Friday, December 28, 2012

Knitting machine

     I have had several people curious about my knitting machine/s. Yes that is plural I have 5 of them and they are all Brother brand. I have two that are punch card machines, two electronic machines-these four are all standard size machines. I also have one bulky punch card machine. The standard machines use fingering weight to sport weight yarn. The bulky machine likes 4ply worsted weight. The best yarn to use is yarn that is put up on cones that weigh around one pound. You can see an example of a cone of yarn on the machine below.
     I apologize for the horrible coloring of this picture, it is night time and I don't have the right lighting in the room for picture taking. The machine is not really yellow!  This machine is a Brother 930 standard electronic machine. I have it clamped to a countertop. You can also purchase tables that are made for your machine. You feed the yarn up through the antennae and through the carriage that you see sitting on the bed of 200 needles. There are more than one way to cast the yarn onto the needles you wish to use, I mostly do an e-wrap method. You then hang weights on the knitting and manually move the carriage back and forth and watch your knitting grow with each row-see second picture. And the third picture is a close up of the carriage. You can increase and decrease by moving stitches with a transfer tool also.
     I do have to mention that Brother no longer makes knitting machines but you can find them on ebay from time to time. There are also other brands of knitting machines out there, but I have no knowledge about them.


I have knit many things over my 26 years of machine knitting, sweaters, hats, mittens, baby bonnets, dishcloths, doll clothes, socks. It is a very satisfying way to get things knit fast!

2 comments:

  1. Wow, I would think that it would take me longer to operate the machine than knit by hand, and I have only knit something once in my life!

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  2. You are so very talented to do so many different things and do them so well. Love the little sweaters.

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