Vintage Patterns & Gadgets

I love vintage patterns - I don't know exactly where this love stems from - maybe it's in my blood, as my maternal grandma is into collecting all kinds of depression glass, vintage plates, salt & pepper shakers, egg cups and anything to do with the Royal Family. I'm sure that if I had all the time, money, space and unction to live as selfishly as possible (not saying collectors in are selfish, I just think my money should go into more practical things, like food for my 6 children & their home-school supplies, in this stage of my life) I'd amass a collection of ivory carved crochet hooks & knitting needles, gold & mother of pearl inlaid tatting shuttles, ornately carved work-tables, and shelves - row upon rows of shelves - filled to capacity with every kind of yarn and thread imaginable and lined with tomes of antique & vintage needlework books.

Then there would be the gadgets. Those wonderful, and sometimes ridiculously time consuming gadgets which were supposed to make the needle-worker's job easier. Obviously, some were a god-send, such as the knitting rakes & looms, which some previous non-knitters are happily discovering today. Then there were the items that take up more time, use way more fibre and still produced (IMHO) a shoddy product - lap weaving & the K-Tel Knitter come to mind.

One of my favourite gadgets of late is Walter Palange's Knitting Pal. I bought a grey market version of it from a thrift store 7 years ago, but it didn't have the instructions, so it sat in my closet & moved with our family twice before I got the opportunity to use it. I finally sourced a copy of the instructions last year and made a really nice scarf from some novelty yarn in less than 2 hours. I know that would have taken me 2 days to hand knit, so I was really pleased with the results, especially when I considered that I didn't use the knitter to it's full advantage - I only used one yarn colour and therefore only one row at a time. For my next project, I think I will try to make a striped poncho, made up of two rectangular panels, and see how fast the work goes.

The real disadvantage to the Knitting Pal (and any knitting machine, for that matter) is that once you start a project, you pretty much have to take it to the end. If you don't have a separate space to set up the Knitting Pal, you have to worry about pets, children, significant others or guests getting into it and messing it up. And once you have yarn on it, you DON'T want to try to dismantle it from your table and put it aside in a bag, where the yarn will come off the pegs and tangle up. Planning is key to make it enjoyable - I would never make an afghan out of it unless I was going to make smaller panels to join together later. If you have a craft room that is off limits on threat of death though, you could make as large a project as you could stand to make - buy several of these gadgets and line them all up into one massive knitting machine & you're good to go!

More on my adventures with the Knitting Pal to come...