For a funny story about shopping for knitting machine items ar Walmart,  scroll down the page. I giggle every time I recall this.

I love machine knitting and use many machines. Most of my patterns will work for any machine that's in the right gauge range. I use plain English with hardly any abbreviations  and terms that make sense for all brands of machine. Most books have associated videos to teach the necessary to accomplish the patterns. 

Jack has formal mechanical training on almost everything except knitting machines. When Kathryn began machine knitting, it was rare in our area and mechanical training was exclusive to dealers. So Jack applied mechanical principles, metallurgy, chemical use and other skills learned from his formal training to work on Kathryn 's machines. He did this for about 25 years before going public as Ask Jack.

We collaborate on educational videos to help knitters. 

You may e-mail us but we don't provide a "contact us " button because that resulted in oceans of spam. If you have questions about a book bought from theanswerlady, use the email address that came with your receipt of purchase. Other questions and discussion about knitting and mechanical issues are now addressed by emailing kdoubrley at  yahoo dot com. Jack is retired but when there is time, we work on getting answers composed. Often, a question gives us a good idea for a video. Be aware that we cannot devote all of our time to email and we want to make each answer well thought out so it can't also be instantaneous. We'll do the best we can. Be careful about the spelling in the yahoo address. Most people relocate the "e" in our last name and so of course the message fails. Return the address to normal format of course. It's stretched out here to avoid spambots. 

The Answer Lady visits Walmart
I was looking for something to keep a hobby knitting machine safe and clean. A friend suggested a gun case so I visited Walmart. lt wasn't my very first visit to the sporting goods department because I do a certain amount of rustic living but I don't shoot so I'd never gone to the gun counter. Here's what happened:

Clerk: may I help you?
Me:I need a gun case
Clerk: what kind of gun do you have?
Me:I don't have a gun.
Clerk: ok. What does your husband hunt with?
Me: he doesn't hunt.
Clerk: ???
Me: I need it for my knitting machine
Clerk: ???? (Looking at me as though I was daft) Um, how big is it?
Me: about this big (I did that time honored and useless pantomime that totally fails to suggest size. Added to that I attempted to sketch out the function of a knitting machine in gestures. For a long moment,I feared he was going to call security. Perhaps I did look just slightly deranged.)
Clerk: how much did you want to spend?
Me: (looking at him as though he was daft) As little as possible
Clerk: sigh...
He finally did suggest an inexpensive plastic case that did turn out to do the job nicely and I've used it ever since.