Last night, I knitted a small sample on the 28" Authentic Knitting Board using just 22 pegs (and 22 pegs on the opposite side, too). I used some Berroco merino and followed the beginning of the pattern for the Luxurious Alpaca Scarf. What I learned is that I need to tighten the gauge because the knitting was a little bit too loose and the ribbing, which starts after six rows of stockingette, was not very distinct.
This board can be adjusted. Do you see the bolt on the end? There's another one on the other end, too. You may remove the bolt, take out the spacer in between each side, and then put something smaller in between, such as a washer. I'll have to scrounge around in the toolbox tonight for something appropriate. The closer the two sides of the board, the tighter the gauge. So, if you're working with a chunky or bulky yarn, or if you want a very loose knit, you would actually put more space in between the two sides instead of keeping it snug.
I was brainstorming last night and came up with a way to, possibly, turn this two-sided loom into a round loom by adding my own type of spacer (a piece of wood with two metal pegs). That way, I could knit socks or other small-gauge items in the round. We'll see how it goes.
I caved and purchased the 28" small gauge (84 pegs!) Authentic Knitting Board today from Hobby Lobby. However, I waited until Hobby Lobby had a 40% off weekly special and so the $37.00 board was purchased for just about $20. Not a bad deal. Why do I need another loom, you may wonder? Especially, when I already own...
- The Knifty Knitter round loom set (four looms)
- The Knifty Knitter flower loom and spool knitter (two looms)
- The purple Knifty Knitter rectangle loom
- Five 4" Square Looms: Two 4" Weave-its, One 4" Simplex loom, One 4" Hazel Rose Multiloom, One 4" Wonder Weave
- One Weave-it Rug loom
- One Regular Gauge hat loom
- One 24" Homestead Hideaway triangle loom
- Two potholder looms
- One extra fine gauge DecorAccents oval sock loom
- Three small flower looms
Someday, I'll take a picture of them all :) . All 22 of them...
But back to the question--why do I need another loom? In this case, the answer is pretty simple--I don't have a small gauge loom. At all! Plus, I really like double-knit. So, there. That's why I plotted and planned and waited and finally purchased my new knitting board today. I have plans for two Christmas presents to be knitted on this board, so I'd better get knitting.
As far as patterns, there are some free patterns on the Authentic Knitting Board website. I discovered a few more on the Lion Brand pattern site, and there is a fairly new Yahoo group for the knitting board, not to mention the other sites, boards, listservs, and Ravelry groups that include knitting board information along with knitting looms, so I think I'll have more than enough to think about. What I'm most excited about is moving away from super bulky yarn for a few projects.
I just spotted these simple and antique-y dishtowels on the Purl Bee's website, and I wonder if a similar towel could be knitted on a loom. Aren't they lovely? I've knitted a few dishcloths in the past, but I've never been pleased with the large-gauge finished product; however, if I use the garter stitch throughout, I bet they would come out fairly nice, especially with the stripes. I also think these would be perfect as a double-knit project with a rake or knitting board, especially something in the small to fine-gauge size. Something to think about!
In the past, I knitted a hat with the large gauge yellow Knifty Knitter loom, but it turned out too big. The yarn was an acrylic mix that didn't have much stretch, and so the hat was droopy. However, I feel the green loom is a little too small, so I tried the yellow loom again, this time using Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick. I decided to make a very long brim so I could fold it up. I did a K2, P2 brim, but because the yellow loom has an uneven number of pegs, I had to do a K3 on the final three pegs to keep the ribbing even. I knit about 4" (or 20 rows) for a brim, and then switched to the regular e-wrap stitch.
On the Yahoo Knifty Knitter group, I had read about finishing off a hat without doing the typical gather and I wanted to try it, so when I got near the top, I divided the loom into four sections with stitch markers (10 pegs, 10 pegs, 10 pegs, and 11 pegs), and decreased one peg as I knitted back and forth. For example, I knitted Peg 1 through Peg 10. On the way back I decreased one loop, and then knitted Peg 9 through Peg 1. Then I decreased another loop and knitted Peg 2 through Peg 9. When I got down to the final peg, I wrapped it with the working yarn, cut the yarn to about 12", and knitted the peg off, pulling the yarn through the final loop. Decreasing in this manner creates a triangle. I then did the final three sections (on the fourth section, I decreased two pegs on the first row because it has 11 pegs, not 10 like the others.) I turned the hat inside out and stitched the triangles together on the seams using the mattress stitch.
I really like my new hat. It's warm, fits just right, and looks great on a pumpkin.
I've been hankering to make a scarf, and after much thought, I chose a lovely Berroco Merino Pure in bordeaux. I decided to try the whole thing in a garter stitch pattern on the blue Knifty Knitter. After much trial and error, I frogged it and started again, this time on needles. After another try, I frogged it again, wondered why I really needed another scarf, and put everything away.
But today, I decided I really wanted another scarf, so I pulled out my little-used purple rectangle loom, an absoloutely enormous amount of Cascade Eco+ (7811) -- one skein is about 475 yards -- and an old sheet of wrapping patterns. Using just ten pegs (twenty if you count both the top and bottom) and a ribbed pattern, after just an hour or so, I had nearly two feet of my very, very purple scarf finished.
(NOTE: The drawings of the different ways to wrap came from the Yahoo Knifty Knitters Loom group files. It's under General Information and it's called "Various Wraps for a Board Loom." I'm using the Rib Wrap. It's also located here as a download.)
