the ANGRY KNITTER: Sunday Morning Blues and Greens

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Sunday Morning Blues and Greens
Monday, February 14, 2005

How time flies. I went to the first of my three machine knitting classes with out even telling you about them. I'm very sorry. Must be the weather...

I read about the class in the Winter 04/05 issue of Vogue Knitting. Karen Allen, who you might remember as Marion from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", is a lifelong hand knitter who took machine knitting at FIT and now she's got her knitwear own company up in the Berkshires. I'd never been interested in machine knitting, but the article made it sounds interesting and the garments Karen makes are very interesting colors and patterns. I rarely knit with color. I'm kind of scared, I guess. And I hate weaving in ends. So, I stick with complicated textures and cables. It's less bother, at least in my mind, and when I'm done everyone thinks I'm a freakin' genius.

Anyway, I read this article and thought, "Hmm, that's cool. I think I'll take that class." And since I'm fortunate enough to live in New York City, I did. It's one of the cool things about living here. I barely leave my house and go to Manhattan only once a week, but if I read about some obscure thing happening there, I can go. And it hasn't been that weird going back to FIT. The class is Sunday 9:30 - 4:30, so the dorm kids are passed out with hangovers. I don't feel that old, just a little old.

After the first class, which I left after having knit two sleeves, I planned on taking every machine knitting class they offered right away. I went home devising where I'd clamp the knitting machine I planned on buying from the instructor. As the week wore on, my enthusiasm waned. On Saturday I griped about having to get up at the crack of dawn the next day. I decided that I could wait until next semester to take the following course. Maybe I didn't like machine knitting after all. My attitude was the same for the first couple of hours of the class. Then I got into it again. We went on a field trip down the hall to see the industrial knitting machines and the three cut Brother knitting machine, which is the one I'm interested in getting. The machines we're learning on are seven cut Brothers, which knit fine gauge yarn. The three cut is for worsted/chunky yarn and it gives a more hand knit look. The instructor had told us we could get a good starter seven cut machine for $400, but the three cut is $600. After I found that out, I was less interested in the class. It's hard to maintain interest in something when you can't go home and do it after class.

So, I'm still unsure what kind if machine, if any, I will buy. But I'm going to take the next class, regardless of my Sunday morning angst. At least it gets me out of the house.

posted at 12:43 PM . link .

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