How exercise I honey my knitting auto? Allow me count the ways!

At the stop of 2017, I got a knitting machine, and embarked on a journey of learning and gaining skills. Prior to this I had precisely zero understanding of what a knitting motorcar was, and how it worked. I've learned a lot since and then!

My generous friend Mica, i of the Edinburgh Yarn Festival organizers, and a keen machine knitting enthusiast, taught me all I needed to become me started! She prepare up a loaner car, and spent an evening instructing me on the nuts; how to cast on, hang weights on the edge of the work, how the automobile knits with the wrong (purl side) showing, and how the railroad vehicle moves dorsum and along across the edge of the work, laying the yarn over the needles which so form the stitches 1 past one in rapid succession.

Knitting Machine needle bed
These teeny tiny precipitous needles are what class the knitted fabric! With the push of the carriage across them, a row of 100 or more stitches tin can be knit in an instant! How exciting for a manus-knitter!

That night, I could hardly sleep for all the ideas that were flowing through my listen about projects that I might try with the aid of this powerful tool!

Lush Cardigan by Tin Can Knits
The Lush Cardigan sample that I made was cute, merely I hardly had a adventure to wear it!

I have often felt frustrated that despite beingness a knit designer, my ain wardrobe of knitted sweaters has long been woefully meagre. I have often knit design samples to fit our models in sizes a little smaller (or shorter) than I would article of clothing. And even when the samples fit me, they were destined to go 'on tour' to promote the latest book; travelling back and forth from Canada to the Uk and even further abroad to be shown at shops and knit shows.

The consequence was that I seldom had a knitted sweater of my own to wearable, despite this being my livelihood! Wild eh?!

hybrids : combining hand and machine knitting

Reading Kate Davies's book Yokes, I learned that in Shetland, yoke sweaters often were and still are knit every bit hybrids; with trunk and sleeves made on a knitting automobile, and yokes finished past hand. In fact, her Cockatoo Brae design includes instructions for making a yoke this way, as she made her sample, knitting the yoke on to the torso and sleeves made by Ella Gordon.

I imagined working hybrids, partially motorcar knit and partially manus knit, would be the answer to a few of my questions. I could zoom through the stockinette sections of a image, and then apply my precious fourth dimension and design efforts to the 'meaty' portion of the knit project.

The truth is that I LOVE blueprint. I beloved knitting too… but it'due south really the 'high excitement' parts of the knitting that appeal to me every bit a designer. I'm driven primarily by the desire to make something new, something that's a little fleck intriguing or beautiful; of grade I'm always aiming for a little of both!

This is one of the yoke prototypes I worked every bit a hybrid; working torso and sleeves on the machine, and the yoke past manus.

machine knitting is long term learning process… similar paw knitting

Domestic knitting machines of the sort I have been learning to utilise are 'push button a push button and become' similar sewing machines. They are manually operated; you use elbow grease to slide a carriage back and forth across a 'bed' of many needles, and in this fashion create the rows of knitting.

knitting machine carriage
This is the wagon; the yarn goes through the slot and you move this back and along beyond the bed of needles in social club to create knitted material.

If I idea that the process to finished garments was going to be a quick 1, I presently learned that I was mistaken! I've been 'making friends' with my knitting machine for around 18 months, and I am withal by no ways expert. I say this to make clear that auto knitting is not actually a 'quick and piece of cake' way to do knitting; it also requires a lot of technique and skill (the same every bit hand-knitting does).

After some time on a basic automobile, that merely did stockinette, I upgraded to a car with a punch carte du jour, so I could play with colour, and added a ribber bed, so that I could work ribbing besides.

This sweater I made for my best friend Chantal was another hybrid; I fabricated the torso and sleeves on the auto, then worked the yoke by hand. All the details on how I worked the yoke are here!

the results

I've been able to add sweaters to my wardrobe this yr at a more rapid charge per unit. This means that I can now wear a hand-knit sweater every twenty-four hours of week (fifty-fifty in summer, 'cause this is Scotland!).

colourwork yoke sweaters
These three colourwork yokes are hybrids; I worked the torso and sleeves on the knitting machine, and then finished the yokes by mitt. You lot can observe more details on these projects on our Ravelry notebook.

I have felt costless to cast on a yoke thought, work through the yoke in a few days, and then zoom through the stockinette and have a sweater to wear WHILE I debated whether Alexa and I would develop the knit into a pattern, or let information technology remain a personal wardrobe piece. In the past I simply didn't accept the time-luxury of continuing with knits that weren't likely to exist published.

This was a quick improvised Strange Brew yoke; knit from the top down! On impulse, I cast on this, knit it on a camping trip, and so came home and finished the body and sleeves on the body, seaming them at the sides. The yoke charts are here if you'd similar to use them!

The capabilities that my current machine has are: colourwork knitting, tuck sew, and lace using a punch card. The only one of these I've explored so far is the colourwork knitting side. I discover it useful for swatching lace patterns.

strengths

As described, knitting stockinette portions of seamed garments is very easy. With a ribber bed attached, ribbing is pretty quick also. I honey being able to work in finer yarns than I would spend the fourth dimension hand-knitting. I love being able to prototype speedily, and foresee using this every bit a style to examination different kinds of silhouettes with a little less time-investment.

I was able to examination colour combinations and motifs for the Compass sweaters.

With a punch card, I'm able to swatch colourwork patterns more quickly than I tin by manus, accelerating this aspect of design, and allowing me to examination more options than I might otherwise.

A tool like a knitting machine, of course, is no substitute for experience. The experience you need to hone your intuition for combining colours takes time and practise to build up. Just any technique you lot utilise volition build on these skills; and then I have welcomed my knitting machine into my toolbox.

Another weekend yoke knit! This black and white Annual sweater was an impulse-cast-on … right subsequently a book deadline! Later on working the yoke, I finished body and sleeves on a mid-judge automobile. I seamed them, then worked the colourwork at the cuffs by hand.

merchandise-offs

In that location are many methods for shaping which are elementary when manus-knitting, but much more than hard and impractical within automobile knitting.

While information technology is technically possible to knit tubes in the circular, it'southward much simpler to work apartment pieces and then seam them; which adds manual fourth dimension dorsum into the process.

Decreasing within the eye of a piece (ie. to create vertical darts, or gathers across an entire row) is impractical. Thus decreases are kept to the edges of pieces.

And knit/purl textures, including garter stitch, while possible, tend to be so impractical as to be not worth the carp (unless yous're a dedicated automobile knitter, but I'yard speaking equally a paw-knitter).

More importantly, in terms of the way it FEELS, machine knitting is not the same sport. One of the joys of hand-knitting is taking your work to a coffee store, meeting upward with friends, or sitting out on the embankment on a sunny twenty-four hour period with sunglasses and your needles. Machine knitting, by contrast, is largely solitary. While the results of both mitt and machine knitting are the same knitted fabric, the process is unlike.

Machine knit swatches
Automobile-knit swatches.

automobile knitting take-aways

I dear my knitting car as an aid in prototyping. Pattern work, which is my passion requires a LOT of prototyping. The myth of the beautiful object springing fully-formed from the creators head is simply that, a myth! (Though oftentimes supported by the Instagram accounts knit designers!).

I love making things, and I'm pleased to add together this as another tool to my toolkit, aslope a large assortment of other fun tools similar my laptop, my fancy camera, sewing automobile, spinning wheel, … I love making things, and I also love nice tools!