Visit Diana's blog:  http://diananatters.blogspot.com  for all kinds of machine knitting tips, patterns, links to instructional videos, photographs... WARNING:  Blog contains inordinate numbers of knitting posts and a strange contagious enthusiasm for knitting, and exposure may lead to AKBD (addictive knitting behavior disorder).

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Knit Leader Course - 2 DVD set to help you master the GPS of Brother machines

Footnotes - Book & DVD - Goodies to knit for happy feet

Wear Your Diamonds - Book & DVD - Amazing Shaped Entrelac

Beginners Course - 2-DVD Set of 35 video machine knitting lessons

Goldilocks Challenge - Fat book of great bulky gift projects

Enchanted Edgings - A "magic" way to make scalloped lace edgings

Beautiful Ribber Scarves book and hi-def DVD

EZ Entrelac booklet and hi-def DVD

Garter Bar Course - Two hi-def DVDs

Making Socks on the Standard Machine - book and DVD

NEW!  Knit Leader Course

This is two high-definition DVDs, about 4 hours of video time.

The Knit Leader is a Brother accessory that has been around forever, is widely available used, doesn't cost too much, and works best on Brother machines, although you could use it for other machines and hand knitting if you wanted to advance it by hand. I have been surprised at how many people have one and don't use it! It's a wonderful shortcut to making garments that fit. You draw your full-sized pattern on the mylar sheet, load the sheet in the Knit Leader, set the stitch and row gauge, and the Knit Leader guides you along the way, sort of a GPS for machine knitting.

This course would transfer well if you have a Toyota Knit Tracer, because that one's very similar to Brother's unit, but it isn't recommended for Silver Reed half-scale Knit Tracers, which are too different. 

Since there's absolutely no plot, unless you think knitting swatches, a sweater and a hat makes for a story, and because I go rather slowly, you'll be glad to skip over to the technique you need to see. These disks have menus so you can skip around. Here's what I show on the course:

Disk One:

• Making a standard gauge swatch
• Making a measurable ribbing swatch
• Making swatches to solve problems, like the planning of the buttonholes, the transition from ribbing to garment, and the best color scheme
• The Knit Leader, its essential supplies, and other helpful things you can purchase easily
• Using the Knit Leader with sewing patterns
• How to choose the correct stitch scale
• How to set the row gauge
• Shaping an armhole with full-fashioned decreases
• Shaping a shoulder with short-rows
• Divide and shape a neck
• Inset pockets
• Join shoulder seam on machine
• Join armhole seam on the machine
• Making a sleeve
• Shaping in Fair Isle and matching up the pattern

Disk Two:

• Knit 1, purl 1 button band
• Good-looking, easy vertical buttonholes
• Short-rowing a curved hemline
• Short-rowed horizontal bust darts
• Making vertical darts, with and without the garter bar
• Knitting a tidy, folded waistband at the top of a skirt or pants
• How to use the Knit Leader with your bulky machine
• Crafty uses for the Knit Leader
• Knitting larger and plus sizes
• Monkey Hat project planning
• Intarsia with Knit Leader
• Monkey Hat kntting details

INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS:  We ship daily using the U.S. Postal Service, and it can take up to 3 weeks for products to arrive in some countries.  We pay postage, but you are responsible for any customs or duties that your country charges.  In the UK, some customers have reported an 8 GBP charge for processing customs in addition to the duty fees.

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Diana's Shaped Entrelac Book

"Wear Your Diamonds"

 

Lots of machine knitters have realized that Entrelac is easy to do on the machine. All you need is a sensible, straightforward method and you're off and running. In fact, Entrelac is habit-forming!

If you love round yoke pullovers, this book is for you. The round yokes are shaped Entrelac, easily made by changing the size of the blocks. They are knitted using a seamless technique and waste yarn. The only triangles you have to do are at the top and bottom of the yoke. For most of the yoke, you only have to deal with a few needles in the center of the machine at a time! And, there is very, very little counting.

The yokes are knitted first, starting with waste yarn, and then the body pieces are knitting working from the yoke down the sleeve or down the body to the hem. There is a special technique to make a beautiful transition from stockinette stitch to Entrelac. It's easy and it looks terrific, even up close, even though the Entrelac diamonds are a radically different gauge from the stockinette sleeves and body.

The book contains both mid-gauge and bulky gauges and sizes for children, women and men. The sizes run from a child's 4 to a man's 48, limited only by the number of needles on a machine. To make it easier to follow a size, the book contains colored size charts. Find your gauge, then find your size, and it's easy to follow your column by looking for the color.
The book also contains shaped Entrelac hats - an easy introduction to the technique. These are great-looking, warm hats with an excellent smooth crown technique to join the Entrelac blocks beautifully at the top of the head. These also come in sizes for children and adults in both mid-gauge and bulky gauges.

Keeping to our commitment to quality products and no skimpy instructions, the set also includes detailed narrative instructions, lots of color photos, and a DVD with detailed, close-up video of how to knit these.
 

Why the DVD? Well, our customers have been very emphatic that DVDs are tremendously helpful for following machine knitting instructions and techniques. DVDs work. We can put a tremendous amount of information on one 2-hour DVD, and we do! This one not only shows how to knit the hat and the yoke, it shows the sweater shaping and ribbing finishing. There is even an extra section about how to knit ribbing successfully - without a ribber - at the END of a knitted piece.


 

 

 

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Beginner Machine Knitting Course - 2 DVD Set                             

by Diana Sullivan

Warning:  These DVDs contain no car crashes or love interest, and no plot whatsoever.  There is absolutely no reason to view them unless you want to master your knitting machine. 

As a matter of fact, this 2-DVD set of video lessons is exactly what a beginning machine knitter needs to become proficient quickly!

These 35 lessons have been filmed very close-up in sharp detail, and Diana works slowly and explains each step.  All the lessons except the standard gauge swatch lesson were filmed on a bulky machine with big needles to make things especially easy-to-see.  They are intended for people who never machine knitted before.   In other words, this is several hours of closeups of needles, yarn and hands.  

Click here to see a sample of the video.

How can you get the most out of this course?  Well, if you're a beginner, work at least one lesson every day - watch it, then knit it.  Each lesson takes only a few minutes to watch and a few minutes to knit.  Your mind continues to process the information and fill in the gaps between knitting sessions if you do a little each day - it's just something about the way we learn.  After a month or so, you'll have all the hand and eye movements mastered, know the jargon, and be well beyond the beginner stage.  In fact, you will probably know more basic knitting techniques than lots of people who have knitted for years but didn't have the opportunity to learn in a systematic way.

The DVDs are also useful for intermediate knitters who need a reference.  That is, if you need a particular technique, you can go to that lesson directly using the menu system on the DVDs and the table of contents on the back of the DVD case.

What's included in the DVDs?

Lessons on Disk One:

Thread the Machine

#1 Open Cast-On 

#2 E-Wrap Cast-On

#3 Diana’s Cast-On

#4 Latch Tool Cast-On

#5 Plain Hem

#6 Mock Rib Hem

#7 Picot Hem

#8 Shortcut Picot Hem

#9 latch Tool Bind-Off

#10 Tapestry Needle Bind-Off

#11 Tapestry Bind-Off #2

#12 Loop-Through-A-Loop Bind-Off

#13 Crocheting to Cast Off

#14 Transfer Tool Chain Edge BO

#15 Holey Bind-Off

#16 Increasing and Decreasing

#17 Short Rowing a Toe

#18 Short Row Shoulder Method #1

#19 Short Row Shoulder Method #2

#20 Short Row a Dart

#21 Carriage Jams, Ripping Out,  and Fixing Dropped Stitches

 

Lessons on Disk Two:

#22 Kitchener Stitch

#23 Mattress Stitch

#24 Shoulder Join Method #1

#25 Shoulder Join Method #2

#26 Idiot Cord

#27 Latched Ribbing

#28 Sew As You Go Seam

#29 Divide & Knit Neck

#30 Gauge Swatch

#31 Turning a Cable

#32 Increase Several Sts at Edge

#33 Decrease Several Sts at Edge

#34 Gather Stitches

#35 Increase Stitches Across Row

Cost:  $25.00 + shipping.  Sales tax applies in Texas.

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These beautiful scalloped lace edgings are perfect to dress up garments, put around blankets and pillows, and run along shawls and stoles.  Most of them have a beaded edge that can be gathered on ribbon or I-cord.

Diana's preprogrammed lace patterns are very unusual, in that they reduce the number of lace carriage passes, automatically increase and decrease for the fancy edges, and some even have rolled edges, beading, and curves.  This is a greatly simplified method of making fancy edges that eliminates the time-consuming, error-prone business of making manual increases and decreases.

The book contains:

1.  Detailed instructions on making Brother lace, and in particular, how to make these special automatic zigzag edges.

2.  Scalloped lace scarf, using a regular Stitch World Pattern - so you can learn to work with traveling edges even without a specially programmed stitch pattern.

3.  Enchanted Forest Scarf, using the special stitch pattern to automatically increase and decrease along the edge.

4.  Lots of beautiful 24-stitch original lace edgings, suitable for either an electronic or 24-stitch punchcard Brother/Knitking machine.  The fancy lace edges that made it into the book are Merlin's Mesh, Happy Ever After, Fair Godmother's Lace, Una's Crown, Unicorn Bridle, Sea Serpent, Journey, Eye of Newt, King's Crown, Magic Spell, Curving Path, Tiara, Magic Fans, Little Princess, Fairy Tale, Far Far Away, Dragon's Breath, Rapunzel's Braid, and Into the Woods.  To see photos of all these edges, click here.

5.  Close-up photo of each edging and a punch or input diagram for each lace.

6.  In the interests of a happy ending, the book includes the fairy tale about the bewitched machine knitter.

The DVD contains:

1.  Detailed instructions for a non-traveling lace edging, for a traveling lace edging, and for a multiple transfer traveling lace edging.

2.  Video showing procedure for Enchanted Forest Scarf using Stitch World #168 and Diana's method to avoid counting and avoid mistakes.

3.  Video showing Enchanted Forest Scarf made the easy way - with Diana's preprogrammed enchanted method.

This book has been revised to contain charts for Brother punch card machines, and the DVD now contains instructions for those machines.  The book and DVD are $25 plus $3 regular shipping to US, $4.90 for US Priority mail, $8.50 to Canada, and $12.75 to other countries.  If you purchase more than one item, shipping is only charged on the first item.

The "Beautiful Ribber Scarves" DVD and book are now available!  These scarves required more written instructions, charts and diagrams than usual, so we went with an 18-page, 8-1/2" x 11" coil bound, full-color book.  On the video, I included all the significant steps for each scarf, even the steps that they have in common.  You can choose the scarf you want from the DVD menu and then follow that without skipping around.

These scarves are a wonderful way to improve your ribber skills and make something beautiful as you learn.  The scarves turned out terrific - you should have heard the gasp when I pulled them out at Knit Natters!  I worked hard to choose the prettiest, most practical, and interesting stitches I could, and then make very clear instructions.  What's more, when you finish knitting and binding off, these projects are done!  Only one or two even benefit from a light steaming - there's no edging, or blocking, or assembly.

  Garter Bar Video Course

by Diana Sullivan

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Finally, master your garter bar!

    18 Lessons on 2 DVDs cover:

• Adjusting and using the stopper
• Using the garter bar as a stitch holder
• Decrease evenly across a row of knitting  (two methods)
• Increase evenly across a row of knitting
• Simple method to calculate spacing for increases or decreases
• Making garter stitch efficiently
• Quaker stitch - unusual and easy to do
• Turning several cables, fast!
• Moving only desired stitches - all other stitches stay securely in place
• Fancy cables using machine's patterning capability                 
• Fancy lace using machine's patterning capability
• Eyelets and hand-manipulated lace
• Gathering a ruffle
• Vertical weaving
• "Parking" stitches to knit later when dividing and knitting a neckline

• Getting all the stitches back into the hooks quickly
• Speed ripping - pull out a whole row in one tug!
• Doubled, mitered V-neck band

Have you got a garter bar that you hardly ever use?  Probably the most useful but underutilized accessory for knitting machines, the garter bar can make your machine knitting experience easier and more enjoyable, and even allow you to do patterns you didn't think were practical by machine.  For instance, the garter bar can make hand-tooling lace fast and practical on a machine with no lace carriage.  Diana shows you how to truly master the garter bar and get more out of your machine!  These eighteen lessons are all newly filmed in 1080p high definition for a wonderful, clear picture, terrific for enhancing your own skills.  Each lesson will make an interesting demonstration for your knit club or students!  Packaged in a slimline two-DVD case, $25 plus shipping, plus sales tax if sold to a Texas resident.   Regular shipping to US is $3, $4.90 for US Priority mail, $8.50 to Canada, and $12.75 to other countries.  If you purchase more than one item, shipping is only charged on the first item.

INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS:  We ship daily using the U.S. Postal Service, and it can take up to 3 weeks for products to arrive in some countries.  We pay postage, but you are responsible for any customs or duties that your country charges.  In the UK, some customers have reported an 8 GBP charge for processing customs in addition to the duty fees.

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How good a sock can be knitted on the flatbed knitting machine? 

You actually can knit a terrific sock on a machine with a ribber!  In fact, the entire foot area, with shaped heel and toe, can be knitted circular with no side seams and an invisible grafted toe seam.  A seam is required in the ribbed cuff.  You can knit the socks using quality hand knitting sock yarn.

Here's how to do it, in all the detail that you need. 

First of all, in the book, there are seven pages of sock knitting tips and techniques, including information on making socks to fit and doing beautiful finishing.

Secondly, there are detailed written instructions for the women's medium size.  You can follow those for your first pair and after that, you'll want to work from the one-page chart showing all the sizes from little kids' to big guys' sizing.

The pattern chart is printed in color on the inside back cover.  Because there are so many sizes given, the columns of the chart are in various colors to make it easy to follow your desired size instructions.

The DVD, filmed in high definition 1080p, shows every step in the process, including how to cast on and knit the ribbed cuff, fold, rehang and weight the cuff for circular (tubular) knitting, the necessary steps to do the short-rowed heel and toe, even the finishing seams including invisible Kitchener stitch for the toe.

There's a bonus on the DVD that you'll want to try, as well - a method for folding and rehanging the cuff that uses a garter bar and is a big time-saver. 

Price: $25 plus shipping (and sales tax if sold to a Texas resident). Regular shipping to US is $3, $4.90 for US Priority mail, $8.50 to Canada, and $12.75 to other countries.  If you purchase more than one item, shipping is only charged on the first item.