Or for me it’s really play, play, play.

I had several days to work with my knitting machine. I made the transition from thin acrylic yarn on cones ( where did I get this anyway? I would never knit with it) to wool in my stash, And I’m off!

Plus another knitter in the machine knitting universe sent me a spare part I needed. So I tried my panda hat.

It’s a pain to knit, by hand or on the machine, because a lot of it has a 3rd color on some of the rows. It’s a little clearer by hand but I have to knit the white backwards every other row.

Next time, I’ll add the white at the end with a duplicate stitch. I’m timing myself now to see if the machine actually saves time because fair isle is a little fiddly. Just like John Henry, and as Tim says, we know how that worked out.

Then on to baby things. The little tike needed a pair of mittens. Done up in no time.

The question is, “Does he need thumbs?” I opted for no.

But he does need leggings. I modified these from an Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern, added short rows so the back is higher than the front to accomodate his diaper bulge, but they still may be low risers.

On the weaving front, I measured 480 threads, 7 yards long, to tie onto the warp I used for beautiful towels. The pattern was complex so I thought I’d save time by tying the new ends onto the old. But..with one misstep, the old warp literally flew off the loom and I have to start from scratch again. ; (

I’m dragging myself up the learning curve on my knitting machine. Plenty of opportunities to learn with all the mistakes I have made.

I did make a hat in a fine gauge yarn that is basically an adult version of the hats worn on newborns in the hospital. I may still have my kids’ old ones. Here’s mine.

I practiced and practiced and wasted lots of yarn. Luckily, I’m known locally as a fiber enthusiast (nut) and receive yarn when people destash. No loss.

My colorwork kept having problems but I finally figured out why. I had jury -rigged a yarn feeder from a bic pen cap because only one of two was included with the machine. This was creating just enough drag to botch up the tension and cause minor disasters. I put a request out to the machine knitting world and a new feeder is in the mail to me.

Once I relegated myself to only one feeder, things came together.

By jove, I think I’ve got it!