We are fortunate

 We took two of our grandchildren on vacation with us for 10 days. Since the end of the French "confinement", we'd seen them a couple of times: a picnic in the yard the first weekend of deconfinement, a birthday party in our house and then off we went. From mid-May to mid-July, when we took them, they had been back to school and had spent a couple of weeks with their other grandparents. Their parents had been back to work sporadically and we adults had all gone food shopping and been out for appointments. We wore masks, but not when we were together.

France, on the whole, is not doing too badly with containing Covid. The numbers have been creeping up, though. The RO number announced this weekend was 1.32. Ideally, it should be under 1. Restrictions can become quite serious, again, if it goes over 2. As it is, Paris, suburbs, and other cities with crowed streets have decided masks must be worn outside, too, when in crowded areas or on crowded streets. In Nogent, that's the walk along the Marne, along the main street Grande Rue, and the outdoor areas of the market place. I have an appointment in Paris on Monday and the street, Rue d'Avron, is on the list. I couldn't find the RO number for the US, either as a whole or in parts.

Our vacation was in an area with remarkably little Covid. We stayed at a hotel, the one we always stay at when we visit E and G. L'Hôtel la Belle Rive, which gets shortened to Le Belle Rive (for grammarians, that is the result of an ellipsis between LE hôtel and LA rive). Covid prevention rules were strictly adhered to. The kids, though, under 11, did not have to wear masks indoors. In Najac, all was calm - eerily so. There are hardly any tourists. Wherever we went (and we really didn't go anywhere), we saw that people were putting their masks on before entering any place.

So, how were we, perhaps, slack? We spent our days with E&G. Not a problem. The family from the U.K. arrived with their trailer: 2 under age 11, a teenager, and 2 adults. That brought us up to a group of 11 people, from different areas. We were joined for the last few days by our other daughter coming from Paris. She had stopped to visit friends in Lyon on the way. That means that just our little family created a rather large group of 12 at its peak. In fact, when we had an end-of-vacation family dinner at the hotel, we had a children's table and an adults' table -- not so much because we wanted the peace and quiet of not sitting with the kids, but because a restaurant cannot serve tables of over 10.

We are fortunate that none has shown any symptoms of the illness. In retrospect, perhaps we should have worn masks more when around one another. But we spent the whole time outdoors and not all that close, when you think about it. 

A "New" Knitting Machine

 I had three knitting machines: 

• An LK150, purchased new a few years ago. That's a midgauge and it handles sport weight yarn. All patterning is done by manual manipulation.
• A Knitmaster Empisal Thimmonier 323. It is a standard gauge machine for finer, sock yarn. This is the machine I bought in 1974 or 1975. I know I had it well before my eldest child was born in early 1976 because I knitted many of her baby clothes on it. It is a punchcard machine, meaning patterning is done by means of a 24-hole-wide punch card that determines whether to knit, tuck, slip or insert a second color, depending on the lever's position on the dial. It has a ribber, which is a second bed of needles that connects to the front of the main needle bed and, as its name suggests, it serves to do ribbing and much more.
• A Brother 950. It is also a standard gauge machine. It was produced in the mid-1980s, but I bought it four years ago. It is an electronic machine, meaning patterning is done by means of a program and a 60-stitch-wide mylar sheet. This increases patterning capability. It also has a ribber.

At one point, I also had a Brother 260, a bulky gauge, punchcard machine with a ribber, but within a year I resold it because I determined that I really do not knit really thick yarns that much. In fact, as far as machine knitting goes, I do not really knit very much. I'm still family-oriented and knit pretty much for the family, only. 

The Knitmaster and Brother machines are old and parts are hard to come by, so when I saw an ad for a Knitmaster (no model number) at a recycling center for €80, I thought I should take a look at it and see if it might be good for spare parts. I wrote the shop and found that the recycling center was an hour's drive from E's place in Tarn-et-Garonne. It is closer to Toulouse, straight south of Gaillac (good wine). We were at E's for our vacation, so on a Thursday we drove down to Caraman to the recycling center after I confirmed that the machine was still available. Surprise! It was 50% day! At €40, I was sure I'd buy it. I mean, even recovering the needles was worth that.

We put our masks on and entered the shop, which must have been an old garage or factory. One of the volunteers at the shop went to get the machine. The case was in very good condition and when I opened it up I discovered a Knitmaster Empisal 324 -- a slightly more recent model than what I already had -- in filthy, grimy, but otherwise good condition. Then, the woman said she had to go back to the stock to get the rest! She came back with the ribber. And she went back and came back with another box of accessories. Needless to say, I bought the lot for €40.

This week I cleaned it all. 
Before starting, I ordered a sponge for the sponge bar, officially known as the needle retention bar, and the side racks, which had disintegrated. Total expense for that, including postage, was about €18.

First job was to clean out the disintegrated sponge and replace it with the new, which I did as soon as the new sponge came.
Then, I had to take out the 200 needles of the main bed and put them in a jar with white spirit for a good soaking.

Next, I went to the hardware store and got some petroleum cleaning fluid to soak the carriage. The carriage is the part that rides over the needles, selects the ones to be knitted, or not, and places the yarn in the right place for the needles to catch it. I had to take apart the carriage (See the AnswerLady's husband Jack) because the plastic parts should not soak in the petroleum. That also allowed me to see that all the springs were there and that the parts that are supposed to move moved, even though they were gummed up. I put the soaking pan outside and let the carriage soak overnight. 

In the mean time, I washed the plastic bits. This machine must have been set up behind a sunny window because the plastic is quite discolored, almost orange. I got as much lint out from under the needle bed without dismantling it and then I cleaned the surface of the bed. 

The next morning, I wiped off each needle, checking for rust and making sure the latches moved freely before putting them back; I wiped down the carriage and made sure I got all the lint and collected dirt out before I put it back together. 

I tried it out: 

And this morning, I cleaned the ribber. I just finished putting back all the needles. 
Now, I really must decide to sell one, maybe two, of the standard gauge machines.