To many of us, knitting a sweater by ' hand means a long commitment to a single project or considerable skill with knitting needles. With a knitting machine, however, you can knit an entire row of stitches as quickly as you can knit a single stitch by hand. Although there is a discernible difference between handknitting and machine knitting, by combining the best of both methods, you can produce an assortment of sweaters in the time it might take you to knit one or two by hand.
The Bond Knitting Frame and the Sing- er/Studio Hobby Knitter are simple, inexpensive ($150-$250) versions of conventional knitting machines. All but the most essential parts have been eliminated, so you fan quickly learn to use them. Once you know the basic operations (the manuals that come with the machines are quite helpful), it's not unreasonable to expect to knit a simple sweater in just three hours. And with practice, and patience, as you develop your skill, you can begin to explore the machine's potential. In this article, I'll explain how the machines work, and I'll discuss how to shape and construct a sweater.
Handknitting skill is not a prerequisite for machine knitting, but it helps to be familiar with garment shapes and finishing details. And you may find you actually enjoy thc finishing. A sweater works up so quickly that you'll still be carrying the excitement of the initial planning when you're ready to assemble it.
With a knitting machine, your physical involvement is very different from hand-knitting, but it is no less creative or satisfying, and it's certainly faster. Many stitch patterns that require considerable hand skill arc reduced to simple transfer maneuvers on the machine. Even on the most sophisticated machines, increasing, decreasing, and turning cables are done by hand with eyelet tools (one-, two-, or three-pronged devices that let you remove and replace stitches quickly).
It is more practical to do some stitches by hand than by machine; garter and seed stitches head the list. But you can quickly work the large or plain sections of a garment on the machine, then transfer the open stitches to handknitting needles for elaborate color or texture accents. If you know when to use 2 needles and when to use 120, you'll be able to knit efficiently and so have time to explore additional ways of knitting.
How the machine works—In handknitting, two needles carry all the stitches, with the size of the needles determining the stitch size. Large needles produce bigger stitches than small needles, since more yarn passes around a larger needle. On a knitting machine, every stitch in the row has its own latch-hook needle. The size of the stitch is determined not by the size of the needle, but by the distance the needle moves. The number of needles, their size, and their spacing determine the range of yarns each machine can handle.
The Bond and the Hobby are both bulky- gauge machines with a 120-needle capacity. (The Bond comes with 100 needles, and you can easily add 20 more.) The needles are twice the size of those on a standard-gauge machine, there are fewer of them, and they are more widely spaced. Although the bulky-gauge machines can handle an occasional sport-weight yarn, they were developed for worsteds and larger yarns; the standard-gauge machines were designed for fingering and sport- weight yarns.
Knitting machines have two major parts: the bed and the carriage. The bed, which clamps to a table, holds the needles in a flat, slotted surface about 40 in. long. Along the back edge of the bed is a raised ridge on which the carriage slides. When the needles are pushed completely back (out of work) or pulled all the way forward (holding position), the carriage passes across without moving them. There are two working positions in between. As the carriage is pushed across the bed, it moves the working needles back and forth in their slots and deposits new yarn; every pass of the carriage knits one complete row of stitches.
The needles look like latch hooks with a bump, or butt, near the end. A triangular pathway on the carriage's underside gUides the butts of the needles through three phases of stitch formation. First, as each needle is moved forward in its slot (positions 1, 2, 3 in the drawing at right), the stitch in the hook pushes the latch open and slides behind the latch. Next, as the center of the carriage passes over the open hook, it deposits new yarn (position 4). The carriage then guides the needle backward in its slot, and the old stitch flicks the needle closed, capturing the new yarn. Weights attached to the fabric (either a long weighted hem or three or four claw weights) help pull the old stitch over and off the closed needle, forming the new stitch.
The individual stitch is formed in much the same way that crochet stitches are made. The carriage spans about 20 needles, so there are always needles following each other in a continuous wave through the stages of stitch formation. By the time the carriage crosses the bed, each needle has knitted a new stitch. The finished stitches hang with the purl side out.
Stitch size is determined in the third phase. The farther back the needle is pulled, the more yarn it takes up to form the new stitch. On the Bond, stitch size is regulated with a set of four interchangeable plastic key plates that fit into the carriage. The triangular pathway on the underside of each plate is a slightly different length. The Hobby has a numbered dial with 30 settings that shift permanent cams on the underside of the carriage to alter the drawing-back of the needle. Because the carriage must knit right to left as well as left to right, both sides of the triangular pathway are identical.
This principle of stitch formation is com-mon to all knitting machines. More sophisticated machines have carriages with additional cams and pathways. Simply pushing the carriage back and forth will produce stockinette stitch on the Bond or the Hobby. And with a little bit of human intervention, these machines can also do slip and tuck stitches, Fair Isle patterning, cables, lace, and even popcorn textures.
Making the gauge swatch—If you've read your manual and practiced the basics, you might want to try the cables-and-lace sweater or the vertical-lace variation (see p. 38). Working through sample swatches will help you decide which one to make.
Since gauge is the basis of all handknitting and machine knitting, the first step in any project is to knit a gauge swatch to ensure that your stitch size is right. If you don't know how many stitches you're getting to the inch, you won't know how many inches worth of sweater you're casting on. And since you can't measure length accurately while the knitting is on the machine, you must know how many rows you're getting to the inch. The swatch should be large enough for accurate mea-suring—about 6 in. sq.—and all measurements should be taken through the center.
Your knitting will be under strain on the machine, so before you measure a swatch, remove it and let the stitches settle into place for several hours. If you plan to wash the finished sweater, then wash the swatch. Sample each new technique before you embark on an entire sweater; if you're going to knit the sweater in a pattern stitch, use this same stitch for the gauge swatch. Stretching a swatch to fit will give you a garment you'll have to stretch to fit into. You can knit up swatches so fast that it makes sense to sample several stitch sizes, and you can easily ravel and reuse the yarn. Pull up on the loose yarn and hold the needles in place. As each stitch is undone, the previous stitch will drop right back onto the needle, row after row. Any hand transfers, though, have to be reversed before the row can be raveled.
To get a full symmetrical repeat and a large enough sample of the cables-and-lace pattern (see “Pattern Structure,” p. 38), cast on 33 stitches with scrap yarn in a contrasting color but of the same weight.
Start with the No. 2 key plate on the Bond or a size 6 stitch on the Hobby. Knit about 10 rows before rethreading the carriage with alpaca, and begin working the pattern. You can knit swatch after swatch if you separate each with about 10 rows of scrap knitting. After you knit a few rows, hang claw weights on the ends of the work to help the stitches form properly. Move the weights up every 10 or so rows.
Machine-knit patterns are dealt with row by row, rather than stitch by stitch. All stitches for cables, lace, and increases or decreases are transferred with the eyelet tools; then the carriage is moved across the bed to knit the row.
Row I—Groups of 7 stitches indicate lace (shown above). In every lace row (1st, 5th, 9th, etc.), you will be transferring stitches from the same 3 groups of 7 needles. The pattern count begins on the right after the first 2 plain seam-forming stitches. For each group of 7 stitches, use a triple-eyelet tool to move stitches 1, 2, and 3 one needle to the left and stitches 5, 6, and 7 one needle to the right. The middle (4th) needle of the group will now carry 3 stitches. The 1st and 7th needles are empty and are left in knitting position. Skip the next 4 stitches. Then repeat the lace transfer on the next group of 7 stitches. Continue across the bed, ending the row with 2 plain stitches. Knit the row.
Row 2—All even-numbered rows are knit plain. Simply move the carriage across the bed to knit them.
Row 3—Groups of 4 stitches indicate cables (shown at top of next page). In every cable row (3rd, 7th, 11th, etc.), you'll be working with the same 2 groups of 4 needles. Skip the 2 plain stitches and the first group of 7 stitches, and begin the count at the right of the first group of 4 stitches. Then remove stitches 1 and 2 on a doubleeyelet tool, and stitches 3 and 4 on a second double-eyelet tool and hold to the left. Replace stitches 1 and 2 on the needles that held stitches 3 and 4, and stitches 3 and 4 on the needles that held stitches 1 and 2. Skip the next 7 stitches and repeat the cable transfer; the row will end with 9 plain stitches. Knit the row.
Row 4-Knit.
On the Bond, after you transfer stitches, push the empty needles in the lace design all the way forward for the first row; then return them to working position with the latches open for the second row. This way you’ll be sure the empty needles will catch the next stitches. On the Hobby, leave the empty needles in working position.
You'll probably find that needles carrying more than 1 stitch or crossed (cabled) stitches knit more easily if you push them all the way forward and then back until the stitches are just behind the open latches. The needles carrying 3 stitches for the lace may not completely knit; if they don't, push back on the butt of each needle to help the old stitch slide over the new one. If you do drop some stitches, you can latch up the ladder of lost stitches and be on your way, as the manuals show. If the dropped stitches get lost in all that lace and cable, you can put in a safety pin to hold them, continue on, and work them back in with a needle later. At worst, you can rip out and reknit.
Repeat these 4 rows until you have a proper sample—about 10 repeats, or 40 rows. Then rethread the carriage with scrap yarn and knit about 10 plain rows. To try another stitch size, rethread with alpaca and again put in 10 rows of scrap.
To knit a swatch of the vertical-lace pat-tern, do the same as for the cables-and- lace swatch, but instead of turning cables, knit the third row plain so that groups of 4 plain stitches will divide the lace patterning. The gauge will be only slightly affected, giving the sweater a bit more ease. When you have enough samples, end with 10 rows of scrap. Then bind off so you can safely wash the knitting.
Hanging on the ribbing—With these machines you could do the ribbing with a special cast-on method and your latch-hook tool, but the edge won't look as good as handknit ribbing, so after you’ve cast on and handknit the ribbing, loosely knit 1 row of stockinette onto a larger needle. If you use a size 4 needle for the rib, try a 7 for the last row, and don’t break the yarn.
Hang the ribbing on the machine with the purl side out and the yarn to the right. Because the bed is numbered right and left of center 0, you'll find it easy to center the work. Push the needles you'll need into working position. Put the single-eyelet tool into the first stitch on your needle, and also onto the rightmost machine needle. Tilt the tool upward to deposit the stitch in the hook of the knitting-machine needle, and at the same time let it slip off the handknitting needle, as shown in the photo at bottom right. Continue until you have hung all stitches on the machine.
Some stretching is necessary, but if the ribbing has to stretch taut to fit over the required number of needles, reknit the handknit row looser. Pull down on the ribbing as you transfer it, and hang claw weights at the edges and center to keep the ribbing from popping up and off the hooks. On the Hobby, that's all the weight you'll need. On the Bond, you may need to hang the weighted hem as well. Mount the carriage on the right end of the bed, threading it with the yarn that's attached to the ribbing. Knit 1 row; then check that all stitches have knitted properly.
At this point, the row counter on the Hobby should read “2,” to include the handknitted row. The Bond doesn't have a built-in row counter, so keep a grocery clicker or abacus close by. All lengthwise garment measurements are dealt with as row counts (RC); the RC is always returned to 0 at the end of each section.
Shaping and assembling the garment—Shaping sweater pieces on the machine is fairly straightforward (see instructions for cables-and-lace sweater, p. 38). This sweater has both typical and unusual shapes. The set-in armhole, gently sloping shoulders, and round neck present common shaping problems; the slightly puffed shoulder cap is less usual. The method of scrapping off that separates and ends the swatch samples also makes a smooth decrease for finishing off garment pieces.
To remove stitches on scrap, rethread the carriage with a contrasting yarn of the same weight. Make sure only the needles for the stitches you want to scrap off are in working position, and knit 10 rows. Then, instead of binding them off, drop these stitches from the machine with a pass of the unthreaded carriage, and put the needles out of work. Any stitches that you remove on scrap yarn are live, or open, and can run. You can minimize this danger by steaming or ironing the scrap knitting (but not the sweater). Scrap knitting acts as a flexible stitch holder, so don't remove it until you've assembled, tried on, and fitted the garment. Then if it's necessary to redo something, the stitches are still secure.
To decrease a group of stitches, as for the armholes of the cables-and-lace sweater, do it on the carriage side by transferring the first stitch to the next needle and loosely binding off the 2 stitches together, and so forth. Knit the row.
When a pattern calls for decreasing 1 stitch at each side, every alternate row, I make full-fashion decreases on both edges in the same row, with no decreases in the next row. To do this, move the 2 end stitches 1 needle inward with a double eyelet tool. Then put the emptied needle in nonworking position. Do the same on the other edge. Then knit 2 rows.
A neat technique for shaping shoulders is the short-row method, also known as partial knitting, or knit-and-turn-back. The stitches are left on their needles, which are pushed all the way forward so they can't knit. The manuals give the specifics. The advantage of this method is that it allows all the shoulder stitches to be bound off (or removed on scrap yarn) together, thus preventing stair-step edges.
To decrease the shoulders on the back of this sweater by the short-row method, put all shoulder needles in holding position and scrap off the neck edge. Next, return the needles for the right shoulder to working position and scrap off the right shoulder. Then put those needles out of work before scrapping off the left shoulder.
Shaping the neckline—To shape the neckline, work one shoulder and then the other. Thus, when you reach the base of the neckline, since you won't be working with the center stitches of the finished neck edge immediately, put these stitches and all needles to the right (or left) of them in holding position. Make sure claw weights are under the needles that will be knitting.
To decrease 1 stitch at the neck edge, every alternate row, you can bind off the first stitch before each pass of the carriage to one side, or you can put the stitch you want to decrease in holding position and knit the row. Before making the return pass, be sure to wrap the yarn once around the first of the nonworking needles. After
