Hi all, I am taking 5 minutes away from my new toy! I have after 14 years of spinning and handknitting given in to the lure of a knitting machine. It is a Passap duomatic 80 which I got for a song. I have read the manual through and have just finished the front, back and one sleeve in the space of one morning and 1 evening. That to me is a very good reason for knitting by machine. It has been a good learning exercise in discipline, I have always made up my own patterns and very often by holding the needles up against me in front of the mirror have decided on length of the various sections. Because the knitting on this machine falls between the 2 beds I can't do that so I have to work it all out first and make sure I am accurate with the gauge. I have just made this first sweater very plain and as it is with much finer wool than I would normally knit with and as it is oiled I can't wait to see how it will react to washing, I can imagine all sorts of problems, who knows it may only fit a fat drain pipe. The pattern possibilities appear endless and I know it will be a real bonus in trying out new shapes without the trauma of having spent hours knitting samples by hand only to find that major adjustments need to be made. I will still hand knit I am sure, as Dee Dee says the machine is far too large to carry to the doctors, though I am sure I could have half a sweater knitted in the time it takes to be seen at our local surgery. I told the receptionist that if ever I got sick I wanted it to be serious as it was the only way I could hope to get an appointment in the same week. She gave a wry smile. Isn't it typical, when I get a new toy to play with the work suddenly starts flooding in, I have to work all day every day for the next 3 weeks almost, I need the cash, but why now? On another subject, I went out for dinner at my local Chinese Restaurant last night on their New Years celebrations. I discovered that I was born in the year of the sheep, isn't that appropriate? I read what it said about we sheep people and was stunned at how accurate it was. If anyone is interested to hear what years are sheep years and what it says about us email private. Regards Sue In bright and sunny (for a change) Maidenhead To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
