Follow up on Spring Fling

1.  At Spring Fling, I was surprised to learn from Charlene Shafer about CB-2, an electronics package to replace the Control Box that was original equipment on the Brother KH-970.   I need to learn more about this.   Evidently the original electronics are failing, and of course there is no support from Brother any more.  This new product connects to the PC to allow DAK (Design-A-Knit)  to send the stitch pattern and garment outlines to the knitting machine.  I will ask more questions at the DAK seminar which Charlene is teaching in Monroe at the end of the month.  I don't use the KH-970 all the time, but it is my machine of choice. 
2. I followed up today with Cochenille to get my software sorted out. It was kind of embarrassing to admit that since I purchased this software suite originally so long ago, it came on 3.5" floppy diskettes.  I know I have them somewhere, but since I have moved four times since the original purchase, and have upgraded PC's several times, I have absolutely no idea where the originals are.   Stephanie responded very quickly, and she was very helpful.  After verifying that I had previously purchased the software, she provided links to download the installation package in order for me to migrate the software to my new PC.  I did not follow the directions exactly in the correct order.  I left the HASP key in the USB port while trying to install the driver, so I had to stumble through a couple of reboots.  It was a good thing, because in the middle of the reboots I finally got mad at the annoying virtual keyboard which has been popping up frequently, at reboot and whenever certain applications loaded. I guess Windows assumes I have a tablet PC?  So I finally did some research on how to fix it.  It is amazing how long I will put up with little annoyances.  There was an option turned on in the control panel under Ease of Access that I had not previously noticed.  Turning it off resulted in the virtual keyboard disappearing! Hurray! 

Random design in Stitch Painter. exported as .png pixel to stitch

Now my Garment Designer is installed on my newest PC and working, and includes the Style Sets 1 and 2.  And, Stitch Painter 3 is now working on my PC.  (I have not yet installed the Beading Module)  I tested the theory of creating and exporting a random stitch design created in Stitch Painter as a .png file.  I then opened it up in AYAB and it seemed to work exactly as expected.  I am delirious with happiness, because I did not want to learn to use Gimp or Paint.net  or other new-to-me graphics software that the open source crowd recommended.   I had tried using old version of Microsoft Image Composer and I was NOT happy with the ease-of-use.  But this took approximately 30 seconds to export and import! 

.png file export loaded into AYAB

Original cropped photo

I had also tried IMG2TRK and while it does a great job converting a color photo to grayscale, and is very easy to use, I was wondering how easy it would be to do a fairisle design with a 12-stitch repeat.  (I don't even know where to start with that!) 

IMG2TRK conversion

 

 So I can use all the wonderful features of Stitch painter like automatic repeating and brushes to design my fairisle, tuck, lace or other patterns using automated features of Stitch Painter.  

IMG2TRK output loaded into AYAB, should be ready to knit. 

 

So, perhaps I can use the AYAB hack if my KH-970 breaks in the future?  

Questions to follow up on: 

For Victoria Pawlick or Adrienne Hunter - has anyone engineered the AYAB board for the KH-970? 

For Charlene Shafer - what exactly is happening with the KH-970 when the CB-1 breaks?  How much does the CB-2 cost? Who makes it? Are they basing it on the open source AYAB hack? 

To-do's for next two weeks: 

1. Upgrade GD and SP3 onto laptop (I don't have a cable long enough to reach the KH-910 knitting machine, which is the one I where I installed AYAB,  from my desktop)

2. Hook up and knit a design. 

3. Finish presentation materials for Penguicon on history of knitting technology and AYAB hack

4. Connect Video Camera, laptop, projector

5. Practice! 

When Penguicon is over, I want to think about Sponge Bars.  If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we create a needle presser bar that doesn't rot out in a year? 

MAO Uncensored and Spring Fling

What a week! 

Last week was a pretty intense knitting week.

Monday I attended the monthly meeting of Friends of the Fleece in Allenton, MI (just outside Berville).  I Kitchenered the toes of two pairs of socks that I had previously knitted on my circular sock machine, finishing two more projects toward my Ravelry challenge of completing 25 projects this year.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Mary Anne Oger was the featured demonstrator in Grand Blanc at the home of Julie Boylan, for a seminar entitled MAO Uncensored.   We all took our knitting machines, to hopefully get some personal problem solving with MAO, but since MAO has so many wonderful techniques and beautiful garments to share, we really did not have much time to knit.  That was OK, because I would really rather spend my time learning from the expert than puzzling things out on my own.

I had taken my modified KH-910 to practice setting up and find out what I might be missing for a remote presentation, in order to prepare for my upcoming Penguicon presentation in May.  That is only two weeks away so I have really got to get that finished, and get some practice on pulling in photos using IMG2TRK to prepare for the demo.  I did find out that I was missing some tools and the cable for my laptop, so it was a good exercise. 

On Tuesday night, I did an inventory of my KnitWords magazines, which Mary Anne published from her Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada location. I wanted to see how many I had missed.  It turns out that I am only missing issues #1, #2, and #12.  I probably have issue #12 somewhere, since I never throw anything away, and it seems like that would be in the middle of the year.   I intend to create an eBay search for the other two.  I bought several new patterns on CD, and a book "Knitting on the Edge" from Mary Ann.

Thursday was a travel day.   A friend and I drove the five-hour trip to Peru, Indiana, to attend Spring Fling at the Knit Knack Shop.

Mary Anne  was also demonstrating there, as was Arnetta Kelly, Susan Lazear, Carol Wurst, and Sandee Cherry.  There were 5 hour-long sessions per day.  I attended one with Sandee, one with Arnetta, two with Mary Anne, and the rest with Susan Lazear.  If I had to use one or two words to classify each demonstrator, I would call Mary Anne technical and exacting, Sandee stylish and easy, Susan design-focused, Arnetta intensive, and Carol friendly. 

My friend won door prizes both days, as well as the "table" prize on Friday.  I won the table prize on Saturday, so we score four cones of yarn.  Thanks,  Charlene!  I also picked up some sponge bars for my upcoming Machine Knitting 101 class, a couple of Piecework  magazines and some Eucalan from Carol, a vest pattern from Sandee.  Susan checked my records for Garment Designer and Stitch Painter and verified that I have already purchased the Style Sets.

We returned home late last night and just beat the ice storm that hit most of Southeast Michigan today.  I found that Design-a-Knit 8 had arrived in the mail, so installing that is going to be a task for the upcoming week.

Today I finished unpacking the car and did some sorting out of patterns and magazines to make room for my Spring Fling purchases.  I checked my PCs for the Cochenille Software and found that only my oldest working laptop has the style sets installed.  When I turned on the new laptop, it installed a new Windows 10 update.  I was afraid that Garment Designer might have  broken, because after the Windows update completed, the Hasp key did not work when starting the software.  I rebooted the PC and was relieved to find that whatever the problem had been, it appears to have been fixed.

Project Status - UFOs

For Sale: I have two vintage push-button machines in excellent condition. One is a four-button machine $150 and the other is an 8-button machine $175.  Both are Brother models.  I will be listing on eBay in the near future.   

The UFO count is increasing every day.  I have more machines than ever before and the UFOs are multiplying. These are NOT in order of priority. 


1. The unfinished sweater - variety of chunky yarns including Plymouth Chunky colorspun
2. Pillow covers - with a Dark Green Rayon Chenille.  Color in picture is not representative.  The one on left is plain stockinette, the one on the right is tuck stitch.  My plan is to cover all eight of my couch pillows with similar covers.  Next up is a fairisle version with a cream-colored chenille. 

 

3. Finish TKGA Machine Knitting Level 2 swatches.
4. Round yoke Baby Cardigan from Facebook Midgauge Yoke-neck sweaters KAL.
5. Bags to sell in two weeks at Wolcott Mill
6. AYAB demo and presentation for Penguicon 2018, where I will be demonstrating retrofit of KH910 using the Evil Mad Scientist AYAB hack.  (Highest Priority!!!) 

7. The Surprise sweater using Susannah Lewis's  adaptation for the knitting machine, using painter's tape to avoid the abrasion
8. Sock Knitting on CSM
9. Learn to knit mittens on CSM.
10. Finish handknit projects like neck ruffly scarf

There!  I feel better having made a to-do list!