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My Spool:
Once I'd given these knitting tools a try, the engineer in medemanded that I attempt to push the technology. The firststep was to make my own knitting spool. Beinguntalented in woodworking, I looked around forsomething ready made for the spool's body. Ifound it in the local hardware store: areplacement leg to a table. It only cost $3.00.The central section was the perfect shape, so I cut off thetop and bottom, drilled a 3/4-inch diameter hole down it'scenter, routed and sanded the opening so the yarn wouldflow down through the spool easily, gave it a quick coat of glossy stain, and hammered sixteen finishing nails into thetop. Here is the result:It may not be beautiful, but it'scomfortable and works.This close up of the business end shows the first differencebetween this design and all the others I've seen: many morenails. The reason is that I wanted a spool that would enableme to knit several different numbers of runs (One pegcreates one
run
. The standard Nancy has four pegs so itknits a tube with four runs. More pegs means more runsresulting in a larger diameter tube.) The large numbers of pegs also allows me to experiment with increasing anddecreasing the numbers of runs in a project.
 
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To start a typical 4-peg braid, yarn isfed downthe centralhole andwrappedaroundtwo nailsthat willact as asingle peg.Next, the yarn is continued around three other pairs of nails,leaving an unused pair between them, to create a four-sidedfigure eight.If the knitting spool was aconventional design with fourpegs, the yarn would be wrappedaround all of them to create thesame pattern.The knitting stroke is completedby holding the yarn against the nails so that it lays aboveone of the loops already on the nails. A knitting needle grabsthe outside of the bottom loop--and carries it up and over theyarn above it.
 
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A tug on the strand of yarn trailing out of the bottom of thespool draws the yarn down and setsthe stitch.The yarn that was positioned abovethe first loop now becomes thelower loop for the next time theknitter comes around to thisposition. The yarn is held above the next loop and theprocess repeated. In the case of normal knitting spools,there are only four pegs which simplify the process. In thecase of my knitter, I have to be careful to keep the yarnoutside of the pairs of nails I'm using and inside the pairsthat I'm not using.The first three turns of the spool are the hardest. After that,enough of the braid has been knitted that it helps hold theloops in place.I used finishing nails for this spool because it seemed theirsmall smooth heads would make it easier to carry the lowerloops up and over the yarn. They do, but they also make iteasier for the yarn to be pushed off in the process. Flat headnails would hold the yarn better, but make the carry-overmore difficult. If you plan to make your own spool,experiment with both and see which is easier for you touse.
 
Different Stitches:
My spool is trickier to use that a straight forward four-pegspool, but it's adaptability more than makes up for theinconvenience of having to keep track of which nails to useand which to skip. Here's a pictorial survey of the differentstitches it can do:
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