Legare 400-

 It's here!   "It", is a Legare sock knitting machine my husband purchased for my birthday.   It's a newer model, but I don't really have a date for it, just that it was one of the later models.   It's mostly complete.  It doesn't have the box and is missing a couple of tools, but otherwise, it's functional.   It's heavy!  I knew it was heavy, since it's cast iron, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite so heavy.

Unpacking it was fun.   It was packed into this tiny box, with lots of paper, bubble wrap and tons of packing tape was securing everything.  I know what most of the pieces do and where they go, but one is still unknown.  It's a tiny little key thing.   The manual is in french, and my francais isn't good enough to understand it.  My French  is good enough to say that "My French isn't good enough to understand the manual in French" though.   

Legare - was a company from Quebec, although the Creelman company in Ontario actually made the machines.    It's a closed cam machine, which means it's pretty quiet.   While I'd have liked a new machine, because they are really state of the art and lovely, the cost is just too much right now.   This one works though and I've assembled it, learned to make a tube, hang a hem, make a picot, make a heel, and right now working on the toe.  It's a bit confusing to me, that since the toe is the same as the heel, that I should be having issues with the toe.  I also learned to cast on 3 different ways: with a web, using the cast on basket, and then with a cast on bonnet, which was the first project I made.

The first day I assembled it, and worked on trying to knit a tube.   I managed to get the yarn stand assembled backwards.   I found a video which showed the proper way to assemble it which was nice, since while it did work backwards, it was confusing to me because I couldn't figure out how the heel brake worked.   It's all good now though.

I've been running through all my little partial balls of leftover sock yarn in playing with it.   Then I used some yarn which I had a full 100g of, but it got crunchy after a short while, so it's been sitting, waiting for a project.  It was lovely stuff when I purchased it, but I've no idea why it changed.  It's never happened before, but it's now harsh and icky.  This is what I made the cast on bonnet with.  It's never going to touch a foot, so it doesn't matter that it's a bit harsh.

I took the rest of the crunchy yarn, after I'd made the bonnet and practiced some heels.  I actually made a tube with 7 heels on it.   I was having issues, and then I managed to look at a diagram of the cylinder from another company's manual ( maybe Creelman?) and saw where I should put the heel hooks.  I am currently using just the one V hook which was original to the machine.   Once I figured out where to place it when making the heel, it was a game changer.     It's supposed to be the same for the toe, and since the toe is exactly the same as the heel, I'm not sure why I keep dropping stitches.   

How do I know I'm having problems with the toes?  I found a formula for making socks to size.   I knit a tube to check the tension of this yarn, and then followed a formula to work out how many rows I'd need for the foot.  Everything is good until I get to the toe.   I'm guessing that I just need to figure out where the weights should go for the toe to make it perfect.

Yesterday my V hook fell apart and one of the very sharp hooks fell out of the brass tubing.   Hubby re-crimped it into place and it's working just fine now.

This sock yarn is a bit thicker than most,  It's lovely and soft though.    I will rip this one back and try again tomorrow.  Everyone has told me of the really huge learning curve to making socks.  I've only had my machine for a week, so I'm pretty happy with what I've accomplished so far.  I'm even keeping notes!   I've a book in which I'm writing down my steps/patterns, so I can make a matching second sock, and then duplicate them if I like the yarn and can get more of it.    I'm also keeping a running list of tension settings and stitches per inch/gauge, so that I can also have a starting point.

I've been reading blogs, forums, articles, books etc, and it seems some people use only specific yarn brands, which would definitely make it easier to keep your tension and gauge even.  However, I do enjoy a good sale, so some of the yarn I have is off brand yarn, and sometimes name brand stuff,  that I got at bargain price.   I recently got some yarns to practice with that were $4.99 for 100 g.   That's a very good price for sock yarn.  This will make practice socks and I'll save the good stuff for when I know what I"m doing.   I've gotten all my kids shoe sizes, so I will use their feet to practice getting different sizes.  :)   Now to find a 60 needle cylinder, a buckle and some heel forks.   And.. yarn, lots more sock yarn.