Newsletter: Prez Sez

And just like that February came and went, and winter hit the Midwest. Even here, in what I like to refer to the banana belt of SD, we got a good amount of snow and we “enjoyed” subzero temps for about a week.

After the frenzy of gift cranking, my machines have been sitting idle. I have a few new to me machines – which always means taking apart, cleaning, reassembling and getting to know time. Not much other than gauge tubes are getting done at the moment.

One of the “new” machines is a Harley Kaye Marsland. I call him Brutus. This is not a portable machine. It had to be bolted directly onto the table. Like all Harleys it has a clutch… It also has what looks like a secondary crankwheel – this is to attach a belt and the clutch is there to disengage that drive. The machine is large – although the cylinder is the standard 4 1/2 inch size. Everything else on the machine is oversized. It is a semiautomatic machine, meaning you can lift all of the back needles at once by way of two lifters. The machine then picks needles to lift on each side as you knit back and forth. It does not lower them however, and because as long as you are going back and forth it will always lift a needle on the carrier side, the only heel method that is logical is the 1 up 2 down shuffle. Which is fine. I am sure if I put my mind to it, I could work out other heels as well. It is a good knitter with a surprising range of stitch sizes and will easily knit very fine wools to DK. Stitch size is adjusted easily and rather than moving cams up and down, the cylinder is lifted and lowered – much how the Tuttle functions. My machine does not have its original ribber – so if you hear of one, please let me know. The HKM has a conical ribber like the Tuttle as well. Mine was retrofitted with what looks to be an Autoknitter tappet and dial. It works fine. The machine was made to knit argyle – hence the semiautomatic function and its impressive yarn mast – featuring 6 tensioned (similar to flatbed knitting machines) yarn mast toppers. Definitely a production machine.

When I am not working or playing with machines, I spin. At the moment, I am spinning some Gotland that I will dye to knit the Oeland Shawl. Oeland is a fairisle shawl that is knit in the round (my favorite way to knit) with a steek to cut it open and then finish.