I have spent the last couple of weekends rehabbing two of my knitting machines. I have been machine knitting along with hand knitting and crocheting since the late 1980’s (yes, I really am that old) and had put my machines away in 2004 when we moved and spent the next few years living in a fifth wheel trailer and travelling, which is a story for another post.
I have four Singer knitting machines, two acquired recently. Three are standard gauge and one is bulky gauge. When we eventually settled here in Calgary and I set up my craft space, I had room for only one machine and chose the standard gauge Singer 560 to leave out permanently. It seemed the best choice as it knits a finer yarn than I would normally choose to hand knit and has a lace carriage and ribber as well.
As I said, I set it up with my craft space but, with the ordinary busyness of life, it languished under a sheet, unused and lonely. I joined a facebook group for machine knitters and found my mojo again this spring.
My very pretty wrap made on a standard gauge machine, Singer SK560
Like any piece of machinery, being idle is not good for a knitting machine. The needle retaining sponge was flat as a pancake and the needles, which I had reused from another machine after straightening them all out which is never a good idea, really needed to be replaced. The cheapskate in me is the one who straightened them out; I had no part in them being bent in the first place. I bit the bullet, after a frustrating and stitch dropping trial at making a wrap that I found posted in a YouTube video, and bought a new sponge strip and needles. The wrap turned out lovely by the way. The stitches were all picked up and spaced correctly, whew!
Machine knit earflap hats!
Anyway, back to the rehab, all of the needles came out and I thoroughly cleaned the bed and rail and installed new needles. We scraped out the old sponge and replaced it with new and the machine now knits beautifully. It is amazing how much lint was trapped in all of the nooks and crannies!
While I was on a roll, I thought about my bulky machine and how much I liked using it in the past for big areas of plain stocking stitch. I pulled it out and cleaned it this last weekend. The needles were all in excellent shape and only needed to be cleaned with a good alcohol soak and a wipe down. My fingers are now grey with old grease. I guess I should have hauled it out sooner! I replaced the sponge on the needle retainer bar and the machine looks like new.
I have a matching ribber for this machine and thought about setting the two up together on another table to use. I pulled out the ribber and, much to my dismay, found it had been broken during one of the moves that we made. Both of the plastic end caps are snapped and the bracket for the pitch leaver is smashed. I have looked on line and cannot find any parts available as these machines were manufactured in the 80’s and 90’s. I really don’t know what I can do to replace the plastic pieces, maybe 3D printing? The ribber is usable but I don’t know for how long. If I took a picture of myself when I found the damage you would have seen me crying.
I am going to start up again with machine knitting and will show you some of my work and post some patterns here as they are developed.
I am also working on a crocheted shawl pattern that I have been designing in my head for a while. It is time to actually make it and develop the pattern for you.