorts of new reader posts and connections with previous viewers of this blog when I get a chance to sneak a peek again. Much love to all of you. You are all my Passap family.

Hi Everyone, I posted a couple years back about a train shop near me that sells long pieces of wire to go in our cast on combs. I recently went back there and they no longer carry them. However, I did find them at Hobby Land and they have stores across the states. I bought 4- 36 inch wires for 1.60. It says KS Precision Metals, made in the usa Stock #501. Then in small print it says .032 music wire .81mm. So I googled KS metals  and these metal rods  are sold at a list of stores . You can view that list and see if there are any near you. I would call first.  I then found this wire on Amazon and it looks like 20 pieces for 20 dollars. Wrong, I read the questions asked and it is only 4 -36 inch wires for 20.00. Very misleading.

I was thrilled to find these since they were so reasonable and in straight pieces instead of a circle of wire .  By the way, two wires fit in three cast on combs. I just took a plier and bent the one end down at an angle to make a stop .  You may already know this but some might not. 🙂

I know a woman that bought my girlfriends Passap Machine. Her name is Tina and she has a web site called Herman Hills Farm. Her son has made several passap parts that are hard to find for our machines.

Tina is really advancing in knowledge from designing in DAK to   knitting with the Passap E 6000. She is offering a free afghan pattern that is just beautiful. You can find it at Herman Hills Farm blog .  It is called Scribble Cat Blanket. If the link does not work, just type in Herman Hills Farm and click on blog that is at the top of the page. She shares the pattern and files for DAK and win/crea.

Blog

I saw this sweater and design in a hand knitting magazine called Knitters Magazine. I liked the design and decided to try it on the knitting machine.  This could easily be done using the G-carriage. I just did this sample using the ribber. I had 15 stitches in my sample. Needles 1-5 starting on the left were transferred  from the main bed to the ribber and back again each row. Then I had 5 stitches on the ribber , 5 stitches on main bed. I knitted 12 rows between the twists . If you try this, end with the carriage on the right if your stitches to twist are on the left. If you don’t do this, when you twist the stitches, you will have the yarn in the wrong place to start knitting again. It happened to me so I had to hand knit the five stitches to get it back to the left edge to start knitting again.

I am still organizing all of my knitting and I came across this information. If you bought a machine used, you may not have gotten this information. Besides the programs in these machines there is additional permanent data that is not covered in Stitch world. Click on the link to get this information.

930:940:965 additional data in machine

Hi Everyone, I hope you are all staying safe with this virus out there. I hope you have found the time you have now to enjoy being with your family as well as finding time to be creative and productive.

I have been using the time to start cleaning out cupboards and the garage. As you can tell I have not been knitting. I have been contemplating leaving the machine knitting scene for a long time .

So, I put my big girl pants on (yep, gaining weight since confined to my home) I started to pack all my yarns into large plastic bins and I am now on bin 21! Ok, have to buy more bins so enough of doing that. Yesterday,  I started to get my patterns all boxed up and categorized for future reference or to sell. I printed out the page and taped it to the top of the box. While I was doing this I came across at least two patterns that make me want to knit again(yay) and I also  saw this design and thought it was pretty.  Something this simple got me up and into my knitting room to try it(and because I bought a new sponge bar) .It is so easy and just hand manipulated but can be done on any machine. It would look pretty going up a sleeve. If it is too open a design for you, you could back the design with a lining or wear over a  blouse or turtleneck.

The directions are written by Karen Diesner and done on a Singer. She thinks of this as a butterfly pattern. It is in the May 1995 issue of Machine Knitting News. You are doing a lace design but instead of leaving the empty needle in work after transfer, it is moved out of work. Then half way through the pattern, you start bringing the out of work needles back into work on either side of the middle one. Two rows are knitted after each transfer. There are nine needles used for the pattern. I cast on about 19 needles. The middle needle stays the same and is never transferred.

Start by transferring the needle on either side of the middle one onto the outer needle and move the empty needle out of work. Knit 2 rows. Transfer the second needle out on each side of the middle one and put empty needle out of work. Do the same for the third and fourth needles knitting two rows after the transfer. Now, when you get to the fourth transfer ,  transfer the stitch and  also bring back into work, one needle on either side of the middle one. Knit 2 rows, bring back the second needles out from the center and knit two rows. Continue until all back in work.  Just thought I would share this simple idea. Have fun, now back to cleaning out. 🙂

Wow, it has almost been a year since I posted anything. I have not been knitting because my machine is in a room that is not bright or large. I was contemplating getting rid of my machines but I think I will move the passap to a larger lighter room and see what transpires.

Anyway, I was looking at a quilting sight and in the picture was a knitted pumpkin and I thought it was cute.  It isn’t the traditional orange one. I decided to just do a small one and see what it would look like. I knew the passap machine had a similar pattern built in.  So I sat down at the passap and knitted a square and gathered it at the top and bottom. Then I took jute and used it to make the veins. I have papier-mache in the house so I made my own stem. Then I hot glued the stem onto the top of the pumpkin. Of course, now that I look at the original, I should have done two rows of jute for the veins and really tightened the tension up. Oh well it was just an experiment.

Here is the picture that I saw.

On the passap I used the pattern 1301 on page 63 and I used technique 183. I only used 60 needles and knitted about 100 rows. I used tension 5/5 but if you want to make one lower the tension so the stitches don’t separate while stuffing it. I think if I had made mine larger it might look similar to this one.

Now, it is not a good idea to stay away from this machine because everything you learn goes out the window. LOL. I wanted to cast on single bed so there would not be a lot of material to gather. I managed to cast on single bed and went into double bed work.  At the end I transferred all the back stitches to the front bed, knitted a row and then transferred every other stitch to the next needle. I knitted a row and did the same and then took the remaining stitches off on a bodkin. When I took the work off the machine I had open back bed stitches where I had cast on(tee hee) and gone from single bed to double bed! I was lucky and just took a needle with a piece of yarn and gathered all of them.

This would be the easiest to do on my Brother machine. I would do a weaving cast on and then start the fairisle design . I would end with one row knitted plain and then transfer stitches and then gather. You can make this pumpkin on any machine. It is just knitting a square or rectangle depending on how large you want the pumpkin.

Of course, you could get creative and knit a five by five rib in a solid color and it would probably look just as cute.

Oh my gosh, can you stand it? Hearing from me twice in one week? Oh my gosh, thank you to everyone that emailed me and welcomed me back. Good to hear from all of you and that you are all still knitting. Unfortunately, I have turned to quilting and my second block of the month arrived yesterday so I will be going off the grid again. lol

Well, I had to hurry and knit another afghan so you could see my favorite clematis vine in bloom. Just kidding. This is another Michael Becker afghan called Onion. It is in dark brown and beige . It is another fantasy fairisle technique 186. Funny thing is that I don’t like this technique. The afghans come out large but are too prone to snagging. Not good with a cat or a dog in the house. I do like how they look on the back .

I have to tell you that I mostly learn from trial and error. If I would go read a lot on the yahoo groups I could probably save myself a lot of time. In Michael Becker’s instructions he tells you to break the Carmen router rule and put one back bed pusher up on the back bed so you don’t drop a stitch. On my afghan mist I had the right end stitch on the front bed and the edge came out nicely. So in making this one I put both end stitches on the back bed and did not like the edge on the right. So I changed it to the end needle on the right side on the front bed and the back bed needle on the end for the left side. I like how it came out. So, you might want to experiment ….or not. I am sure when giving these afghans away, most people would not notice.

I used two strands of 2/24 tension 5/5. When setting up the needles I programmed left 87 and right 88 and it came out centered. I always forget which side to put the extra needle on when there is an odd number of stitches. But then that is why I cast on and then do the set up with gx /gx to check. I should do it before I cast on but that would be too easy. 🙂

Well another year has passed and I would like to say thank you to all of you who follow my blog. As you have noticed, I have not been knitting. There are several reasons. One is that I bought a new sewing machine and I am really loving free motion quilting and doing appliqué work. Secondly, I am also into my sock machine and needle punch. And last, my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s . So the days are filled with more care for Jim than craft time but that is okay. I love being at home…….with him…..and Petey.

I also wanted to tell all of you that I have an article published in the October, November issue of Stitch Magazine . I was contacted in early April of this year about doing the article. It is how to make the felted Christmas ball ornament with the chickadee . I had a broken wrist at the time so my friend hand knitted the pattern I converted for hand knitting. I had to take pictures and do a step by step instruction sheet. The article is three pages and I am quite tickled about it. And I was paid to do it. 🙂

So if I don’t post anything for awhile, I hope that this does not stop any of you from being creative and trying things on your own. It has been my passion for over 30 years and maybe I just need a little time to be creative at something else. And besides, I will have to go back to knitting since I have yarn in every closet, in bins in the garage, under the beds . But, I don’t have it stored in my cars anymore. hahahaha

The picture below has the penny quilted candle mat I made with the same chickadee on it.

Happy New Year to all of you. Stay Happy and Healthy !