Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Beyond my Expertise

I have come into possession of a very cool machine.

This is a Brother Electroknit KH-940. It's really fancy. It has a plug, some sort of computer interface and I'm not really sure how to work it. I know it uses fingering weight or smaller yarn and I know how to cast-on and cast-off.

A friend of mine gave me this knitting machine a few months ago and I made a swatch on it, but stopped there. One of the first things I realized, was that it wasn't going to work on the kitchen table. It needed to have a proper setup to work efficiently and correctly. So I put it away and kept thinking about what kind of setup I should make.

I decided to fashion a table out of some wood my husband had in the garage that was leftover from a construction site he had worked on. My husband helped me cut, sand, and drill until I had a thin tabletop. All that we needed to figure out were the legs. While we were thinking about it, I found some wood stain in his stack of paint cans. It definitely started looking a little more like a table after that.

I didn't want the table too high, that way I would be comfortable sitting on a chair in front of it. We went to Home Depot and checked out our options. The table legs are in the moulding section. I found the leg I liked, but they only had three. Then I spotted an incredibly dirty, dusty box on the bottom shelf with a cart in front of it. I got down on my hands and knees, and pulled out a pair of folding table legs. Perfect!

We attached the legs and hauled the whole thing up to my bedroom. It was so tall! We thought about cutting off the bottom of the legs, but I was kind of over it (working on the table) by then. I just sat on my bed and looked at it. Then I scooted to the end of the bed and sat in front of it. It was just the right height! I put the knitting machine on top, clamped it down and cast-on. It was the perfect height, and I could sit comfortably in my room, on my bed and watch my shows.
This is going to be a beaded curtain to cover a window, for the friend who gave me this wonderful knitting machine. I need to make two, but I made all of what you see above, yesterday. I think I can have them finished by the end of the week. It's going to be a very fun distraction...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh my gosh! Now you're making furniture to enable your knitting habit. Really though, that knitting machine is totally cool.

Yarnhog said...

Oh, well done!

I'll bet the friend will love the gift.

edina said...

Oooo - so cool!