I’ve had the post-Thanksgiving blues; didn’t make anything since before then either. I’ve gotten into machine* knitting again but had managed to lose a certain spacing tool. It’s used at the beginning of most cast-on methods, and for decorative work.
I had knocked the tool out of my hand and could not find it (bland colored tool, bland colored room, bland colored carpet). I’d searched all the obvious places for naught.
Well, tonight I wanted to knit, so of course I fired up the GF to make a replacement. Being the stingy miserly resourceful person that I am, I chose a wood that I had a lot of, and would be just the right size…slats** from a wooden blind.
I drew this up in Illustrator (ancient version on an ancient PowerBook laptop), sneaker-netted over to my iMac (and if you don’t understand what I just wrote, you are too dang young! 
), and pulled it up on screen. Placed the slat by camera, placed the design in the GFUI, and cut. Tested with a bit of tape and found all the cut lines were good.
knit tool eeo spacing.pdf (415.7 KB)
Then I took it to my knitting machine, sat down, and it dawned on me…I didn’t look in the most improbable of places. There was a bland colored box in a wire cube that had narrow clearance for access and the tool would have to be hidden from visual search…I put my hand in, and there was the tool.
In the photo, the original tool lies to the left of the replacement. (A cardboard mockup of a novel patterning tool is above-left.) I didn’t know it when I chose the material, but it gave me a tool that can be used in a different mode of patterning. You can see it’s a bit shorter than the original, which makes it perfect for its secondary use!
Of course, the original never would have popped out of the wormhole had I not made the replacement. Sort of like socks, right? Though I don’t think you can laser a replacement sock to make the other one appear.
- LK-150, mid-gauge (6.5mm), 150 needles
** Please do not ask for details or settings, thanks!
I have one of those. I made my wife a knitted dress and haven’t used it since.
