#knitting machine

However, theres a problem. I cast on probably more like 10-15 hats total, but had to keep frogging them because it turns out the majority of my yarn is too stiff to use without big problems.

At least, I think thats the issue. Its definitely the yarn and not the machine/electric turner (i removed the turning machine briefly to hand crank on a yarn that I had already determined to be problematic, and it continued being problematic when hand cranked). I thought at first it was the thickness, then I thought it was a combination of thickness and stiffness, but the very last hat I made (the leftmost one) that yellow/white/blue yarn is quite thin but somewhat stiff, and it looks very messy. I was watching the machine and it seems if it doesnt bend enough then it causes the manual knitting equivalent of not removing a worked stitch from the needle (and therefore having 2 live loops right on top of each other)...not sure how to word that error, but thats what's happening. Unfortunately its a lot harder to fix on the machine then on manual knitting because second most recent round of stitches is always hidden.

However, it does work perfectly with yarn that is not stiff. So im very pleased about that. I will just have to use the stiffer yarn for manual knitting or crochet.

I might also end up needing to buy some yarn to keep up with demand for hats (given how quickly we hand them out--we could probably go through a dozen a day if there were that many hats, but id at least like to do 3 a day if i could. Its a lot better than nothing and i am but one guy)...I was really hoping to use solely donated yarn, but im quickly running out of the not-stiff stuff, especially because its 2 layers.

Kind of needs to be 2 layers though, because 1) its not warm otherwise and 2) i would need to do so much more finishing work for a 1 layer hat which I have absolutely no intention of doing.