If you’ve ever redesigned a garment because the fabric told you to, you’re in good company. Here’s an update to my current knitting project on the Kniterate.

The video details changes to my cardigan plans, including a new test sample and the design decisions that altered the sweater's shape. I tell what I learned from the test sample and describe the modifications to the neckline, sleeves, and general silhouette.

If you enjoy this type of content, I invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Related Links

• Stitch Transfer Animation from Groz-Beckert

• Purl Knit or Links-Links and What’s a Horizontal Rib? [earlier post and video describing this fabric, including a tutorial]

• Integrating a Stitch Design and Exporting a Text File from DAK [from Session 4, Designing with Kniterate — Decreases, Increases, and Shaping a Sweater]

Video Transcript

Last time I was here, I said, “Next time you see me, I should have a knitted sleeve and maybe a little more.”

Well, you can see me. And I don’t have a sleeve.

What I do have are a new test sample, updated cardigan plans,  and a few design decisions that completely changed the shape of my sweater.

The cardigan I haven’t knitted yet went from this… to this.

In this video, I’m walking through why I changed the neckline, why the sleeves stopped being set-in, what I test-knit instead of a sleeve, and what I learned from that test sample, especially around short rows, transfers, and gauge.

If you like seeing how the properties of a fabric can drive design, keep watching.

Hi, Olgalyn here. When I went back and reexamined my earlier swatches, I realized how much I loved the way the top edge of the fabric forms scallops naturally. The stitch structure is doing real design work, and the top edge shouldn’t be hidden. Once I noticed that, the V-neck didn’t make sense anymore.

(The transcript continues below the image.)

I wanted to use that scalloped top edge as a feature, so I changed the neckline to a funnel neck, and the scallops will show at the very top.

That decision came directly from the fabric, not from the original sketch.

Then I looked at the sleeves. The original plan was a set-in sleeve, and I wasn’t in love with it. 

What I landed on instead is a baby dolman with a sleeve extension. The silhouette has a bit of an eighties feel. I still have real eighties sweaters that I knitted in the eighties, so I don’t know why I needed another one!

But more importantly, I felt the stitch pattern needed more space. I didn’t want it stretched and having the texture lose its depth. The bigger silhouette lets the fabric stay relaxed.

Even though I already had a test swatch and a gauge swatch, I still planned to knit a sleeve first, mostly to double-check gauge and make sure I programmed my increases and decreases correctly.

Then I realized I don’t need edge decreases at all with this design. What I actually knitted was a section with both increases and short-row decreases. That simplified the technical design more than I expected.

The test sample turned out well in most areas. Here I’m removing the waste yarn.

I was supposed to change a needle before I started. I already knew it had a bent transfer spring. It knitted the waste yarn just fine — no transfers there. But this stitch pattern uses lots of transfers. Fortunately, I caught it early and was able to change the needle without starting over.

If you haven’t come across a knitting machine needle with a transfer spring before, this is the part that enables automatic transfers on industrial machines and on the semi-industrial Kniterate. 

(The transcript continues below the image.)

This piece right here is the transfer spring. When the needle holding the loop reaches its highest point, the hook on the opposite bed slips in and grabs that loop.

I’ve linked an animation in the description that shows the operation much more clearly.

Back to the test sample, I was really happy with the short-row decreases at the shoulder. And I’m glad I tested them, because I hadn’t actually tried short-row decreases with this stitch pattern before.

The bind-off settings also worked well. The Kniterate has a bind-off macro, so it’s usually just a few clicks and parameter entries to get a good result.

I did find one error. I forgot to transfer the last bind-off stitch into the funnel neck, but that’s easy to fix. And I’ve also decided to shorten the funnel neck slightly.

At this point, I’m sure of my gauge, and the shape makes sense. And I’ve troubleshot errors. If you saw my last video you know that now it's time for me to “get back in there and make adjustments.” So it’s back to DesignaKnit and back to the Kniterate design app. Then I’ll finally be ready to knit the actual cardigan.

I still haven’t decided how I want to treat the front opening, and I’m going to wait on that.

To be continued. Later!

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

A sample swatch is wrapped around my forearm; I’m designing a cardigan. The video below presents my outline for developing a pattern for this personal project.

If you enjoy this type of content, I invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Related Links

• Request a live Kniterate virtual demo [from me!]

• Purl Knit or Links-Links and What’s a Horizontal Rib? [previous post and video describing this fabric]

• Integrating a Stitch Design and Exporting a Text File from DAK [from Session 4, Designing with Kniterate — Decreases, Increases, and Shaping a Sweater]

Video Transcript

I’m about to share my four steps for designing a machine-knit sweater pattern. And I’ll tell you about the issues I’ve had designing my future cardigan.

Hi, Olgalyn here!

As some of you may already know, the starting point for me isn’t “I want to design a cardigan jacket.” It’s “I want to explore this fabric.” And that’s step 1, choose a texture or technique to explore.

Inspiration can be found in other knitted stitch patterns or in completely different structures. You may be inspired by a print fabric pattern or a structure found in nature or architecture. In this case, I explored a purl knit or links-links knit structure. I described this type of fabric in my previous video.

As you can see, the purl knit properties differ from jersey, visually and mechanically. Before thinking about the shape of my future sweater, I spent time understanding how this stitch pattern knits, how stable or unstable it is, and how it responds to handling.

That means swatching, swatching, swatching. That’s the second step, knit and test the swatches.

And it isn’t just about gauge at this point — it’s about fabric behavior. Purl knit fabrics stretch differently and drape differently than other types of knits.

I tested variations of the stitch size, tension, and yarn choice. And I washed and dried the fabric. Once I had something I liked, I calculated the gauge. And I imagined the fabric as a garment. From my last blog post and video, interestingly, I received email and a comment from people who also imagined the fabric as a cardigan jacket. And another commenter helped me make a final decision on the colors. Thank you!

I'll be knitting the cardigan on the Kniterate, so I worked in the Kniterate design app and test-knit the various settings for increases and decreases. Here's my test for binding off. You can see how the machine binds off stitch by stitch. Here are my decreases and increases.

Because the fabric is so highly textured. I’m using simple edge decreases and increases. No one would see fully fashioned shaping with this texture! 

(The transcript continues below the image.)

There are several ways to design a garment. Some designers start with a sketch and the shape of a garment, then they'll swatch to find a stitch structure that works. 

I prefer starting with the swatch, so my next step is the sketch. It could have been a rough sketch, but for this project, I made a colored flat drawing, taking advantage of my previously taken videos of the swatch. 

I did these flats in Inkscape. Many people use Illustrator. My flat drawings are very quick, very 2D with no hint of drape. But I want to get ideas for the general shape of the garment and to see how the stitch pattern works the shape.

I’m planning a v-neck with set-in sleeves for this cardigan. I’ve decided to use both sides of the fabric. The technical face, the side with the most knit stitches, will be used for the right front. I’ll use the reverse for the left front. The back is in two pieces and there are the sleeves. The back will be joined with a center gusset.

I like the bottom edge as is. And due to this fabric’s selvages, I will use a trim on the front edges. I’ll highlight the selvages in the back by joining them with the center gusset.

I'm using DesignaKnit for step 4, to create the technical design of the cardigan. This is where I had a few issues. I originally thought I’d be designing the cardi with raglan sleeves, since it’s easier to match a horizontal pattern through the body and the sleeves that way. Well, DAK doesn’t do a raglan the way I’m used to doing a raglan, and I didn’t want to knit a test to see if I wanted to use that method. I didn’t feel like digging up an old block pattern and translating it for DAK’s  Original Pattern Drafting module, so I changed the pattern to set-in sleeves. 

I don’t know. I may regret it, but it just seemed more straightforward at the time. I’m not sure how the pattern matching will turn out at the top of the sleeve cap, but we’ll see. 

I’ve painted my stitch pattern in DAK. It’s the same stitch pattern you saw earlier in the Kniterate app, but without the transfers indicated. The transfers will be added when I’m back in the Kniterate design app. 

When I'm not using DesignaKnit, I usually generate graph paper with a grid based on the gauge of my swatch. Then I draw my pattern directly on the graph paper and write all my increases and decreases directly on the full-size pattern paper.

Ok, back to DAK. Here are the pieces with the number of stitches and rows calculated. Since one of my front pieces is flipped. I'm actually knitting two fronts that are exactly the same. I’m also knitting two back pieces. Because the fabric pulls in so much, knitting the back in one piece is impossible, even on the machine with 252 needles per bed.

I’m thrilled I can export the pieces directly to the Kniterate design app, but I’m only exporting one sleeve for now. This is where I'll add the front-rear transfers command in order to transfer stitches between the beds, as needed. I'll also add the increases and decreases and free edit the removal on waste.

I'll knit one sleeve first just to double-check the gauge and everything else.

If there are any issues with gauge or shape of the sleeve, I’ll make the needed adjustments in DAK or in the Kniterate design app.

To review, the four steps are:

1. Choose a texture or technique to explore.

2. Knit and test swatches.

3. Create a sketch.

4. Create the technical design, based on your gauge. 

Now knit a test piece or an entire proto-sample, if that's your thing. If necessary, get back in there and make adjustments.

If all goes well with my sleeve, I consider the major pieces of the pattern done. I’ll just need to knit them.

Because this is a personal project, I have the luxury of making certain decisions and changes later. I’ll probably experiment with the trim and closure once I’ve knitted the major pieces.

Next time you see me, I should of have a knitted sleeve and maybe a little more.

‘Til next time!

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

In this video, I revisit one of the stitch patterns from Inspiration or Iteration, posted earlier this year. I knitted this swatch on the Kniterate, yet despite its intricate appearance, this purl knit structure can be created on any double bed machine. The video below outlines several ways to move the process forward on different machines, including a walkthrough of how I programmed the pattern in the Kniterate design app.

More videos are on the way. I invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Related Links

• Download the stitch block image files and templates [email required]

• vanderwool_knitting [on Instagram]

• Prior Purl knitting machine photo [on knittingmachinemuseum.com]

• Pingoin Garter Stitch Machine [M. Bloice on knittingmachinemuseum.com]

• Garter stitch on the Hamanaka Needle Machine [Nix Knits on YouTube]

• Prior Purl Machine does garter stitch [Nix Knits on YouTube]

• Five hours of garter carriage [KnitFactoryImpl on YouTube]

• Structural Stitches [V. Salmon on anotherknitteedthing.com]

• Multifunctional Foldable Knitted Structures: Fundamentals, Advances and Applications [A. Pavko-Čuden and D. Rant on ResearchGate.net]

Video Transcript

This type of fabric is called a purl knit or a links-links fabric, and I’ve wanted to knit this type of swatch for a very long time. I finally knitted it a couple of months ago. Why did it take me so long? How did I knit it? What will it become? 

Hello, I’m Olgalyn and I want to talk a little about this fabric. It’s not a jersey knit with knit stitches on one side of the fabric only. It’s not a rib knit with separate wales for the knits and separate wales for the purls. It’s called a purl knit or a links-links fabric. I’ll use the terms interchangeably.

What distinguishes it is that the knits and purls appear in the same column or wale. Zooming in on this swatch, I’ve used plating with the light and dark blues. There's a reverse jersey and both 6x6 ribs and 18x6 ribs.

Back in the 1980s, when I took a weft knitting technology class at the Fashion Institute of Technology, we were introduced to this kind of fabric and shown an actual industrial links-links machine. Links is German for left and we were given an explanation as to why this machine was called links-links. But that was a long long time ago and I can’t remember. But if you happen to know, please share your knowledge in the comments. More on the machines in a moment.

If you’re a hand knitter, this type of fabric is relatively easy to knit. In fact, this type of stitch may have been the very first stitch you learned because a garter stitch is probably the most basic links-links stitch. When you hand-knit a garter stitch, each time you turn your knitting to the purl side to begin a new row, you’ll be forming the new knit stitches on top of purls, which means you are going to get knits and purls in the same wale.

Now, about the machines. I already mentioned the industrial links-links machine I saw many years ago. At one time, home versions of links-links or purl machines were manufactured in Japan and France.

This one from Japan is the Hamanaka Needle Machine. A big thank you to VanderWool Knitting, who allowed me to use these photos. 

Check out the needle! It gives you a hint as to how the machine knits the fabric. Each needle has two hooks, one on each end, so the needles can form a knit stitch on either end. That’s how they produce the garter stitch. Stitches are formed with the hooks on one side of the machine. As the row is knitted, the needles are moved to the other side of the machine, and the hooks on the other side of the needle knit the next row. So you never turn the fabric, as with hand knitting or with a garter bar. This is similar to the way industrial links-links machines work.

If you want to see the Hamanaka needle machine in action, check out the videos from Nix Knits. I’ve linked to the garter stitch video in the description. And there are links to photos of other vintage purl knitting machines on my site.

As I’ve mentioned, unlike a jersey knit or a rib knit, a purl knit has both knits and purls in the same column or wale. As a machine knitter, I’m sure you've observed the properties of jersey, also known as stockinette. You know how the bottom and top of the fabric roll toward the knit side. And the selvages roll toward the purl side. Those same rolls occur within this fabric. 

If you look closely, you can see this swatch gets all its texture from the natural roll in the fabric. Think of each little section as a little piece of jersey with its rolls on the edges. Each little jersey area does its curling thing and interacts with the other little jersey sections. 

You see little areas of jersey and little areas of reverse jersey. The tops and bottoms of the jersey sections curl toward the knit. The sides roll toward the reverse or purl. Each area of knits or purls has an effect on the adjacent section, sometimes pulling or pushing it into an unexpected shape. As the pattern is repeated horizontally and vertically, a complex pattern develops.

Depending on the machine you're using, there are a few approaches to knitting this type of stitch pattern:

• If you knit on a single bed, you can use a garter bar to knit a garter stitch. Unfortunately, if you want to do something more complicated, you will need to reform some of the knit stitches manually.

• If you have the right type of machine for a garter carriage and All Yarns Are Beautiful software, you can easily knit this type of fabric. In fact, KnitFactoryImpl has five hours of knitting a links-links fabric with a garter carriage and AYAB software. The video is linked in the description. Since I’ve never owned a garter carriage or worked with AYAB software firsthand, I don’t know for sure, but if you have this setup, you can probably knit my stitch pattern with my PNG, which you can download from my website. 

• Are you a Passap knitter with a U80 or a U100 transfer carriage? Well, follow my spreadsheet, bring your pushers into working position whenever you need to transfer, and use your transfer carriage with the lever set to “1” to make the transfers.

Here are two more possible scenarios:

• You have DesignaKnit and a manual machine. I’d import the PNG into Graphics Studio and then run Interactive Knitting and allow the software to signal on which rows to transfer. 

• Or if you have a manual Brother machine, you could program a card to select needles only when you’re on a row with transfers. And then make the transfers manually to or from the main bed.

Now, I knitted this swatch on the Kniterate.  Even if you don’t knit with a Kniterate, this may give you ideas on how you may want to think about and create your own textured purl knit stitch pattern.

I used this stitch block that I showed earlier. It’s 24 by 40 pixels. I made my PNG in GIMP, but it can be made in any software where you can draw an image in pixels. In this case, each black pixel represents a stitch that's knitted on the front bed. Each white pixel represents the purls, knitted on the rear bed. This is the same pattern I have available on a spreadsheet, in case you want to use it as a guide to knit this pattern on another type of double bed machine.

In the Kniterate app, I imported the stitch block. Once I added the second color, edited the options columns for speed, roller value, and stitch size. After positioning on the bed, I tiled the pattern in both directions.

Zooming in, you can see this pattern starts out just like a 6x6 rib with 6 stitches on the front and 6 on the rear. When I get to row 10, transfers need to be made, so I added the front-rear transfers command with the mode: between rows. I added waste and cast-on and the bind-off.

For those not on a Kniterate or without a garter carriage or transfer carriage, yes, if you enjoy hand manipulation, you can do the transfers manually.  Follow this chart, and transfer stitches to the opposite bed as indicated. Again, black boxes are stitches on the front bed or ribber. White cells are stitches on the rear or main bed. 

If you want another conceptual approach to purl fabrics, be sure to check out this book by Victoria Salmon, Structural Stitches — A Machine Knitter’s Guide to Creating Form and Texture. The whole book is great, and I’m sure I’ll talk more about this book in the future. But if you want another approach to purl knit fabrics, look at chapter 3, “Transfers and Rib Structures”. 

Victoria’s general explanations are a little different than mine. In fact, when describing these particular links-links structures, she refers to vertical ribs and horizontal ribs. Interestingly, I’ve never heard the term horizontal ribs before. Sometimes I’ve heard garter ridge referred to as mock horizontal ribs. But after thinking about it a moment, I do get the idea. And I don’t know, there may be whole continents of knitters approaching it this way. 

In any case, the results and type of fabric are the same. And several pages into the chapter, Victoria has charts and photos of gorgeous links-links fabrics. I highly recommend this book.

What’s next for me? I’m seriously considering making a cardigan out of this stitch pattern once I figure out which yarn I’m using. And this is a big deal for me, because I only average about one sweater a year these days. So, I hope you follow along to see where I go with this.

‘Til next time!

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate - Session 3 The Tuck Loop (Plus Plating) provides instruction on using the Stitch Image and the Front<>Rear Transfer commands. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

The video below demonstrates one of the key principles of racking. If you’ve been machine knitting for a while, you may enjoy seeing this rule in action. If you’re new to the craft, the video offers a glimpse of the kinds of structures and textures machine knitting makes possible.

While the featured swatches were knitted on the Kniterate, the core demo takes place on a manual Passap machine. The same stitch pattern can also be worked on a Japanese-style machine equipped with a ribbing attachment.

This video marks the beginning of a YouTube relaunch. I invite you to subscribe.

Video Transcript

This swatch might look complicated, but it’s actually just a clever stitch arrangement and a technique called racking on a double-bed knitting machine. In this video, I’ll show you a couple of favorite swatches and then give you a quick demo of how to have straight stitches and slanted stitches all in the same row.

Hi, I’m Olgalyn Jolly. I’ve been working with knitting machines for decades—designing, experimenting, exploring stitch patterns, and teaching.   I help machine knitters learn about knit structure so they can do their most creative work. Stockinette in the right fiber can be lovely, but we can do so much more with our machines.

This channel was actually started during the pandemic lockdown, when I was still teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology, here in NYC. So if you hear horns honking and sirens sounding, I’m sorry I can’t help that! I was teaching remotely and this channel was full of demos on the Zippy Loom. Knitting machine faculty taught on the Zippy, because we couldn't insist that students all buy knitting machines. But students could learn the basic knitting machine operations on the zippy. 

I'm relaunching this channel, inspired by the other YouTube machine knitters. I want to contribute what I love knitting most on the machines – texture. What keeps me fascinated is the variety of textures you can create by repeatedly pulling one loop through another and by shifting stitches. Just a handful of operations can lead to the most amazing structures.

I’m showing two intermediate level swatches today. This is what I call a mock crochet stitch. It has a really open, fancy mesh look, and people often think it must be complicated. But really, it’s just a smart use of ribs, racking, and needle arrangement.

And here’s another! This one has both straight ribs and subtle zigzag ribs repeated across the swatch. This one looks simple, but the setup is a little complex. It’s a variation of a stitch pattern you may have seen in the machine knitting pattern books. 

This particular swatch was prompted by a question from an enrollee in one of my courses. Anne has a love of experimenting with stitches, as I do. We always ask the what-would-happen questions like

• What would happen if I knitted this pattern with a smaller stitch size on the back bed?

• What would happen if I tucked going in one direction on the front bed? 

• What would happen if I made the ribs a little bit wider?

That’s what Ann was working on. She wanted to place three or more straight stitches and three or more slanted stitches in the same row with a couple of purls in between. The pattern books just show this pattern with ribs that are two stitches wide. Here's the problem. If you add just one stitch to each rib to make it wider, the pattern of straight ribs and zigzags gets messed up. You don’t get distinct groups of straight ribs and zigzag ribs. But there is a way to do it, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

For the record, I knitted both of these swatches on the Kniterate. But here's the important part: they can be knitted on any double bed machine with racking capabilities. That means you can probably knit this on your machine if your machine has two beds.

Racking shifts one knitting bed in relation to the other bed. Your machine might rack either the front bed or the back bed. If your machine is a Superba or a Japanese-style machine like a Brother or a Silver Reed, the front bed will be moving. If it's a Passap, Kniterate, or Dubied, it's the rear bed that racks. 

I'm going to show you how to set up this pattern on a manual machine right now.

Here's the needle arrangement. The vertical lines on top represent the needles in action on the back bed, also known as the main bed on the Japanese-style domestic machines. The vertical lines at the bottom represent the needles in action on the front bed or the ribber on the Japanese-style machines. The dots represent the needles out of action. 

When I turn the racking handle, my back bed shifts sideways on this Passap machine. That's the start of making slanted stitches, but it's not that simple. One of the rules of racking states that in order for a slanted stitch to show, one stitch must pass in front of or behind another stitch. You can see those stitches slant as I rack.

You then need to knit a row with the needles in the new position to lock the slanted stitches in place. You'll see slanted stitches on your swatch. All the places where the stitches on the beds have crossed each other are the places where the slanting of the stitches will remain after you knit another row to lock the slanted stitches in place. When a stitch does not cross in front of or behind another stitch, you'll have straight ribs. 

Sometimes we need to have needles out of action to keep the front and back bed stitches from crossing. Whether you rack to the right first or to the left first will depend on whether your front bed is racking or your back bed is racking.  Just pay attention to which stitches are crossing others on the opposite bed when you rack. With this particular setup and my rear bed racking machine, I’ll be racking to the left first. 

And that's just part of it. The rules of racking are fascinating. We go deep in my racking workshop.

But let's get to the knitting sequence. Remember we want certain stitches to cross to create the subtle zigzags:

• Rack in your first direction

• With both beds set to knit, two carriage passes

• Rack back

• Two carriage passes

That's the whole sequence. Now repeat.

Go ahead, give it go. Play around with the stitch size, tension, and type of fiber. If you’re really adventurous, increase the number of stitches in a rib. If you do make wider ribs, remember to add out-of-work needles to control which stitches are doing the crossing.

Here are two stitch patterns I showed earlier with different yarns — the mock crochet, with its airy, open texture, and the swatch that has both straight ribs and zigzags, this time without plating. Both are good examples of how racking can totally transform ribs.

And that’s what I love about machine knitting and developing stitch patterns — sometimes it’s complicated and sometimes it’s straightforward. But it’s always interesting and fun to figure out.

So I hope you’ll join me on this channel! I’ll be posting stitch patterns and some of my projects and tips.

O!

Reclining woman in cream cardigan photo © 2019 The Taunton Press, Inc. Photo: Jack Deutsch, courtesy of Threads magazine.

I knit on a Kniterate and a Passap DM80 now, but I learned to knit on a single bed knitting machine. It was a Studio Bulky 8, a single bed machine with similar capabilities to an LK 150. My boyfriend (now husband) gave me the machine for my birthday. We purchased it at School Products. The machine came with two free lessons.  

School Products has since changed ownership and now has an online presence only. But in the 80s, it was a knitting machine and yarn center on the 3rd floor of an office building on Broadway in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. There was a large, L-shaped room with floor model knitting machines and walls lined with shelves of coned yarns. A year later, an adjacent room was opened and used for group lessons. 

If I'm remembering correctly, School Products was not only the distributor of the Bulky 8 knitting machine, the store also sold Brother and Passap machines. At the time I got my machine, I didn't know how deeply I'd get into the craft. The Bulky 8 was recommended as an excellent starter machine. At the time, I believed it. 

On “Starter” Machines

Over the years, however, my thoughts on “starter” machines have changed. When asked by non-knitters, what's a good knitting machine to start with, I now recommend a Passap or a Superba as a first machine. If neither is available or affordable, I recommend starting with a single knitting bed and a ribber attachment.  In other words, begin learning both beds from the beginning. Many people even start successfully with a Kniterate (although prior machine knitting experience will always speed up the Kniterate learning process). 

I know this goes against the typical machine knitting curriculum at many design schools, where students begin on single-bed domestic machines. That approach may seem more accessible, but I don’t believe it’s the most effective or efficient way to understand how weft knits are constructed. Working with both beds gives knitters a more complete and practical foundation right from the start.

Here’s what I’ve observed: After the first challenging weeks working with two beds, new knitters tend to develop a much stronger grasp of the technical side of machine knitting than those who start with a single bed alone. The concepts click faster. Fluency comes sooner.

What If You’ve Already Started on a Single Bed?

If your journey began with an LK150 or another single-bed machine, there’s nothing to regret. Think of it as the scenic route. You’ve likely learned how to cast on for jersey, and maybe you’ve tackled fairisle, tuck, or even lace. Perhaps you’ve become skilled at hand-manipulated techniques. No knowledge is wasted, and many beautiful stitch patterns can be knitted on a single bed.

But if your goal is to fully explore the breadth of machine knitting, I encourage you to add the second bed as soon as you can. It opens up the possibilities of knitting in a way that single-bed work simply can’t. And in my experience, it accelerates both understanding and creativity.

Tips for Learning

People learn in different ways, but no matter your style, it’s essential to connect each machine operation with the path of the yarn, not just with a button or a symbol. I’ve seen many knitters who know which setting to select for a tuck stitch, for example, but can’t actually identify a tuck when it’s on the needles.

Single-bed knitters sometimes get stuck in stockinette. The ribber can seem like an obstacle. When they do add the second bed, it often becomes the accessory used only for cuffs and rib bands. But the second bed offers much more.

Whatever depth of learning you choose to pursue, you should be able to recognize and understand the difference between a knit, a tuck, and a miss stitch on either bed. How do they work? Why do they work that way? What can they do structurally? What are your machine’s limitations? These operations are not just switches to flip or icons to click when following someone else’s pattern.

Some of the most engaging, satisfying stitches in machine knitting happen on two beds: double jacquards (without floats), ripples (without hand manipulation), brioche (also called cardigan stitch or fisherman’s rib), aran-style cables, racked ribs, and more. And of course, you can still knit single-bed stitches, too.

And Speaking of Racking

If you’re already knitting with two beds, or you’re starting to get comfortable with them, I have a new class you’ll enjoy. The class is free (at this time) and it introduces one of my favorite stitch patterns, a variation of mock crochet made possible with racking. The stitch has a wonderful lacy, openwork structure and is suitable for a variety of fibers.

If you’re enrolled in my Racking Workshop, you already have a version of this class in the knitting mini-lab module. All others can get immediate access to Machine Knitting Mock Crochet — An Introduction to Racking when you sign up here.

O!

How do your design ideas take shape? Is it through inspiration or iteration?

Part of a semester-long assignment when I taught Machine Knitting 2 at Parsons School of Design was maintaining a design journal. Each student was required to collect and document ideas, sketches, images, and notes inspired by nature or human-made structures. The practice aimed to foster an awareness of their surroundings and encourage students to recognize the design potential and inspiration in their everyday lives. Ideally, there would be no final project panic as the end of the semester approached. The diversity and creativity captured in those journals often led to remarkable, original explorations.

Design inspiration can come from anywhere — sometimes when we least expect it. As machine knitters interested in design, texture, and color, whether using a Kniterate or doing manipulations on a manual machine, translating inspiration into knitted fabric is always an adventure.

But let’s be real. Although I’ve kept many a design journal, my favorite developments most often are created through repeated modifications. Each iteration begins with experimentation or a past error, with no nature study or human-made structure that inspired it. For me, inspiration happens more often when diving deeply into a particular technique and asking the question, What would happen if…?

With a journal and design project due the last day of class, many of my students’ “inspirational” images may have been retrofitted to their final project. I see you!

Natural and Human-made Structures

Both natural and structures designed by humans are classic sources of inspiration for knit designs. The repetitive yet evolving pattern of waves, the delicate layers of mushroom gills, a brick wall.

Could stalks of bamboo have inspired the following swatch? They didn’t. It’s a racked herringbone stitch pattern gone wrong, resulting in lots of tucks, yet zero slanted stitches. I love the result of this mistake, even though the fabric is double knitted and heavy. (I like heavy fabrics, but I was aiming for something lighterweight.)

After months of knitting only racked ribs in preparation for the release of the Racking Workshop, I took a detour. What would happen if I used a different structure to reproduce the look of the bamboo stalk swatch? If I used the plating slit, I could easily add a second color. The purls could be a third color.

Taking It Further

Before the Kniterate, I had mostly stayed away from purl (a.k.a. links-links) swatches. A links-links fabric is defined by the knits and purls in the same wale, quite visible in the swatch above. Even with the transfer carriage on my Passap DM-80, transfers and keeping track of transfers could be tedious. With the Kniterate, using the Stitch Block and Front<> Rear Transfer commands, it was possible to easily create the type of purl fabric I love.

What would happen if I split up the ribs and added some unbalanced ribs to the mix? The development below is a modification of the swatch above. Once the fabric comes off the machine, the split ribs distort, and the reverse jersey rolls. Deep texture achieved!

Textile Technique Crossover

Sometimes design ideas come from a textile cousin like weaving. Woven fabric textures can trigger knit stitch patterns. Houndstooth, a woven structure, has been translated many times by domestic machine manufacturers to punchcards and digital files.

For decades, I have admired the fiberwork of weaver Olga de Amaral. I first came across her art years ago in American Craft magazine and have followed her work ever since. I was therefore quite surprised and very honored when Caligraphic Paris, a young brand unknown to me at the time, named me as an inspiration along with Olga de Amaral!

I caught this de Amaral piece in a group exhibition last summer at the Museum of Modern Art, Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America 1940-1980. The layers of texture nd color gradations are extremely satisfying. Her work inspires me in a way that is beyond technical tweaks at the knitting machine.

Further Reading

• More about links-links [on ResearchGate]

• More about Olga de Amaral [on her website]

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate - Session 3 (The Tuck Loop (Plus Plating) provides help with using the Stitch Block and the Front<>Rear Transfer commands. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

Two swatches, same file, different look!

I’m always amazed at the way the look of a machine-knitted stitch pattern will change simply by switching out the yarns. Changing a yarn color can alter the fabric's "mood" or overall impact. Substituting a lightweight wool yarn for a heavier one can transform the look from elegant to casual. (A big change in yarn weight would most likely need to include a settings adjustment.)

The most significant differences in appearance and hand, I believe, result from a change in fiber (provided the stitch pattern has certain technical elements. I’ll get to those later.) In this case, I went from wool to cotton in a slightly lighter-weight yarn.

The cream and black wool swatch above is knitted with an NM 7.5 wool (approximately 3700 yards per pound). For the cotton swatch, the orange is approximately NM 8.5 (4200 ypp) and the blue is about NM 10 (a little over 5000 ypp). The two swatches were knitted using the same Kniterate .kc file, yet they look noticeably different.

Wool is Stretchier Than Cotton

Once the wool swatch was off the machine, I allowed it to relax overnight and steamed it lightly before photographing it.

The cotton received the same treatment. It changed less in size after the rest and light steaming and remains nearly as wide as it was on the machine.

The yarns behaved in different ways on the machine, and each development has its unique properties. The cream wool is slightly ripply. There are tiny (two-row) rear-bed ripples in the file. The ripples are not apparent in the blue cotton, though they might show with a smaller stitch size for the orange. The cotton swatch has open spaces. The wool stretches more than cotton during knitting and later recovers, causing the lacy effect of this stitch pattern to nearly disappear.

Cotton, Linen, Rayon, and Silk vs Wool

It can be challenging to work with cotton and other relatively non-stretchy yarns if they are new to you. I always recommend that beginner machine knitters use wool for their first several swatches because wool is more forgiving and works well with a wider range of settings.

I’ve observed that the settings must be precise with cotton, linen, rayon, or silk, whether working with a Kniterate or another knitting machine. With yarn weights being equal, I recommend a larger stitch size for the non-stretchy yarns than would be used with wool. An alternative would be to use the same wool settings but with a non-stretchy yarn of lighter weight, if available, as I did in this #experiknit. I would love to hear about others’ experiences with cotton. (Contact me or DM me on Insta.)

Stitch Pattern

Not all stitch patterns will yield such different looks when going from one fiber to another. I would expect to see the most variability with patterns containing racking or openwork with transfers, the technical elements I was referring to earlier. A single racking stitch pattern with various fibers is shown below.

I love the versatility of racked stitch patterns. This past November I conducted a Racking Workshop. Several racked stitch patterns and ways to further develop them were presented. It was a pilot offering for Kniterate, Dubied, and domestic knitters. The participants’ wonderful feedback will influence the next offering of this workshop. If you’d like to be among the first to get information on the next Racking Workshop, please let me know. Update: A free introduction to racking class is now available on demand!

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

I love racking. Racking, or shifting one knitting bed laterally, can add visual complexity to double bed knitting. Racking changes the order in which the needles are knitted. If knit stitches and racks are combined with tucks or missed needles, amazing things happen with the stitches. Racking is often associated with zigzag patterns. And there’s so much more.

An Underutilized Technique

The technique can be executed on most double bed machines or with a domestic knitting bed and a ribbing attachment, as long as there is some device (crank or knob, software on the Kniterate and the electronic industrial machines) to move a bed sideways in a controlled manner. So why don’t we see more of it? People who knit standard ribs already have most or all of the skills necessary for racked stitch patterns.

Racking, especially when used for creating intricate patterns, often requires careful planning and precise settings. Takedown or weights must be balanced with stitch size and tension.

Achieving specific patterns with racking generally involves repetitive sequences of knitting and racking. If working with a hand machine, losing track of these sequences or making errors will easily disrupt the entire pattern.

There are aids for keeping track. Before Kniterate, I mostly knitted with my Passap DM40. I inserted an extra column in the Interactive Knitting feature of DesignaKnit to alert me when it was time to rack. Before DesignaKnit, an explicit chart that included row numbers plus racking distance and direction worked really well. No matter the process, it always requires a good amount of attention when planning or knitting or both.

Yes, A Racking Workshop!

Over the summer, a survey sent in my general (machine knitting and sweater sewing) newsletter indicated that racking was one of the two most requested workshops from machine knitters, tying with double jacquard. I’ve also heard interest from the Designing with Kniterate community.

How can I resist sharing my favorite technique? I’m excited to offer a pilot workshop for both domestic machine knitters and Kniterate knitters. We’ll explore essential racking stitch arrangements along with core principles, tips, and design possibilities. This workshop with its post-workshop projects and follow-up will help knitters gain the knowledge and confidence to develop their own creative racked stitch patterns.

Join me live on Saturday, November 16, 2024. I’d love to see you there! To read the details and register, head over to the info page.

A free introduction to racking class is now available on demand! Click here to join.

O!

Finding suppliers of coned yarn for small batch production or one-off projects can sometimes be a challenge, so I’ve shared lists of coned yarn suppliers, suitable for Kniterate knitting, at the bottom of this page. I’ve used many of the yarns from the list for US and Canada, though I’ve only mentioned a few in this post. The other list, for Europe, is sourced from Kniterate knitters' experiences. If you know a great source for coned yarns in your area of the world, please share. I promise to pass the info on.

Jagger Spun, the spinner of some of my favorite yarns over the years, will be closing in early 2025. I’ve used their Maine Line and Super Lamb with every knitting machine I’ve ever owned, including the Kniterate. Every double jacquard I’ve ever knitted with the Kniterate used one or two ends of wc 2/20 Maine Line or 2 ends of the NM 2/24 Super Lamb. (See a few samples here and here.) I’ve also had smooth knitting with the wc 2/18 Zephyr wool/silk blend and wc 2/18 Merino. Jagger Spun will be missed.

What will replace this yarn for me? Another favorite, Nature's Way Merino Wool from Silk City Fibers. At 7500 yard per pound, two ends are great for double jacquard, jersey, and more.

Yarn Count and Conversions

Sometimes suppliers will use two or more different systems of yarn count (yarn thickness expressed as a number) to describe the weight of the various yarns in their product lines. This happens often in the US where one system is used for wool (wc), another for cotton (cc), and yet another for filament yarns (denier or tex). And these aren’t the only systems in use! My preference is to convert everything to either yards per pound (ypp, imperial system) or NM (metric number). I refer often to the yarn conversion chart and calculator, linked at the bottom of this page.

Settings for Wool vs Cotton

Wool is by far my favorite yarn to work with. That little bit of give, inherent in most wool yarn, allows for a greater range of workable settings, especially helpful for transfers and racking. 

Though I’ve successfully transferred and racked with 100% cotton yarns, I feel that roller and stitch size have a narrower range of values that work with this less stretchy fiber. A single stitch size too small or a mere 20 off on the roller and the cotton yarn can break when racking or drop when binding off. On the other hand, I can knit wool with a less-than-ideal stitch size or roll value, need fewer adjustments to settings, and have fewer knitting issues. (The fabric or tightness of bind-off may not be what I was going for if the settings are off, but now that I’m comfortable I can easily get a sample to knit without yarn breakage or dropped stitches.) My rule of thumb when switching a stitch pattern from wool to cotton is to knit with a slightly larger stitch size. Roller value depends on the strength of the yarn and whether it’s sufficiently waxed. 

Strength Matters

Yarn strength is crucial not just for the durability of the finished product, but for the knitting process itself. Strength is determined by the linear density of the yarn, ply, and fiber content. It’s an extensive topic! Here are a few factors I consider when choosing a yarn. 

A stronger yarn will withstand the tension of being worked by the machine, reducing the likelihood of breakage. Waxed yarns ensure a smoother knitting process, also reducing breaks. Fortunately, many yarns for machine knitting are now sold pre-waxed. If you are purchasing directly from a producer, they may not be. 

Plied yarns typically offer better strength compared to single-ply varieties, making them a more reliable choice. Most knitters I know avoid single-ply spun yarns, because when knitted, the fabrics tend to skew, especially when knitting jersey. The exception is felted wool yarn.

Why do singles skew the knitting? As I understand it, the skewing occurs because singles are twisted in one direction. Knitting on a single bed can encourage the yarn to twist more in the same direction, or it could make the yarn begin to untwist. Either one can produce an unwanted slant to the knitting.

With two-ply yarns, each ply is twisted in one direction to spin the yarn and then twisted in the other direction to ply the yarns together. This produces a balance. If the yarn is twisted too tightly, however, the yarn is unbalanced and you could end up producing a bias even when knitting a 2-ply. This is why some yarns for weaving don't work well with machine knitting. The twist is too great, so there’s an imbalance. When in doubt, always ask the supplier if the yarn is suitable for machine knitting.

When Bad Things Happen with Great Yarn

A perfect yarn for one technique might be dreadful for another. Two or three ends of Jagger Spun Super Lamb knit a variety of items nicely on the Kniterate. Here’s the Kniterate beanie knitted with 3 ends of NM 2/24 Super Lamb.

And here’s a basic racked stitch pattern using 2 ends of Super Lamb.

While the 2 ends of SuperLamb worked well for the basic racked pattern above, it failed a couple of attempts knitting a stitch pattern of opposing vertical herringbone, which required multiple kickbacks and racking.

Tweaking the settings a bit more for the opposing vertical herringbone swatch might eventually produce a successful swatch in the Super Lamb. Instead of continuing, I switched yarns.

Using similar settings I was able to produce a viable swatch the first time knitting opposing vertical herringbone with a single end of NM 2/14 alpaca/Rambouillet blend from Lina Yarn. Immediate success doesn’t always happen. The earlier bad swatches informed my settings for the Lina Yarn. Also, this Lina yarn is strong!

Working Outside the Recommended Range

For most projects, Kniterate recommends yarns between NM 6 and NM 8 or between approximately 3000 and 4000 yards per pound. For projects consisting mostly of plain jersey and basic ribs, you can work with slightly heavier yarns. The maroon and brown Kniterate beanie earlier in this post is a good example at NM 4. (The Kniterate folks knitted the original beanie with NM 3.5.) I don’t recommend using heavier yarns if you are new to Kniterate unless you are following a tested pattern. 

NM 6 to NM 8 is still an ideal yarn weight for a double jacquard sweater. If the double jacquard has more than 4 colors, I recommend going with a lighter weight yarn. Knitting a double jacquard with 2 ends of wc 2/20 (NM 5.5) Maine Line from Jagger Spun produced a nice weight fabric for a jacket or a coat. I’m not sure I would try double jacquard on a Kniterate or any 7gg machine with yarn any heavier.

For multiple tucks on a needle, a lacelike look, or both the selection of lighter weight yarn is the key. A single end of Silk City Fiber’s Bambu 12, the bamboo rayon yarn used below is 6300 YPP (approx. NM 12.5). The machine needles easily hold up to 4 loops on a needle with this yarn and stitch pattern pairing.

I enjoy trying different yarns with various stitch patterns. It requires lots of testing (#experiknitting). If you don’t enjoy testing, I recommend finding the one yarn weight and fiber that works for you and developing color or textured stitch patterns based on that one favorite yarn type. There can be so much to explore with a single yarn.

Helpful Links

Coned yarn suppliers (US and Canada)

Coned yarn suppliers (UK and EU)

Abridged yarn conversion chart

Yarn conversion calculator [Crescent Woolen Mills website]

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. (Session 1 includes an introduction to yarn count!) If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

At the end of my last post, I had worked through the first four steps of my project workflow. I’m happy to say that there were no big surprises due to multiple test swatches (Step 2). As promised, the last four steps of the sweater project are detailed here. But first, a review of the original plan:

1. Choose texture(s) and technique(s) to explore.

2. Knit and test swatches. Repeat, as necessary.

3. Make a rough sketch or other flat representation of the sweater.

4. Create a technical design for the sweater pieces. 

5. Knit shaped pieces.

6. Steam block each piece.

7. Seam the sweater and embellish (if part of the design).

8. Wash the sweater and lay it flat to dry.

I continue at Step 5.

Knitting the Sweater Pieces

The sweater has just three pieces — the sideways knitted sleeve-yoke-sleeve piece, the front, and the back. Knitting was very straightforward. The front and back are square. The other piece has increases at the very start and decreases at the end to gently narrow the sleeves above the cuffs.

Due to the drop stitch sleeve texture, fully fashioned shaping would never show and was unnecessary. Keeping the location of increases and decreases away from the very edge can be helpful, if you’re using an automatic linker. Since I was not, the few instances of double stitches on the edges from decreases would not get in the way when seaming. The edge increases and decreases, programmed in the previous step, knitted easily. The neat selvages from the tubular knitted cuff were perfect for a split.

The fact that the edge of each cuff would be different (one — a cast-on, the other — a bind-off) concerned me somewhat. I originally thought I’d do some sort of embellishment on a single cuff to make the difference look more intentional. In the end, the difference didn’t bother me and I kept them looking slightly different.

Steam-Block or Wash

Ordinarily, I would steam-block each sweater piece at this point. I knew the cotton would shrink, and so certain reasons led me straight to washing for the next step:

• The variety of stitch patterns meant that each pattern could shrink in different amounts throwing off the way the pieces fit together.

• Knits usually have a different percentage of horizontal shrinkage versus vertical shrinkage.

• The sideways knitted yoke would share seams with the bottom-up knitted front and back.

I decided it would be necessary to wash and block each piece, before seaming the sweater. I was glad I did, as the pieces would now fit together perfectly for seaming.

Seaming

I do not own a linker. Years ago when I was doing production work, I never constructed or finished the sweaters I knitted. Someone else did. I love watching a skilled, professional linker work. A pro can link a sweater in about one-fifth the time it takes me, and I don’t exaggerate. I haven’t had the chance to practice, and I assume my linking skills remain slow and awkward.

Instead, I used a mattress stitch to connect the front and back to the yoke area and a crochet chain stitch for the side and underarm seams. These were the safe and neat choices for me.

As mentioned above, I didn’t add any embellishment to the cuff. I did use a duplicate stitch in the same yarn at the shoulders to reinforce them, as there were no seams at the shoulders to support the sweater. I then wove in any remaining loose yarn ends.

Finishing

My final step is usually to wash and lay the sweater flat to dry. Since I had already washed the individual pieces before stitching them together, I could now steam the sweater. The Three Blues sweater was done.

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked about my project workflow with Kniterate. From inspiration to finished project, the way I work with the Kniterate differs little from the way I work with other machines.

Before getting started with a design, however, it’s good to know the capabilities of the machine and to be familiar with the properties of the fibers being used. Though it’s almost always possible to make creative use of a machine without knowing everything about its capabilities, knowing what a machine can and can’t do is the best place to start no matter the equipment, as it impacts the design. With each software update and every new yarn and idea, I continue to learn what I can do on the machine. After four years with the Kniterate there are still several techniques I look forward to trying.

I am not responsible for creating a knitwear line at this time and am very happy to have this luxury. I consider my swatches an end product and developing a swatch is my favorite thing. If I am going to design a sweater, I prefer avoiding classic shapes. I have nothing against classic shapes; it’s just that I’ve done so many. For these reasons my process differs from that of someone designing for manufacture. My process is not for small batch or major production. These are the steps I take to create a single sweater that will never be replicated (though I may reuse certain elements). There will be no second and third samples. Grading (sizing) will not come into the picture.

Could this process be used for a proto-sample? Maybe. But I would most likely try to keep efficiencies in mind as I designed, if it were.

My current eight-step process is below, followed by explanations of the first four steps. The remaining four will be in a future post.

Sweater Design Workflow

1. Choose texture(s) and technique(s) to explore.

2. Knit and test swatches. Repeat, as necessary.

3. Make a rough sketch or other flat representation of the sweater.

4. Create a technical design for the sweater pieces. 

5. Knit shaped pieces.

6. Steam block each piece.

7. Seam the sweater and embellish (if part of the design).

8. Wash the sweater and lay it flat to dry.

A Texture or Technique to Explore

Sometimes inspiration comes from nature, and sometimes it’s from human-made structures. For the current project I was prompted by a thought problem, based on a previously knitted texture. An early unexpected swatch left me with a few questions. Why did I get a relatively solid fabric with this lightweight yarn (below) when I was aiming for something airy and lacy? Was it because wool is a little stretchy? This is usually a property I love about wool.

Would knitting this stitch pattern in a cotton fiber with less stretch produce the openwork fabric I envisioned and as I’d produced previously with other machines? Or would I need to add a couple of unworked needles between the occupied needles to get the effect I wanted? There was only one way to find out. And if it works, I’ll knit a sweater out of this one.

Knitting and Testing

Yes, this is what I was going for. At first glance it’s hard to believe the swatches have the same stitch pattern and are knitted on the same machine.

With each project I try to learn something new. With this stitch pattern my big accomplishment was getting the takedown just right when racking with the not-so-strong cotton. I also managed a successful bind-off with this untried mix of three different cotton yarns.

After getting the settings right for the texture, I ended up developing two more stitch patterns I thought would go with the initial design in the same yarn combination. I adjusted settings for interleaving, increases, and decreases. I tried knitting the three yarns with the lighter blue yarn going through the plating slit and then I tried the yarns marled. (I preferred the marl.) Altogether I knitted about a dozen more swatches.

Rough Sketch or Other Representation

I usually make quick rough sketches to remember an idea I have. Once I know I’m making a sweater and have my swatches, I like to arrange them as if they were a sweater to get a better idea of what the final design might be. Photographing the arranged swatches and doing a quick edit helps too. Kind of quaint when you consider the 3d fashion design software available now!

This is what I came up with. Textures are not to scale. Actual sweater will vary.

Not shown: Possible duplicate stitch embellishment in contrasting color at the trailing end of slit for added support with a contrasting duplicate stitch in a small area of the sleeve bind-off to visually offset the touch of contrasting color at the neckline. The second sleeve’s bind-off cannot mirror the first sleeve’s cast-on. The few duplicate stitches at the cuff will make the difference appear more deliberate.

Make a Technical Design

This is where I go back into the Kniterate design app and program the stitches into shaped pieces for the garment in the correct size this time. The swatches I knitted earlier act as gauge swatches.

This sweater will have three pieces — front, back, and a sideways knitted sleeve-yoke-sleeve piece. I did not use DesignaKnit this time. The macros in the Kniterate design app were all I needed for minimal shaping. Increases and decreases shape the drop stitch sleeves. The properties of the sideways flat rib yoke, preceded and followed by a dropped stitch pattern created “shoulders” in the combination swatch I knitted. The sideways yoke will have a vertical slit for the neckline, which will have the full needle rib as support and trim. The cuffs are flat tubular knit.

Next Up

Knitting, steaming, and finishing are on the way. To be continued…

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

Back when I wrote “A Good Tuck” followed by “A Good Tuck, Part 2”, I thought I was done talking about tuck operations for a while. But there have been updates to the Kniterate design app and compiler. Here’s a bit of background:

The original technical information for Kniterate stated that tucks and knit stitches weren’t possible in the same carriage traverse on the same bed. Because the racked pattern at the top of this page has tucks and knits on opposite beds in the same pass, a stitch pattern such as this was never an issue. Though it looks complex, it's rather straightforward. It was the basic jersey tuck fabric that was seemingly impossible.

Turns out, however, that a jersey tuck was indeed possible. Before the first Kniterate shipment, a strategy for knitting on one bed as the other tucked, then transferring the tucks to the knitting bed was discussed in the forum. This theory was correct as seen in the image below.

Though tucks could be managed this way, precise stitch size settings were necessary to keep the tucks, transferred from the rear bed, from dropping. Unlike when a knit drops, a dropped tuck appears as a miss. Sometimes, depending on the yarn, stitch pattern, and which side of the fabric faces the public, the difference between a tuck and a miss can be difficult to spot. Still, a miss is not a tuck. (A few unintentional misses appear in this swatch.) The method sometimes required lots of test swatches.

Jersey Tucks via Kickbacks?

With the early compiler, painting tucks and knits on the same bed in the same carriage pass yielded an error. With an update some time in 2023, tucks and knits in the same row became possible to compile.

Kniterate can now knit the fabric using a kickback, one tuck at a time. What happens is the carriage knits up to the point of the first tuck stitch. The feeder places yarn in the hook of the next needle for the tuck stitch. The carriage does a kickback (a change in direction mid pass). The carriage then continues in its initial direction, knitting the next stitch or series of knit stitches before repeating the tuck/kickback operation for the next tuck loop. It's slow, but it works. The kickback action keeps the tucks in the hooks and the jersey tuck fabric is knitted.

I honestly can't imagine knitting a single piece of an adult sized garment this way. An okay use might be stabilizing a few long floats in a multicolored single jacquard stitch pattern or when there are only a couple of tucks per row.

The Tuck to Knit Command

At the end of 2023, the tuck to knit command was introduced. Though the sequence (at the bottom of the next image) looks complex on the canvas, users need only paint the tuck where it’s required in the jersey design or use a stitch block. The tuck to knit command will insert all operations needed to place the tuck on the front bed with the knit stitches.

These are the operations the tuck to knit macro executes:

1. On the needle where a tuck will appear, the preexisting knit on the front bed is transferred to the rear bed.

2. The next row is knitted with a tuck made on the needle of the transferred stitch.

3. Then both the original knit stitch and the tuck on the rear bed are transferred to the front bed.

Works great for jersey tucks on the front bed.

Tucks and Knits on both Beds in the Same Row?

There is no macro yet for placing tucks and knits on the rear bed in the same row. This would be necessary for more complex rib tuck patterns with or without racking. At some point I may get around to using a combination of tuck to knit with painting in added operations for tucks and knits on both beds (in the same row) and some very fancy stitches.

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. (Session 3 focuses on tucks!) If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

Although textures and intricate stitches are my true favorites, I spent a couple of weeks earlier this year revisiting double jacquard on the Kniterate knitting machine. Double jacquards were the first structure I explored on the Kniterate because, in some ways, jacquards are very approachable. In an earlier, more basic version of the Kniterate design app, programming a double jacquard was very straightforward, but that early version lacked a visualization of what each needle was knitting. 

The new version of the design app is much more robust with a bunch of options. I didn’t explore them all. But I did try out the two ways of knitting 4-color double jacquards — using the birdseye jacquard command and using the load text file pattern command. I also used the load text file pattern command with the reversible option to knit a 2-color reversible pattern. I’ve knitted similar 2-color patterns using the birdseye jacquard command with the invert colors option.

Kniterate’s Birdseye Jacquard

The 4-color swatch below was knitted using the Kniterate birdseye jacquard command. With four colors (Kniterate can knit up to six colors per row.) the backing has a twill structure. That is, each yarn knits the selected pattern needles on the front bed and knits a diagonal pattern with the rear bed needles. With the birdseye command there are several options for edges and methods of knitting. For this swatch I used the “full” algorithm, closed edges, then left the remaining options unticked.

As with most anything you do on a knitting machine, the process was more involved than just making a couple of selections in the design app. In this case the image I worked from had to be prepared. That is, the size and number of colors in the image had to be modified first. I knitted several swatches, some pictured at the top of this page, including a few jacquards that originated in Designaknit 9 with a stripe backing. I played with various image resolutions and sizes, as well as working to optimize stitch size and takedown with yarns of different weights.

Designaknit 9, Jacquard, and Kniterate

If you're comfortable with Designaknit 9 (DAK9), images can be prepared for export to Kniterate using Graphics Studio and Stitch Designer. The file is loaded into Kniterate using the load text file pattern command and then adding the backing. At this time if you’re using 3 or more colors, a stripe backing is the only backing that can be created when working with a jacquard-as-text file from DAK9. (In the Kniterate design app choose BOTH_KNIT for stitch mapping with the Reversible option.) No matter what knitting machine you're using, a stripe backing can get a bit rippled if knitting with four or more colors. By reducing the stitch size on the rear bed, I was able to flatten the backing a bit.

The pattern side of the DAK9 + Kniterate swatch and a cropped version of the text pattern file from DAK9 are below.

Though I’m looking forward to more backings being introduced for double jacquard in the future, I’m excited right now by what’s possible once I begin exploiting the current stripe backing using the DAK9 + Kniterate combo. Before the Export to Kniterate option was available in DAK9, I painted the swatch below stitch by stitch in the design app just to try a rippled effect on the Kniterate. Rippled jacquards of all sorts will be immensely easier with this now available stripe jacquard capability.

Related Links

• First Swatch — My blog post includes jacquard with an earlier version of the design app

• Birdseye Jacquard Border Options — A Kniterate-provided reference with several option combinations

• Designing with Kniterate, Session 2 — Basic Jacqards and Binding Off

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

Last month was Textile Month and if you were following my abbreviated September Instagram journey, you noticed that I participated in the #SeptTextileLove challenge. Each year it's a fun way for textile makers to come together, share their work, and inspire one another. While I did not document every single day, I was truly inspired by others, and I posted as frequently as life and work permitted. A special shoutout to Seam Collective for introducing this challenge. My favorite prompts and posts (with added commentary) from the challenge are below.

Day 1: Introduction

At a first glance, one might think I've taken up designing knitwear for dolls given the tiny sweater I showcased with my first post (above). I seldom knit full size sweaters these days. My passion lies in the process of crafting machine-knitted stitch patterns and fabrics. But why, you might ask, the mini sweater? Keep reading :)

The tiny sweater is fully fashioned in 100% wool, my favorite fiber. Its design features reverse jersey miss for the front and back, complemented by a reverse jersey yoke and sleeves. I knitted 2x1 rib for cuffs and collar. All knitted on my main machine, the Kniterate.

Day 2: Current Project

My current endeavor is centered on updating my course Designing with Kniterate. With the recent upgrade of the Kniterate design app, my course too needed a huge revamp. As of this moment, two course sessions have been rewritten, recorded, and posted. Two more sessions to go!

While the tiny sweater might look sizeable in the picture above, its petite size served me well. And here's the fun part — designing and knitting a tiny sweater was a part of the course update process. This small project allowed me to tweak settings like stitch size and takedown, while I tested and became acquainted with the latest features of the software. And knitting tiny means quicker results. I love that it looks full size in the photo above.

Knowing its tiny size, I’ve imagined a whimsical scenario where the sweater is left in a field, waiting for an elf to stumble upon it on a brisk day. In reality I had tossed it temporarily in a flower box on my New York City rooftop.

In a quirky turn of events, my gauge swatches for this project were larger than the end product itself.

Day 3 Inspiration/Influence

I’ve been a machine knitter for several decades. There have been countless inspirations. My first major influence was my teacher Susanna Lewis. She introduced me to the technique she called "rippled jacquard" in class one day. It's a double knitted multicolored variation of Ottoman stitch. I've been playing with that technique for decades now, first knitting them on a Brother 260. Here are those very first 4-color jacquards.

My first rippled jacquard on the Kniterate was in two colors. In case you were wondering, programming on the computer was a lot easier and way more fun than punching cards for the Brother.

Day 4 Challenge

Stepping out of one's comfort zone can be exhilarating. Leaving the wool zone to venture into the stretch viscose area (courtesy of the folks at Silk City Fibers) was definitely a challenge.

Though I’ve had my share of experiences with a variety of fibers, working with stretch viscose was uncharted territory. Experiknitting this yarn stretched (quite literally!) my skills and patience. I had a huge setback at the start. The yarn on the first part of the cone was not cross-wound and had to be discarded, as it wouldn’t unwind evenly from the cone. The yarn then seemed to knit well, but gradually the stitches became tighter and tighter.

Adjusting Kniterate’s settings was the key. Top and lateral tensions needed to be as loose as possible. Happily, I now have a good project idea for the yarn.

Day 7: Pattern

One of my greatest joys working with yarn and knitting machines, is the endless exploration of pattern. I think of a stitch pattern as a rhythmic expression of creativity and attention to detail. It documents the developer’s journey, method, and style.

I love when I zoom out the canvas in the Kniterate design app and see that the digital representation reflects the reality of the actual swatch. That doesn’t always happen. But I see it with the patterns below.

Developing and knitting swatches remain my favorite activities on a knitting machine, but you may see a garment or two in the future. No guarantee on the size.

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

Last edit 2023 Sept 13

As an early bird backer of Kniterate on Kickstarter I was fortunate to receive my machine in early March 2020. It was delivered to an office about two miles north of my home. The Kniterate folks had asked me to be a Kniterate ambassador. I was excited to both demo the machine and do my design work at the office.

Less than two weeks after my machine was delivered, however, New York went on covid-19 lockdown. I wasn’t to see my machine again for another three months, when I was able to have my machine moved to my home studio.

So in June 2020 I began working with the machine for real. I’d already gotten past the starting challenges those first days at the office. My most embarrassing mistake was having a typo the first time I changed the name of a compiled design file to command.kc. (Too much excitement! Left pinky never hit the “a” on the keyboard!)

So far I haven’t heard of anyone else with the typo issue, but I’ve heard of a few common challenges and questions that new owners have, both from participants in my classes and on the Kniterate support forum.

Once the Kniterate is delivered, the owners are able to follow the Up and Running playlist on YouTube. But then what? Many instructions, explanations, and answers are in the Kniterate manual and on the newly expanded support pages. But even if you’ve read the Kniterate manual and all the support pages, it’s difficult to remember the exact answer when you need it or to figure out where to look when all you want to do is get knitting. Based on the most common issues I’ve heard, I’ve provided a little quick guidance for anyone who’s set up the machine but can’t manage to get the knitting started:

• If the machine won’t turn on, turn the red emergency button clockwise.

• To remove the sampler from the machine, run the warmup file.

• If the Kniterate doesn't recognize the file you saved as “command.kc”, try saving the file as “command”.

• Stabilize the top tensioner and reset the knot detector to clear the yarnT or yarnTop error.

• To clear initial clump errors, be sure the clump detectors are pointed downward.

Keep reading for further explanations and some special tips for domestic machine knitters.

But the Machine Won’t Turn On!

The emergency stop button could be activated. Turn the red emergency button clockwise.

How Do I Get the Sampler Off the Machine?

Knitting without yarn will cause the loops that are on the needles to drop from the needles. Since the machine arrives with knitting already on the machine, run the warmup file without yarn. This will cause the knitting to drop from the needles. Continuing with the warm up will drop the knitting completely from the machine.

Why Won't Kniterate Recognize My Command.kc File?

Provided you haven’t made a typo as I did, it could be your computer is set up to hide file extensions. If this is so, saving a file as “command.kc” is really saving it as “command.kc.kc”, which Kniterate doesn't understand. Changing the name of your file to “command” may work because the .kc extension is already there but hidden.

Clearing the YarnT or YarnTop Error

Once the machine has successfully been turned on, error messages may appear on the display screen. If all the red lights on the top tensioners are on and you receive the yarnT or yarnTop error, these are easily cleared. Either the knot sensors have been tripped or the tension arms are tripping the sensors. Ordinarily this happens when the yarn breaks or the top tension is too loose. The tension arm pops up, the light goes on, and the machine stops. But if you’re not using that particular tension arm at the moment, you’ll need to stabilize it to prevent the arm from any triggering. Gently swing the tension arm below yarn Guide III of top yarn control unit.

Each knot detector should be perpendicular to the floor. If it’s tilted, it’s been tripped during transit or setup. Gently place it back into position as shown below.

A Clump Error Before Getting Started!

You may get a message to make sure all sensors have been cleared. I’m not sure how this happens, but the front, rear, or both clump detectors sometimes, somehow get rotated 180°. Gently rotate the clump detector so the pointy end is pointed down.

Update! [ETA The clump detector has been upgraded since I initially wrote this post and may not have the issue presented here. See the picture below. A picture of the old detector follows the picture of the new and shows the detector’s position on the machine.]

Special Tips for Domestic Machine Knitters

People with machine knitting experience often gain proficiency more quickly than non-knitters. Here are a few machine actions that domestic machine knitters, in particular, should be aware of.

Don’t expect the top tension arm to have as wide a range of movement as the tension arms on domestic machines. As mentioned above, a big swing would trip the sensor indicating loss of top tension. The video below shows how the top tension arm behaves when knitting normally.

Lateral tension control is a feature on the Kniterate that domestic machines lack. It controls the tension when the carriage moves from right to left. With a proper setting you can balance the selvages so that one side is never tighter than the other. The lateral tension arm may spring out a bit when the carriage begins its traverse to the left. Otherwise it remains pretty close to the machine. In the video below yarn 2 is knitting. Yarns 1, 3, and 4 are set up to knit. Lateral tension arms 5 and 6 are not in use and are in their out-of-work positions. Be sure to stabilize any unused tension arms by securing them in the slots close to the machine. This will prevent the yarnS or yarnSide error.

For anyone who’s ever disliked rehanging weights while knitting, the rollers are a wonderful, adjustable part of the machine that controls the takedown of the fabric. Roll settings, as they're called in the design app, have been the biggest challenge for me. Too much roll and the yarn will break; not enough and stitches may drop. The more I’ve knitted, the more I’ve learned that there’s actually a small range of takedown settings that will work for a particular design, and there are a few sequences of settings that work for cast-on, transfers, racking, and bind-off. These settings work together with stitch size. You can observe the takedown starting after the first second of the video below.

Domestic machine knitters used to Japanese-style machines, don’t forget that this is a true double bed machine. You’re probably used to thinking of the rear bed as a main bed, but when you’re ready to begin working in the design app, remember that any needle on either bed can be selected on the Kniterate.

Favorite Articles to Read (or Reread) Before Starting to Knit

You’ll also find these articles on the Kniterate support pages particularly helpful:

• Tensioning

• Positioning the feeders

• Adjusting the rollers

• Machine errors

• Troubleshooting

  • Needles not catching the yarn

• Checklist

My best advice is to take your time getting to know your Kniterate. Enjoy! You’re going to knit some pretty amazing things!

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

My previous post on tucks in machine knitting was certainly not the last word! In this post I focus on these two important points:

• Placement matters when designing with tucks.

• There’s an easy workaround for a jersey tuck pattern on the Kniterate.

Tuck stitches can be created on any type of machine — manual, punch card, and electronic machines. They are often used in combination with other techniques, such as slip stitches, cables, and colorwork, to create complex and intricate patterns. The swatch above, knitted on a Kniterate, combines colorwork and transfers. This Instagram post shows the swatch in progress. The third iteration of the stitch pattern at the top of this page includes fixes for roll distance (takedown), a fix for a bad edge, and an introduction of a second color.

Tuck Placement

Tucks as the last operation in a row are never a good idea. They’ll often become untucked when the next row is knitted. Or they’ll end up poorly formed with too much yarn (and not enough tension) creating an unintentional dropped stitch in a subsequent row.

The image below left shows the knitting sequence I used with tucks on the last needle. One of the bad tucks is highlighted. It produced the bad edge (below center) in this single color version of the stitch pattern. Though the pattern could have been fixed in a few other ways, my fix was to add another wale with protective knit stitches on the rear bed (below right).

Another fact to remember when placing tucks is that the size of the needle hook will only accommodate a limited number of stitches. It’s important not to design with too many tucks on a needle before knitting it off. (In fact, as this time the Kniterate design app will only allow up to 3 tucks on a needle before yielding an error. The tuck workaround for jersey might let you get beyond three tucks, but I wouldn’t attempt it unless my yarn was lighter weight than usual.

What about adjacent tucks? I’m still learning their secrets on the Kniterate! This is something I wouldn’t do with a jersey tuck workaround on a Kniterate. (See below.) I’ve worked with two adjacent jersey tucks on Passap, Silver Reed, Dubied, and Stoll without issue. I know that Brother/Taitexma machines usually fail at this. If I ever attempt adjacent tucks in a rib fabric on a Kniterate, I’ll report back.

What About Tucks in Jersey Fabrics on a Kniterate?

Edited to add 15 Oct 2024 — The Tuck to Knit command, introduced in late 2023, provides an easier and more reliable way of knitting jersey tuck than described below. See “The Tuck to Knit Command” in this post.

I was recently asked by @imaginary_knitworks how to translate a particular tuck pattern for the Kniterate. She had come across the pattern for manual machines. This particular stitch pattern has a tuck followed by 3 knitted stitches. The pattern is repeated for a total of three rows, followed by a row where all needles knit. The repeat of the tuck pattern is then offset by two needles for the next three rows, again followed by a row where all needles knit.

For a punch card machine a single iteration would look like the chart below left with the black dots representing punched holes and the needles that knit. When a Japanese-style punch card machine is set to tuck, the punched out holes (black circles) will knit and the unpunched spaces (white spaces) will tuck. The center image shows how the stitch pattern is translated for Kniterate. On the right is the technical face of the fabric @imaginary_knitworks knitted. (Fabric photo is used with permission.)

The Kniterate can handle much more complex jersey tuck patterns too. The stitch pattern below is a Designaknit jersey tuck pattern translated for the Kniterate by EcoKnitware using the workaround and knitted by @imaginary_knitworks. (Photo is used with permission.)

Finally it’s important to consider the type of yarn you are using when working with tuck stitches. Some yarns are better suited for tuck stitches than others, and the choice of yarn can have a big impact on the final result. For example, smooth yarns tend to work better for tuck stitches than textured yarns, as they are less likely to obscure the pattern. As always, it’s important to experiment with different yarn weights and fibers to see which ones produce the best results for your particular project.

O!

As a Kniterate ambassador I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine. If you’re a Kniterate owner, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes.

Ah, the tuck stitch! You gotta love it. Seriously. We machine knitters only have four basic "stitches" (knit, purl, tuck, and miss). Two of them are actually the same stitch (knit and purl) seen from opposite sides. One of them (the miss, a.k.a slip or skip) isn't really a stitch, though knitting a stitch when you meant to miss the stitch would make a huge difference in most projects.

That leaves the tuck. It’s a versatile stitch that can add dimension when combined with a number of techniques.

Fabrics made with tuck stitches are typically wider and shorter. Knitting tuck loops on a needle over several rows will create added depth. With different color feeds, they can be a great way to hide and reveal colors. 

How does it work? When the carriage passes over a needle selected to tuck, the working yarn is placed in the hook of the needle. The needle doesn’t lift high enough for the preexisting stitch on the needle to slip behind the latch. The old stitch doesn’t knit off the needle, so both the stitch and the new yarn (the tuck) remain in the hook. (See the green tuck loop in the center of this animation on YouTube.)

Tucks with Ribs

Combining tucks with ribs is a great way to add even more depth to a rib. Tucks can also add surprising details, like pops of color peeking through, as with the swatch at the top of this page, a two-color cardigan stitch variation knitted on the Kniterate.

Tucks combined with plating add depth to the rib structure in the stitch pattern above. The tuck is an awesome master of disguise. Because the loop sits on the needle without being pulled through the previous stitch, the yarn is essentially hidden or tucked away. My tuck class for the Kniterate presents both of these tuck rib patterns, as well as the basic “rules” of tuck stitches and how they can be used to create advanced patterns.

Jersey Tucks

[E.T.A. With updates to the design app, a new and easier method for creating jersey tucks with Kniterate is now available. Please see An Even Better Tuck.]

The jersey and tuck combination is not straightforward on the Kniterate, since knits and tucks cannot be knitted on the same bed in the same carriage pass. There is no rule against making tucks on the opposite bed, however, and then transferring them to the knitting bed.

Tucking on an empty needle will not validate in the Kniterate design app. But since a knit stitch on an empty needle will appear as a tuck loop, tucks can be placed on an empty needle by painting a knit stitch. (Think of a double bed cast-on row. The zigzag first row is really made up of tucks.) Transfer the “tucks” to the knitting bed with the next carriage traverse and you've got tucks and knits on the same bed. It's important to make the stitch size for the loop that will be transferred as small as possible for best results. The third class in my course series for the Kniterate covers tucks. Though the class focuses on rib tuck structures (where the Kniterate excels) this workaround for jersey tucks is also provided.

With other knitting machines, incorporating tucks in a jersey is quite common. On a single bed, you can use tucks to create pictures in relief, for color work, or to create textures. The example below left shows an offset repeat in tonal colors, knitted on a Passap DM80 (though it could be knitted on a Kniterate with the method described in the previous paragraph). With single bed fabrics, you can see that it’s often the reverse or purl side where the tuck loop really shows. 

Mosaic Knitting

Mosaic knitting can be made with tucks or miss stitches. The swatch above right is a tucked mosaic. It’s a fascinating technique because the drawn or punched pattern looks nothing like the fabric. The swatch is and example of how tucks can be combined with striping to create maze-like designs. This stitch pattern could not be knitted on a Kniterate, but a similar looking swatch could be knitted using the miss stitch method.

Tucks with Racking

The swatch below illustrates racking with tucks. Knitted on a Kniterate, racking in stitch pattern development is a technique I plan to present in a future class. A fair bit denser than previous samples, it demonstrates the potential of using racking with tucks to create small, textured stitch repeats. 

O!

If you’re a Kniterate user, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes. (Session 3 focuses on tucks!) If you’re not an owner yet, I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine.

With double jersey jacquard, I consider this hat a Kniterate special. I first made this pattern in the 80s on a Studio Bulky 8 machine. I keep making it because it’s a great way to make use of gauge swatches and failed trials that most knitters have lying around. The pattern actually first began as a failed gauge swatch. I was taught to make them big, 100 needles x 100 courses. At this gauge my rectangle is considerably larger. If you plan to knit this as a way of using up test swatches, you may need bigger swatches than you’re used to making. 

Of course, you can also just make a rectangle of fabric to use intentionally for this hat construction. This is what I did in this version. In fact, it’s the hat I promised to make for my husband two years ago, soon after I got the Kniterate. I like the hat so much, I’ve decided to make one for myself. I hope it doesn’t take two years for me to finish mine though! 

Using the Kniterate knitting machine, I took advantage of its easy to knit double jersey jacquard with colors inverted on the reverse side. The feature makes for a nice upturned brim. My jacquard is 2-color, where each feed consists of 2 ends in different colors (4 colors in all), adding depth to the color arrangement. You could translate this to any double bed domestic machine and get similar results. It doesn’t need to be a double jersey jacquard, as long as the stitch pattern works well on both sides. 

For best fit the top two and bottom two inches of the hat rectangle are a bit tighter. This is done either by reducing stitch size as I did at the bottom of the hat or by changing to a miss stitch pattern as I did at the top. There’s no cutting or gathering in the construction, just folding and sewing. The back seam is hidden mostly by the vertical stripe design.

Knitted with 100% wool, this one may be getting a little too warm for wear right now, but perhaps this is my chance to start experimenting with or short row lace and racked, lacy cottons. I have ideas.

O!

As a Kniterate ambassador I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine. If you’re a Kniterate owner, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes.

Plating is a wonderful effect I never seem to use often enough. It’s also a very easy technique with the Kniterate.

Generally, plating requires a separate guide, hole, or slit in the yarn feeder to hold the plating yarn in a constant relationship to the main yarn. The yarns knit simultaneously. Since the relationship between the yarns remains the same throughout the knitting, interesting effects can be achieved, especially on rib fabrics.

On the Kniterate the two cotton yarns are threaded through separate tensioners then come together at the guide above the lateral tension unit. The yarns are separated again with the peach yarn threaded through regular knitting hole and the yellow yarn passing through the plating slit, as seen in the picture above.

For my peach and lemon sherbet sweater, I used the technical back as the public side . The peach yarn is heavier than the lemon and possibly increases the peach flash through effect on the public side. Single tuck loops on alternate rows give a little added dimension to the peach ribs.

Though I totally enjoyed the catch stitch hand embellishment between selected ribs (seen more clearly in the picture at the top of this page), I admit to being pleased with the minimal amount of shaping required for this boatneck drop shoulder sweater.

O!

As a Kniterate ambassador I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine. If you’re a Kniterate owner, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes.

NOTE: Shortly after I posted this, I learned that Susanna E. Lewis had passed away. Susanna was a fiber artist, an author, and my teacher at Parsons School of Design in the late 80s. We were recently in touch again and she enjoyed hearing about Kniterate. She sent me her Knitting Lace book that prompted me to explore lace knitting a little more in depth. I will miss her.

I was recently asked two questions about knitting on the Kniterate from two different people. The first person, who has access to a Kniterate, wanted to know if hand knitting charts could be converted to instructions for the Kniterate. The second, who is considering a Kniterate, asked for more details after reading my earlier post on knitting pointelle. I’ll attempt to answer both questions in this post.

As far as converting a hand knitting chart to instructions for the Kniterate, I think it pretty much depends on how complex the stitch pattern is and one's understanding of hand knitting. Though I’m not a handknitter, I’m familiar with the basics as they relate to machine knitting. A hand knitted stitch translates to a knit stitch on the front bed as the fabric comes off the machine. A purl stitch is the same as knitting on the rear needle bed of the machine. A slipstitch is a miss stitch on a machine or what happens when a needle doesn’t knit. Knitting one below in handknitting is created by tucking on a machine.

There are often ways to make handknit stitch patterns on a machine, especially if using hand manipulation on a hand-operated machine. Some of these manipulations cannot be converted for machines that are not hand-operated. Other operations will translate well. Though a basic hand knitted cable is the same cable on the machine, for instance, it takes a good understanding of stitch size, stitch transfer operations, pitch, and roll distance to program cables for a Kniterate.

Then there’s lace. Stitch size and the other parameters must still be tested, but many of the charts seem to convert to Kniterate instructions in a straight forward manner.

I’m using Pattern 60 in Susanna E. Lewis’s Knitting Lace. The book is an amazing collection of 91 knitted lace patterns from a mid-19th century lace sampler. Besides the written instructions for the stitch patterns, Susanna provides charts and a “Machine Knitters’ Glossary” with instructions for doing hand manipulations on a hand-operated single bed machine.

When knitting on a true double bed domestic machine or on any machine with automatic transfers, however, it’s generally easier to do the main lace knitting on the front bed (FB). Knitting on the FB makes it easier to read and use a hand knitting chart.

Essential in the book is a description of the knitting associated with each hand knitting symbol. These descriptions are located in the “Glossary of Symbols and Techniques” section. Some descriptions and illustrations were of complex hand knitting stitches (e.g. wrapped stitches), which can’t be knitted on automatic machines. This info was very useful because it helped me decide which patterns I did not want to knit on the Kniterate.

As mentioned earlier, the machine knitting section is for knitting on a rear bed and so these illustrations showed the technical back of the lace as it’s knitted. The illustrations were clear enough for me to imagine the stitches from the other side. I didn’t use Susanna’s “streamlined decreases”, which ignore the order of multiple stitches on a machine needle. Since the Kniterate has back to front and front to back transfers in both directions plus racking capability, I could control the order of the each stitch on a needle for this stitch pattern.

I chose Pattern 60 because there are never more than two stitches at a time on a needle (two stitches knitted together) and there are never left leaning and right leaning stitches in the same row. I wanted it easy and safe!

Converting the Symbols to Kniterate Instructions

This is row 1 on Pattern 60 from Knitting Lace.

All the white squares are knitted on the front bed (FB) needles. The grey are purls knitted on the rear bed (RB). Multiple transfers must be executed before knitting and purling this row.

All the left leaning line symbols (including both \ and ⋋) indicate that once the transfers for this course are completed, the stitches in positions 4, 5, 6, and 7 lean to the left. The circle at needle #8 is an eyelet; that is, there will be no stitch on needle #8 once transfers are completed. Here is the sequence I used to prepare and knit row 1:

Edited 9 Dec 2022 for Kniterate editor v0.2.22; edited 5 Oct 2024 for Kniterate editor v1.0.12

1. Transfer stitches on needles #4-8 from FB to the RB.

2. Transfer stitches on needles #5-8 from RB to FB one position to the left. The rear bed racks one position to the left and the stitches are transferred to the front bed. These racking and transferring steps are handled by painting the downward left arrow with the 1. (Note that after racking, the four stitches that were originally on FB needles 5 through 8 are now opposite FB needles 4 through 7.) No adjustments for racking are used in the options columns when the diagonal arrows are used.

3. Transfer the stitch on needle #4 from RB to FB. The rear bed racks back to the neutral position. Stitch #4 is placed on top of the stitch transferred from needle #5.

4. Make one pass of the carriage set to knit both beds of needles. Needles #1-3 will knit. Needle #4 will knit 2 stitches together. Needles #5-7 will knit. A yarn over is created on needle #8. Needles #9-12 will purl on the rear bed. This completes row 1 of the stitch pattern.

The next row, as well as all the even rows of Pattern 60, is a simple pass of the carriage with all needles knitting. Pattern 60 has 16 rows altogether.

Above is a screenshot of Pattern 60 rows 1 and 2 in the current version of the Kniterate design app. When knitting the stitch pattern, the machine will not transfer the stitches from adjacent needles. On rows with more than one transfer, every other stitch will transfer on one carriage pass. The remaining stitches transfer on the next pass.

The wool yarn I used is wc 2/12 (Nm 6.77) and very springy. After steaming, there is good depth to the stitch pattern as in the picture at the top of this page, looking almost like a cable. The combination of springy wool and this stitch pattern make the rib element prominent and the straight knitted stitches lean toward the place where two stitches are knitted together, a look I love. Stretched at the side edges and pinned almost flat, you can see rows 1 and 2 in the red rectangle below.

At some point it will be interesting to explore more complex lace patterns from the book and work with other yarns.

O!

As a Kniterate ambassador I’d be happy to give you a virtual tour of the machine. If you’re a Kniterate owner, you may be interested in my prerecorded Designing with Kniterate classes.