Knitting Machines: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Knitting Machine...Part 1

I love my knitting machine, I hate my knitting machine, I realize this every time I go to use it.

The Good:  I can knit a pair of mitts in less than 2 hours, a shawl in about the same amount of time and use beautiful lace stitches.

The Bad:  When getting into rhythm half a dozen stitches fall off and you create a loop at both ends.

The Ugly:  Creating a garment too big or too small or trying to ensure that the scarf made with Alpaca and/or Mohair doesn’t have totally curled edges.

There are three kinds of machines:   1. Fine or Standard has needles 4.5mm apart  2. Mid- Gauge has 6.5mm needles 3. Chunky or Bulky has 9mm needles.  These names refer to the weight of yarn that you can knit with them.

Double Bed Singer Bulky

Single Bed Brother Bulky

There are single bed machines which knit flat pieces and double bed machines also called main bed and ribber which will knit tubular pieces.  There are also manual, punch card and electronic machines. You can get Intarsia carriages for some models and Lace carriages for some.

The most common names under which knitting machines are sold are Passap (no longer in business), Singer, Brother (the easiest to get parts for) Bond, SilverReed (still producing a limited number of models)

People seem to think if you use a knitting machine it’s not as personal as hand knitting.  Knitting with a machine does not mean you are only moving a carriage across a bed over and over again without any thought.  One of the main reasons people stopped using the knitting machine is due to the precision required to actually produce a garment.  There is much hands on work required besides moving the carriage, you must cast on your stitches, track your rows, decrease or increase stitches by hand.  Then there is the planning of the piece, making a swatch, choosing a pattern, the yarn and then working to produce a good looking, well finished piece that fits the recipient. This is just as much of a personal journey as any hand knitting piece I have made.

Machine knitting has a place in the fibre spectrum and I seem to surprise myself with its endless possibilities every time I sit down to use one (I have 4) of my machines!