"Using Non-Coned Sock Yarn....."

When Don and I were at last months crank in, we noticed yarn wound onto cardboard tubes, slid onto paint roller cages, which were set into holes drilled in the knitters wooden sock machine stands. Much of the sock yarn available is not on cones, so this, I thought, was a very clever idea.......and just how was I to get a paint roller cage to work on my NZAK stand? Hmmmmmmmmmm, let me think..........

Why go to Dorn Hardware and get lucky enough to ask a clerk who used to be a machinist! With paint roller in hand, and wandering around the store looking at various "things" that "might" do the job, I happened to ask the clerk (Oh how I wish I remembered his name for all of you who need this same set up for your machine!) for advice. He pondered a moment, then took the paint roller from me and I followed him back to the work room where he proceeded to take the handle off the cage. After that, the search was on for the parts that he'd come up with to make this work. And work it does! I came home and attached it to the NZAK stand, making sure it could stay on all the time, allowing plenty of room for the largest coned yarn next to it.

Attaching the wound skein (I used a paper towel cardboard tube and my jumbo winder) sock yarn onto the roller cage.............

The set up ready to knit.

The knitted tube of yarn. Unfortunately, I wasn't watching the "feed" of the yarn very closely and somehow it wound itself around the yarn mast causing a break in the yarn, thus the long knitted tube with some yarn still on the paint roller cardboard tube.

I was more careful with knitting this tube.....it is some commercial yarn that I hand dyed and I didn't want any breaks in it. It was good to see how it knitted up.

I did find in yesterdays knitting of the skeined yarn, that they were a little heavier and tension had to be lowered for them to go through the machine easily. Of course, I have so much more to learn about knitting on a CSM that I have only scratched the surface.