Designaknit 8

Thought provoking? As a machine knitter I wish the latest computers still had the handy gadgets of a few years ago ie floppy disk drive, serial ports - no such luck, even the CD readers are becoming extinct - such a pain, still time marches on but not always for the good. I have so many floppies with patterns ie Iris Bishop etc and wish I could access them a lot easier. Even the serial ports on computers are becoming extinct

I think the Passap and Duo's patterning systems are superb, I must admit I have never got around to trying them all but every time I need something different its always a pleasant surprise how beautiful textures can be obtained almost completely automatically. I was doing my usual, ie reading an old magazine and marvelling at some of the patterns of the very old model books, so far I have come across a man's jacket (I am sure you would need some dressmaking skills to put it together), actual net curtains - seriously thinking about trying these for my old caravan.

Golden Oldies?

It’s amazing when you really delve into these old books how complex some of the stuff is and even when you are looking at old machine knitting magazines, the patterns are really good - almost tailored and so many of them, when you compare them to the later magazines, where you were lucky if you got say 6 or 7 patterns, some of these old ones were packed with patterns. There was a bad period when every knitting machine magazine seemed to promote the dreaded drop shoulder jerseys. I feel they almost sounded the death knell for knitting machines, some of the patterns were totally hideous.

The very fine stuff still comes from the early days of machine knitting, it was almost as if they had something to prove, ie the home knitting machine could produce very classy stuff - you see everything from tailored skirts to beautiful swagger coats, One problem though in those days, yarn was serious money - it seems to be going back to those days again, I can hardly believe what a 25 gram ball of yarn costs nowadays - way too much.

Passap Form Computer

With respect to the Passap e6000's Form Computer, I was just entering a pattern in via the form, then testing it and writing it down, so I could knit without the stops, then I thought when I got to the sleeve which was quite complex, why don’t I just knit with the Form Computer on, and then I wont have to keep on entering into the computer the extra needles, each time I did say 10 increases, with the Form I do not have to keep on doing this and to boot, it is so much easier ie no thought process required, just follow the instructions. Still that's me; I always have to learn...the hard way.

Time to update - now done at last!

I know now that I must buy an updated computer, this old XP Pro thing is getting beyond the pale now and the ram and hard disk are way too small to actually do stuff in a hurry. Now the search begins for something that is not going to be out of date yesterday. (Besides I want to upgrade my Designaknit Pro 7 to 8 and if that isn’t a good excuse, I don’t know what is! Strange thing is that buying a refurbished computer could be cheaper than buying an upgrade from XP Pro to Windows 10 - and lets face it, these old computers are unable to handle the huge hard disks and software requirements of nowadays. Have to admit that using yet another Windows system is the stuff of nightmares and I know that most of my software is not going to work - breaks my heart to have to chuck it out but such is life.

I know I moan about some of the things in Designaknit but as I am about the laziest so and so in the world - Designaknit is essential to my knitting machines and me and I so love my computers – they make things so easy and communication a doddle.

I now have upgraded my system and I can hardly believe how fast it is in comparison. It just makes life so much easier and hopefully more secure - you can never be too careful online.