Machine knitting

Tuesday was an introductory class on machine knitting. I used a knitting machine briefly last term to knit some wire more quickly for Stem, my Constructed Textiles project, but this was the first time I sat down with the rest of my class and learnt how to use the machine properly.

Casting-on and casting-off are the hardest parts, and keeping the piece on the needles seems to require some practice. However, once you get going you can produce large pieces of knitting very quickly.




The final sample in the pictures above is my favourite. It was made by alternately casting-on five stitches and then skipping five needles. After a few rows of knitting I'd start adding extra stitches in the gaps, then, once the sets of empty needles had been filled up, I'd begin decreasing the stitches in the opposite direction.

While it was satisfying to see the pieces grow so quickly, the painstakingly slow cast-on and cast-off were very frustrating and I was in constant fear of having everything leap off the needles. I'm used to hand-knitting and I expected the machine to make knitting easier, but now I think it actually requires a similar level of attention, at least for a beginner. Dropped stitches in particular seem nightmarish on the machine; as each stitch has its own needle there's quite a lot getting in the way of picking up a dropped stitch.

Next Tuesday I'll be doing some more machine knitting, this time using untreated wool in order to felt the knitted pieces afterwards, (the above samples all use acrylic yarns).