theknittyvritti

she hates to sew

It amazes us that we are from the same gene pool.

High Test is no more interested in hand sewing than she is in hand knitting. She is turning out sweaters much more quickly than she finishes them.

Enter her newest toy, the linker. She's been going on about it for a week, but it has finally arrived.

This may not look like much to you, but that seam was made by the linker. It's faster than hand sewing, and High Test has been chortling--yes--chortling--all weekend. This is an unusual sound for her, believe me.

Here is a close up of the seam. It makes a chain stitch, which High Test tells me is  a permanent stitch that is the stitch that sweater manufacturers use for seaming.

And here is the sweater, almost assembled. While I'm happy for High Test, I'm afraid that my only leverage for getting her to make me pillows was my willingness to sew her sweaters together by hand. We've begun the negotiations for the next batch, and I can tell that I've lost whatever dubious advantage I might once have had.

can she tempt you?

The problem with trying to keep active on a knitting blog is that it's difficult to supply enough content. Sometimes hand knitting just doesn't move along all that quickly. That's when I e-mail High Test to help me out.

Here is a sweater/vest that High Test calls the One Day Wonder. That's because SHE MADE IT IN ONE DAY!!! Now it may not be the most inspired sweater, but I've seen worse. And in a cool color, it would be great. And SHE MADE IT IN ONE DAY!!

Tempting? There's not so much that a hand knitter can make in one day. Sure, there are dishcloths, but I can't think of a single person I know, including myself, who wants a knitted dishcloth. In my circles, giving gifts that refer to housework are the kiss of death to a friendship. I wouldn't dare. And most of the people I know are childless or have grown children, so no need for baby booties and hats, either. No, I don't get in too many one day projects.

On the other hand, with production like this, storage could become a problem. The stash drawer could stay empty if I was churning out a couple of sweaters a week, but where would I put them?

Okay, I feel better.

ski bunny sweater

High Test was very busy while I was away. She's been learning a lot about her knitting machine, and after just a few months, this is what she made! Pretty amazing, eh? I've been reading her posts on Ravelry--(yes, High Test is a chatterbox), and following her progress that way. A lot goes into mastering machine knitting, and I'm really impressed by her ability to work her way through problem after problem to get to the point where she could make a sweater like this. Next, maybe I can get her to make one for me? Hint, hint?

lace for everyone

High Test and I didn't just trade projects this weekend, we also embarked on some independent projects. Two of them involved lace. The funny thing is, we both produced about the same amount of fabric, only hers took about five minutes, and mine took maybe five hours.

This is an example of what a knitting machine can produce in minutes. She's only been using it for a few weeks, so she doesn't have her technique completely down, hence the big hole in the fabric, but obviously, it's only a matter of a few more tries before those holes are a thing of the past.

Here is the beginning of my Alpine Lace Shawl, A Victorian Lace Today project that I have decided to make as my first lace item. As I said, this took about five hours. And that's not counting the first five hours, in which I started my first version of the shawl and then frogged it. the frogging took about the same amount of time as High Test's sample of lace above.

Hand knitters can be kind of snippy about machine knitting. Yes, hand knitting is quieter, and you'll never be able to machine knit on an airplane or in a boring lecture, but you have to admit, if what you want is some lace scarves, before winter ends, that is, you've gotta love a knitting machine, or a machine knitter.   

knitting for gearheads

Some of us like our knitting the old-fashioned way. Lace patterns from the turn of the century, cat at feet, fire warming cat and feet.

My sister, who is a High Testosterone Babe, prefers her knitting machine style. I kind of get it.

In the time it took me to figure out a lace pattern, she turned out a piece of lace the same size as mine, did a week's worth of work, took numerous baths, and whatever else she wanted to do. Not only did she turn out a piece of lace the size of mine in no time flat, but when I left her yesterday afternoon, she was well on her way to finishing her first piece of clothing--a camisole that she will be able to make again in maybe an hour (on the equivalent of size 0 needles). Why hasn't machine knitting taken over the world?

Maybe it has something to do with the difficulty of machine knitting on the subway? Or the glut of knit clothing that would very quickly appear in the homes of knitters everywhere? Or maybe hand knitters are just too attached to the pleasure of the long slow build-up to actually having a finished object of any significance? Whatever it is, she is finding that most of the machine knitting patterns around are for dishcloths.

We prefer our dishcloths from Crate and Barrel. Fortunately, the Babe works in fashion, knows her way around a pattern, and before long, she will be writing her own patterns for anything she can think up, and for anything that's already been thought up by us hand-knitters. Then she'll be blowing us out of the water with her Finished Objects. It's going to be humiliating.......