What I was supposed to do in the holidays, or making friends with my knitting machine

With the long summer holidays and having made the decision to, again, not do any markets in February, I decided that I would try and develop a new product more suited to the warmer months. Upcycling t-shirts by inserting beautiful machine knitting is still thought, by me to be a good idea......

It's an idea that is still in the general swirl of my thoughts, but it hasn't quite made it to reality. I do have a beautiful op-shop t-shirt to work on, and I have been working on my knitting machine, but not on the same project.

I have created this.

A combination of my favourite machine knitting stitch, the tuck stitch, and long floats has worked out beautifully. I haven't pressed all the kinks out of the floats, I do like them.

I added 9 pearl buttons to each end, just to give it a bit of weight. (it weighed just 50gm with half the buttons on!) These were obtained from the lovely Anne in a swap, perspex for pearl buttons...I think I am very lucky. They finished it off just right, giving just enough of that weight to be able to tie the ends if wanted.

I'm about to start on the next one, having done a sample in what is likely to be the last of some gorgeous red mercerised cotton, that I've used in lots of projects. It's a stunning shiny red and I hope the pattern will work out right for this one. Yes, each shawl will have a different pattern. My knitting machine and I are friends, so I'm going to try all sorts of different patterns.....