Simple Knitted Dishcloth for Chunky Knitting Machines

Knitted dishcloth on the chunky machine

When I first learned to hand knit, dish cloths were the go-to beginner friendly project and I love the results. But – I absolutely hate hand knitting dishcloths. It’s such a short row to knit that it feels like I spend more time turning the project than actually knitting. So working out a pattern for a knitted dishcloth on the chunky machine was a must do project for me.

Now if you follow me on YouTube, I did a couple of videos on rehabbing my Singer 150 Chunky Knitter. It’s still got a few issues with needles, two of the brand new needles in the center portion of the bed were defective. Which is why my e-wrap cast on is off center. I’ve cast on 25 needles for my dishcoth because I prefer a smaller cloth. This dishcloth can be knit on any machine capable of knitting this weight of yarn. No patterning capability needed.

For the first row, I set my carriage to tuck stitch. For my machine that is done by setting the Russell Levers at the sides of the carriage to position ‘-‘ instead of ‘=’. Set the stitch selector to stockinette. On my machine, tension 9 is a good stitch size. Keep in mind the yarn shrinks in the wash which can make the cloth feel more like a pot holder than a dish cloth if the stitch size is too small. You can see how much the washed dishcloth on the right of the first picture shrunk compared to the just knitted cloth on the left.

pull every other needle to hold positionNext leaving the first 2 needles in working position, I pull every other needle out to ‘hold’.

2 rows of held stitches

Then I knit two rows. Next I change my Russel Levers back to ‘=’ to knit all needles.

Knit one row. Change the Russel Levers back to ‘-‘ to skip held needles.

Pull opposing needles to hold position starting one needle from the edge this time. Knit two more rows using tuck settings. Then one row with Russel Levers set to ‘=’ to knit all needles. That’s all there is to it.

I continue on in the pattern until my row counter is around 70. Then I bind off after the last row of all needles knit.

If You’re Here…

If you found yourself here, most likely it was because of a turtle planter I made using a wire hanging basket, some moss, chicken wire and four clay pots.

By all rights that post should never even have been noticed let alone gone viral. The pictures were low quality and even the video I made showing the process was awful. But I planted it with succulents – Oh My! (heavy sarcasm here and it was actually hens and chicks or sempervivum) and one day a very popular site – Goods Home Design –  shared it on their own site and all of a sudden my crappy little post went viral.

Exciting right?

Well no, not really. Absolutely it was exhilarating to have thousands of views in a single day. Some of those views turned into followers but I was never able to build that into any sort of community. I would get comments asking me where to buy the baskets or the moss, but it never extended to anything else I was doing. And the truth is I don’t like succulents much at all. I’m up in Canada and growing any sort of succulent that looks nice is a lot of work and supplemental lighting.

A Painful Truth

For a while after that stupid turtle went viral, I tried my hardest to ride the wave and turn it into something bigger. I made crappy posts on shittier crafts that nearly always went into the garbage after. Worse it was garbage I didn’t even enjoy making.

I followed other diy bloggers and sometimes watched them share that stupid turtle and give all of the credit to Goods Home Design. I’m pretty fu*king confident Goods Home Design made way more money off of my work than I ever did. Some bloggers even posted their own “turtle” which even if they gave me credit for the idea still left me with a bit of resentment.

Blogging about Blogging?

There is an entire corner of the blogging world where bloggers blog about blogging. I do believe some of them make a living and at least a few of them make a very good living doing so. But if you look really close a lot of it is just scammy bullshit. Pay $10 for this single page PDF that will tell you how to build for success type garbage. As much as I would love to make money at this (I do make a small amount that covers the hosting costs) I’m not here for the scammy shit.

Moving Forward…

So to put this all together, moving forward I won’t be doing scams and nor will I be cobbling together shitty crafts for views and clicks. What I will be doing is the things I enjoy doing and sharing some of those projects here. So no there won’t be any more topiary – probably.

There might be some garden crafts – I really liked the chicken wire allium I made. At least until my current dog destroyed every single one of them along with all of my solar lights. There will be some knitting – both hand and machine, some sewing and whatever other hobbies I decide to pursue. If you’re down for that, I look forward to hearing from you on future posts here and on my YouTube channel.

Meanwhile…

The turtle gets to stay for the people who still find it and enjoy it. As I add new posts, I will probably delete some of the older posts. At least the ones that are crap or making crap.

Buying and Learning how to use a Flatbed Knitting Machine

Back in October, I bought a used Singer Knitting Machine from Facebook Marketplace and there is a reason why a lot of these machines sat unused under beds, in closets and basements. The learning curve is steep!

Singer Knitting MachineUnlike bringing home a ball of yarn and a set of knitting needles, you don’t get to just sit down and start knitting with these machines. It took weeks before I pulled a single finished object off my machine. Weeks! So let me just outline some of the steps I had to accomplish before finally completing a single sock on my flatbed knitting machine.

Knitting Machine Cleaning and Maintenance

When I bought my machine it hadn’t been used in some time. Most of the grease was hardened and dried out, everywhere I touched I got black goo on myself and one the patterning drums in the carriage barely moved. It is one thing to clean and oil a sewing machine, I’ve been using those for years, but this was my first time touching a knitting machine let alone half tearing it apart to get it working. Thankfully there were a couple of videos on YouTube to help me out.

I used this video to guide me through clearing the old grease and oil from the carriage.

And I used this video to clean the rest and to align the ribber with the main bed. It is a very old video, but these machines are pretty old too!

Suitable Yarn

Finding suitable yarn was my next challenge. The machine I bought is a “standard” which means sock yarn is about as thick as it will knit. I live in Canada and I don’t know how it is at Wal-Mart and Michaels in the US, but here there is dismally little to find in finer yarns, and what there is available is usually only available in about 5 colors. Sure there are boutique type knitting stores but I’m way to cheap to try to learn new techniques on expensive yarn. Thankfully I did find some coned yarn in my local Value Village and purchased some more on FB Marketplace.

Lack of Singer Knitting Machine Tutorials

Now I had a woman jump all over me for saying this in a Facebook Machine Knitting group, but most of the how-to videos on YouTube are for Brother knitting machines. The carriage on a Singer knitting machine is different. So at the risk of upsetting anyone who loves their Singer knitting machine, if I were doing it over again I would have looked for a Brother machine and preferably a chunky one so I could still use my Super Saver yarn for learning new techniques or where I want that “throw it in the washing machine” durability.

Learning Techniques

From there I had to learn how to find knitting machine patterns intended for flatbed machines and how to read those patterns. Hand knitting patterns will say cast on 72 stitches, a knitting machine pattern will say cast on needles 36L to 36R. It’s different and I’m old. It took a bit to wrap my head around it.

I had to learn how to cast on, and which cast on method would give me the tidy cast on I was looking for. I had to learn how to transfer stitches from one bed to the other and I had to learn how to undo my mistakes without always needing to completely start over.

There were also details like machine specific setting for certain techniques, short-rowing and well, I finally managed to knit a single sock before the end of 2023. And I share some of the process for knitting the second sock on my YouTube channel.

Until next time!

Cost to Install a Heat Pump

When researching Heat Pumps, there isn’t much real information available on the cost to install a Heat Pump. Nor is there much information on how much it would really cost to run a heat pump. There are multiple sources explaining how heat pumps work and I’ve read dozens of them hoping glean little bits of the information I was looking for. The only way to find out the cost to install a heat pump is to get quotes and get started.

Getting heat pump quotes was just as infuriating as getting quotes for my crawlspace repairs. But I believe the bias was against heat pumps themselves, rather than a slur against female intelligence. Either way two of the three quotes were shit.

But here’s the thing, for the first 10 years living in this house, I was married to a plumber. And yeah, plumbers don’t know heat-pumps, but my ex had drinking buddies who spent a lot of time sitting at my kitchen table shooting the shit and drinking beer. I learned a lot just by listening to the bluster and bullshit. If nothing else, I learned that plenty of tradesmen and HVAC guys are very traditional. They were set in their ways 30 years ago and they haven’t become any more open to new ideas as they’ve hit their 50’s and 60’s.

Heat Pumps Have Evolved.

Heat pumps are not new, they’ve been around in North America for at least as long as those HVAC guys that sat around drinking beer at my kitchen table. And yeah, the first heat pumps kind of sucked. They blew cold air in the winter and struggled to keep up when temperatures dropped below a certain point. Heat pumps have come a long way since then, but a lot of the old guard hasn’t kept up.

The First Quote

Unfortunately I wound up discarding the first quote in a fit of filing but it was entirely inappropriate. First off, while it was a quote for a ductless system, it would have only ever worked as a supplemental system. It called for 3 heads – One in my living room and 1 in each bedroom. The salesman took very few measurements. He didn’t even look in one of the bedrooms he meant to install part of the system in. The rooms in my house flow into one another in somewhat of a U shape and his plan would have left an entire leg of the U with no source of heating or cooling. It is also the hottest leg of the U – the kitchen and small utility area with the hot water tank in the summer and way less hot in the winter. Yet this completely ineffective system could be mine for the super low cost of around $19,000.

The Second Quote

The second quote came from a company that has done nearly all of my HVAC work in the past. One of the more disappointing quotes, but understandable because the guy was the same age as me – old enough to have been around for those early heat pumps that really didn’t work in my climate. The owner (s) are older people, definitely more traditional. Also as a company they had little interest in taking advantage of the Greener Homes program to expand their business and it showed in the quote.

The quote was for a hybrid system with a Natural Gas furnace to back up the heat pump. None of the equipment quoted was eligible for the government grant, which means none of it was eligible for the government loan.

He quoted:

So to understand my problem with this quote, the salesman felt 40,000 BTU was needed to heat my home in the winter, but quoted a Heat Pump only capable of producing 18,000 BTU of heat. So in effect I was buying a traditional gas furnace and a/c system because that is all it would have ever functioned as. But I would be paying top dollar to ‘say’ I had a heat pump. Top dollar to the tune of $16,500 plus HST.

My impression of the salesman was that he was more of an installer than salesman. Working in skilled trades can be hard on the body, those who are able to shift to sales as they get older will. He did a lot more measuring and note taking than the first salesman, but in the end  still a no-go. The quote was for equipment that would have had me still primarily heating with Natural Gas, would have left me ineligible for the grant, and paying interest to finance the purchase and installation.

The Third Quote

The third quote came from a company actively pursuing those heat pump installations. It was also a company that had a form of certification from the brand of heat pump I was interested in. What this tells me is it is a company actively embracing new technology and investing in training their employees. What it got me was a Heat Pump system that actually works as a Heat Pump.

The salesman spent at least 2 hours taking measurements and notes. He went in the crawlspace. Once the initial quote was sent we had more discussion via email. In the end I went with a ductless system.

My Ductless Heat Pump System

  • Mitsubishi Ductless Condenser Multi-Zone 48k Hyper Heat Pump $12749.00. A 42k unit would have met my needs but for some reason is not included in the list of equipment eligible for the Greener Homes Grant.
  • An 18k BTU head for the living room – $2,243.00. This one also covers the dining room and to some extent the kitchen.
  • A 12k BTU head for the Master Bedroom – $2011.00
  • Three 6k heads – $1998.00 each. One for the secondary bedroom, one for my office (also heats utility area and to some extent the kitchen) and one in the bathroom. The one for the bathroom was completely optional, just a choice I made to add. I am happy I made that choice, but the bathroom would have been fine without it too.

Total cost including linesets, branch box and installation was 23,997.00 plus HST.

Comparing Final Costs

So to compare the second quote with the final cost:

Quote 2 Quote 3
COST $16,500.00 $23,997.00
HST $2,145.00 $3,119.61
Subtotal $18,645.00 $27,116.61
Less Grant Amount $0.00 -$5,000.00
10 yr Cost to Finance $5,086.10 $0.00
Final Cost $23,731.10 $22,116.61

 

Getting Rid of the Asshole Light

You might be wondering what exactly “The Asshole Light” could be. Well let me explain.

Christmas tree and oddly placed light fixture and switch.See that light next to the Christmas tree? That is an asshole light. So you’re probably thinking it’s a bit awkward looking with the switch right below it, but why do I call it the asshole light? Well there is some history behind that light.

How the Asshole Light Came to Be

So way back in my 20’s, me and my now Ex-husband installed a gas furnace and no longer needed the wall furnace that had previously heated our house. My now Ex kept yammering on about how a wall sconce would look really cool on that now empty wall. I kept pointing out that it wasn’t centered in the wall, it would look stupid and I didn’t want a ducking wall sconce there.

Except one day I come home from my mother’s, toddler on hip and there is a goddamn outdoor coach light installed on the wall. In my living room. A cheap black plastic coach light!

I raised holy hell over that light but my Ex being the jackass he was, ignored me and the mockery of his friends. I never could get him to remove it but I did at least get him to replace it with a light meant for indoors before he became the ex.

Cue forward a few years…

The husband has become the Ex, I’m still living in the same house. So I’m doing some renovations (new roof, getting rid of the skylight that leaked, etc.). My Dad is helping with the electrical and rather than just stubbornly refusing to do something like my Ex would, my Dad explains stuff.

So my Dad patiently explains to me that I can’t get rid of the asshole light because the power feeding several plugs goes through that light and there isn’t enough wire to get rid of it without losing the plugs or adding an exposed junction box somewhere.

Fine.

I buy yet another light fixture but the light is still off-center in the wall with the switch right below it and it still looks stupid. It is a constant irritant because it’s something my Ex did and it’s right there mocking me every day.

The Light Bulb Moment…

Last summer I learned how to wire plugs and I’ll be honest, went a little mad with this new power. In total I added 5 new plugs in places that had always been lacking. This is why you see so much missing drywall in the pictures I’ve shared in previous posts like here and here. But one place that I really wanted a plug was in my closet.

It might seem odd to want a plug in the closet but my house is less than 1,000 sq ft. In a house that small, a 4′ x 8′ closet is a significant space and not having a plug in there limits what I can use the space for. But even when it’s just a closet, having a plug means various battery chargers have a spot to live in.

What does a closet plug have to do with the asshole light?

Well you see, the closet is on the other side of the wall the asshole light lived on. So what if I kill two birds with one stone?

What if I take the wiring from the asshole light and turn it into a plug in the closet! So I did.

And now instead of having a really stupid looking wall light, I have this and new plug number 6 in my closet. It only took 25 years or so, but the asshole light is finally just a memory.