I packed a suitcase full of bicycle jerseys and dresses the day before I was supposed to leave for COWS. COWS is Crankers of Wonderful Socks, a convention of sorts for sock knitting machine enthusiasts held in Monticello, Illinois. The day I was supposed to leave, I took some time to stake my tomato plants which had started to sprawl. Then I watered the garden. Then I pulled some weeds. Then I fixed lunch.
Mind you I had still not packed up the Home Profit Master Machine and the Franz and Pope machine into the back of my car, nor had I checked over my bicycle. After COWS I intended to spend a few days around Bloomington, Illinois, then head over to the Cardinal Trail in Indiana to stay overnight in a mansion with some over-60 women cyclists. So, a total tour from Wednesday to the following Friday, away from my husband. I really didn't want to leave him for so long. But I was also looking forward to seeing other knitting friends.
I finally did get everything packed, then I few in a few extra skeins of yarn. Last minute trip anxiety had me packing extra stuff. I also packed my huge poster with the Franz and Pope ad inside its cardboard sleeve. It blocked the rear window and I couldn't see behind me, so I rearranged everything so that I could see. I pulled away from Ohio and got four miles down the road when I realized I had forgotten my wallet with my ATM and credit cards that I had been carrying around in my jeans pocket the day before. So I turned around and went back to get it.
Finally, I was on the road. I took Route 30 West. This highway is also known as the Lincoln Highway, as it was the route Abraham Lincoln supposedly took from Kentucky through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The new interstate roughly parallels the historic highways that are now named 330, 430 and so on. Google maps routed me along some really narrow country roads in western Indiana. I realized how close to the Great Plains I was getting. I thought that northwest Ohio was pretty flat, but Indiana and Illinois are even flatter. The weather was beautiful, the flat horizon defining the border between blue sky and green fields of corn and soybeans. I finally arrived at the hotel in Monticello at about 9:30 pm, and I found my friends Merida and Deb waiting for me to help me set up. They had saved a place for me! They had arrived the day before and started knitting promptly when the event began at noon.
The next morning I ran into my friend Dorinda from Grand Blanc before breakfast. I was taking my bicycle out to ride to Allerton Park before sitting down to knit. Dorinda was there with her friend Sharon who I also knew from my time in Michigan. They introduced me to their friend Jan, who had brought along some flatbed knitting machines. Left to right, Dorinda, Deb, Merida, Jan, Sharon, and me. You can see my poster behind my head.
Many of the attendees were using their new Tru-Knit machines, which Jamie Mayfield and her husband have started to deliver. This product has been in development for a few years. Yesterday Jamie posted in Facebook "I created the tru-knit to be an open cam machine on purpose. An open cam as defined by me is one that you can see the needle butts in action.
Some people like to make a big deal that their machine can go backwards and forwards without raising needles.
(Machines with closed cams do this)
1. That’s with no yarn on the machine (they might forget to mention this part)
2. If there was yarn on the machine and you tried to reverse direction, you would drop about 5 stitches because they would be down inside the cylinder when yarn passed them by! I do not understand why anyone would think this a desirable trait of a csm. But for some reason, this is and has been a selling point for years.
I chose an open cam for several reasons:
1. I hate fishing out a ribber needle when I drop it inside the cylinder between the wall and the cylinder
2. You can not see what’s causing the dead stop. It’s always a needle butt somewhere but with a closed cam, you can’t see it.
3. The wall around the cylinder gets in my way when doing cables and changing needles.
Now, the open cam has features that make it different than other open cam machines that one would never even notice unless they actually use the machine that they manufacture.
The tru—knit is NOT made from castings. I consider this to be a less than desirable material when machining. The parts are made from solid stock or tubing. They are machined on state of the art CNC machines (please see previous posts for pictures of the clean machine shop where parts would NEVER be piled in a shopping cart) in Missouri.
The machine has no unsightly welds. And parts were never flat then bent by hand, curved parts are machined with the proper (accurate) curve.
Aluminum parts are anodized (a surface hardening process) and some of these parts are colored black. The black will not chip off like powder coating or paint does.
It is made from non magnetic stainless and aluminum. There is one steel ring on the inside of the machine. It is there so that the anodizer can’t screw it up. The counter counts with a magnet that has to be glued to the machine since there’s nothing that’s magnetic.
The stainless stem weights are magnetic because they don’t get close to the machine.
All machine brands work differently and you don’t just sit down to a new style of machine and make a sock without previous experience on said machine. One must learn a new operating system before one can make it work. Think of it like this, if you’re an iPhone user and you switch to android, it does the same thing and has the same features but all the buttons are in different spots.
I created this machine with the help of lots of my knitting friends. We sat around making lists of the features we wanted to see in a machine, combining features from antique machines and thinking up new features that we thought would be great if the machine could do that.
I test the machine by making a sample sock that I project to fit the intended recipient. I include a card with the pattern I used. I include the rest of the cone of yarn so that the receiver can make the same sock at the same tension. If it fits, they can use the same rows for the foot. If too big or too small, they can count how many rows to make their sock.
The tru-knit also comes with my customer care. I answer the phone on nights and weekends (just not in the middle of the night). In rare instances where I am not available, I have someone on call to help. I have thousands of references as to my character and my willingness to get someone knitting.
For those who don’t know, I worked in a family business for many years selling sock machines before my mom relieved me of my duties and I took off on my own.
If you have further questions, you are welcome to pick up the phone and call me or go to www(dot)tru-knit(dot)com. My phone number and my email address is listed there.
I will not respond to nasty, hateful , or inaccurate remarks.
You can also see the tru-knit in action for free every Friday on Socktv. If you are a subscriber, you can see it perform all duties and functions. I make mistakes just like everyone else and they are embraced in order to make them a teachable moment. Since that’s what Socktv is about. I also have a tru-knit YouTube channel."
Everyone knitting with a TruKnit was raving about them. My intentions for the weekend were to make one pair of socks on the Franz and Pope and then do some ribbed socks on the Master Machine.
It took me all weekend to make a single pair of socks on the Franz and Pope. I knit them from Aktiv yarn. I struggled with the Franz and Pope, and I struggled with not having good habits from knitting frequently enough. They will look better once I block them.
When I decided on a 3x1 mock rib, I set up the needles for a 1x1 mock rib, and didn't realize it until I had hung a hem and knit four inches of sock. Well, that was a waste of time!
Franz and Pope advertised that a sock could be made in seven minutes. If I didn't put any needles out of the machine to make a mock rib, if I didn't allow any interruptions or loss of focus, and I didn't drop any stitches, I might be able to achieve that.
Durinda and Sharon were smart, they did not work on sock projects. A crank-in is not an environment where you can achieve perfect focus. Nontheless, Shelly, another knitter from Ohio, managed to crank out several pairs plus a pair of mittens!
Despite only making one pair of socks, I had a great time, met some new people, and learned a lot about the Tru-Knit. Can I justify the purchase of a third circular sock machine? Maybe not.
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