Ways & Means

Dear Anne

I’m one of Joan’s old hands and love searching through the magazine for small nuggets of information. Time served knitters can forget that not everyone knows these little tips. They not only help beginners, but also jolt the memory bank of us ‘oldies’. One tested and tried thing I do may help other readers, so here it is. I find casting off behind the sink pegs difficult due to arthritis in my neck and shoulders. So I either do one row at Tension 10, waste off, then crochet the stitches with a 2mm crochet hook or I work as follows. I transfer half of one stitch, usually the left hand side, to the next needle and knit through, leaving the stitches on the needles. This gives a nice stretchy cast off, too. When knitting through, it’s also easy to do that as loose or tight as required. Thanks for a very good magazine each month and keep the ‘golden oldies’ coming for ‘oldies’ like me! Kind wishes, Elaine

j

Kitchen cabinet

Dear Anne

You mentioning ‘golden oldies’ last month brought a smile to my face. Back in the day, didn’t we all show off when we shared something new! I picked up the tip to use one of the plastic boxes they use for packing peaches. All the odds and ends go into it, it sits at the back of the machine and it’s easy to spot something at the bottom through the clear sides. You need, though, to stop it walking off the table as you knit and dumping the contents on the floor. As long as you don’t have an electronic machine, pop a magnet inside the plastic box and place it against the machine. It will stay put until you want to remove it. I think it was mentioned at one of the old To & Fro ‘At Home’ days, when I also learned to keep my peg bag close to the machine. Sprung clothes pegs have a multitude of uses, especially if you’re knitting intarsia or stripes with cut-off ends. The short ends dangling down have a habit of catching in the moving parts under the carriage and causing one almighty jam. Weight the end with a clothes peg and it remains safely out of the way instead of you grinding to a halt halfway across a row! Happy memories, Margaret

Centre point

Centre point

Dear Anne I was thinking about the words ‘golden oldies’ which you mentioned last month. Do you remember the tip for pulling out the nylon cord we add to get rid of wavy ribs? If you knit a circular row and pull it out from the centre, not one of the two ends, it comes out much easier and I’ve never had a problem. Best wishes, Jackie

Snap it up

Snap it up

Dear Anne As we’re now remembering the old tricks in the book, don’t forget that sew-on plastic press studs in most sewing boxes make an ideal substitute if you can’t find the proper snaps for a punchcard. Best wishes, Joan

Chase a rainbow

Dear Anne

As I’m fortunate enough to own a freestanding linker, I do a lot of stitch-to-stitch joining when making up garments. I’ve always found it easiest to work using a nylon cord for the first row of waste knitting, so I bought two of the multi-coloured packs to make sure I don’t run out. Last May, our daughter presented us with twin grandsons, so I’d lots of little garments to make. I found that I was constantly tripping over the ends of the ravel cords. So I cut both yellow cords into quarters, the pink cords into thirds and the green cords into half, leaving the blue and white cords full length. This gives me lots of versatility and I can easily identify the length by the colour. Yours sincerely, Judith

Card trick

Dear Anne Since my husband died I’ve had to cut back, so I’ve been saving birthday and Christmas cards to make my own gift tags. I know some punches will cut straight through, but others need a small hole pierced with a pin before they’ll do the job. I tie them on with a bit of fancy Lurex yarn. I keep the punch sharp by simply punching holes in fine sandpaper. As Joan Lafferty would say: “The oldies are always the best”! I’ve many fond memories of her and love her articles in the magazine. Sincerely, Joyce in Horsham, not far from where Joan lived

Drop shot

Dear Anne

The other day I’d just come to the very last row of a fairly complicated Fair Isle when the lot dropped off the machine! As we all know, hooking it all back pulls on the stitches so I held the knitting carefully. I threaded a bodkin (wool needle) with nylon cord and carefully eased it through each stitch, before hooking it all back on the machine. It worked really well, as the nylon cord slid smoothly through the stitches without pulling. It’s definitely an idea to put in the memory bank. Best wishes, Claudia in Epson

Shut eye

Hi Anne

Shut your eyes and ears please, but this might help another reader. Having just finished carefully punching out a card recently, it then fell on the floor. When I moved to pick it up, it got caught under the metal leg of my chair and was badly creased. However, I saved it with my iron. I carefully used a light and even pressure, with the iron on a cool setting and a piece of paper over the punchcard. It was only the long time I spent punching it that gave me the courage to have a go and it’s been fine in the machine. Keep up the good work. Best wishes, Sue in Maidstone

Weight control

Dear Anne

I use quite a lot of fine yarns and always had difficulty winding ‘half of a large cone’ equally. Now I pop the large cone onto my kitchen scales, halve the number of grams and then wind off until the large cone weighs the smaller number. This way I finish up with two equal cones, give or take an odd bit. It’s also really useful for the lovely patterns we have from Alison Dupernex, when she says ‘about 100g’. At this time in my life I feel really daft, as my scales were always in the kitchen for weighing food, not in my knitting room. To be honest, I bought them ages ago when I was going to slimming club each week and never got the hang of using them properly. Now they’re in my knitting room. I just pop on an empty cone then ‘zero’ the scales to have a really good idea how much of an oddment of yarn is on a cone. Yours sincerely, Margaret (who never did make it to slimmer of the week!)

Slip sliding

Dear Anne

I’ve recently completed a shadow pleated skirt on my Knitmaster 700 and I’d like to pass on a tip which might interest other readers. When I’m putting the pleating back onto the needles, the stitches tend to slide off as I work my way along the needlebed. If I put a loose elastic band around the completed side and move it, say, every five or six needles, the stitches don’t slide off and there’s obviously no damage to the needles. It really helps and I’m sure I can use the technique for other things, too. Best wishes, Chris in Staffordshire