March '08

This month we’ve another mixed bag of letters from here and abroad. If you’ve a favourite suggestion, a story to tell or a point to make then share it with us by e-mail.

PASSAP PEOPLE

Sue Pritchard is one of our Knitting Buddies, with a couple of things to pass on to Passap knitters and she writes:

Dear Anne
How are you now? Much better, I hope. I received my January magazine this morning and have enjoyed reading it through. There are a couple of points, which I’d like to comment on.

Firstly, the query from Anne Croucher regarding Irene Krieger’s dress pattern in the October magazine. I have sent an e-mail to Anne but thought I’d write to you as well. As the stitches are transferred to the back bed they will be on the ‘purl’ side of the knitting and will not be seen, so it does not really matter which way they are transferred. I hope Irene is recovering well after her accident.

The other point relates to Bessie Trueman’s letter about the dropping of stitches on the Duomatic. If one follows what she has written, all the stitches on the front bed and back bed will drop off the machine. The locks have to be separated and the front lock taken across the stitches both ways to release them. The locks are then joined for the next two rows of knitting and the process repeated. In order to pass both locks over the knitting and release stitches from the front bed only the following settings must be used:

Back bed BX 4<- with pushers under all needles, in rest position
Front bed HX with Deco on 4

This can be used with punchcards which have F printed on them. Knit 2 rows with yarn, then 2 rows without. However there is a way of making a release tool from an old U70 transfer lock and I think this may be what Beryl Henderson had in mind in the September magazine. In Issue No. 24 of Passap Machine Knitting Journal, Alice Wilmshurst describes how to make one and writes:

“Remove the white nylon cam from the back of the U70 and screw it on to a piece of heavy gauge Perspex or wood, using the holes already available. It will now be necessary to drill a hole for the handle taken from the U70.”

The size given for the Perspex or wood is 163 mm x 55 mm x 5 mm. The lower edge of the cam must line up with the edge of the Perspex or wood. I have also found my ‘pusher slide’ will push the needles up high enough to put the stitches behind the latches and, by turning it round and running it across the needles, it will return them to working position, empty and ready for the next row of knitting. I hope this information will be helpful for Beryl when knitting release stitch patterns.

Kind regards
Sue Pritchard,
HAVERFORDWEST, Pembrokeshire

EDGE FORWARD

Linda Ireton is one of the Sweatshop Girls, whose patterns are often featured in MKM. Linda has a slightly unusual request and writes:

Dear Anne
Whilst at Knitting Machine LIVE! in Bury last October, several people asked us for the pattern for a crochet edge that I had done around the edges of a top. We obtained e-mail addresses and sent it out to a number of people, but one or two e-mails came back so we must have taken the wrong addresses. Please find enclosed a copy of the crochet and the instructions. If possible could I ask you to include it in MKM for all the people who liked it? We had a wonderful time at the show and thank you for letting us do the Fashion Parade.

Very best wishes
Linda Ireton
Preston, Lancashire

CROCHET EDGE

1st Row Work one row of double crochet.

2nd Row 3ch, miss 1 dc, ** 1 tr, 3 ch, 1 dc in first chain (picot) * yoh, insert hook around tr horizontally, yoh, draw through one loop; rep. from * 3 times more, yoh, draw loop through 8 loops, yoh, draw through remaining 2 loops, miss 2 dc; rep from ** ending 1 tr in last dc.

PANDORA’S BOX

As you know, Dorothy Frandor Russell is an MKM contributor and friend of our Editor Anne and Dorothy flies the flag for many of us when she writes:

Hello Anne
Having read your letter in the February magazine, what a dreadful situation! You’ll be glad to see the back of 2007, I’ll bet. The trouble with today’s technology is that it’s a Pandora’s box. Technology, has advanced so far that it’s beyond most of us. We pay through the nose for everything associated with it and are at the mercy of those entrusted with our security.

I had a message on my PC telling me that it wasn’t protected with virus protection and so on. So I thought that probably my subscription was due, though I’d received no contact to remind me that it needed updating. I e-mailed the company about it and immediately received a reply with just a work reference number. Nothing else, so 24 hours later I sent another e-mail. I received another work reference number, then nothing until 14 days later.

I wrote a blistering e-mail back to say how disgusted I was at the laggardly response to the problem that I have, which is still not resolved. I pointed out that as I have two of their programs, it was evident I was most concerned to have my laptop and PC protected. Since they didn’t feel it that important, I would be purchasing from elsewhere - not that they care anyway.

However, it’s all taking our money and there’s no after sales service these days. Don’t worry about the lack of security re my mailings and so on! I do my work on my laptop, (which has full protection) these days – it’s more comfortable. But I occasionally use my desktop if I want to check out anything on another computer. The other use it gets is by my grown up grandson who uses Linux on it.

It all becomes a bit of a bind for those of more senior years. Having been bred on £.s.d. and imperial measures, then having to embrace decimalisation and the other irritating EC regulations, etc - not to mention the attitude of businesses, if one is at all up tight because they’ve made a mistake and lumbered one with it, then they just cut one off the phone, or tell one to leave the store! Still, your problems have put mine into perspective for me! You’ve no doubt a mound of work to catch up with now so I hope that the New Year will bring a much-improved state of affairs for you. My kindest regards and best wishes for happier times ahead.

Dorothy Frandor Russell