Your YARN is the Problem — Part One: Hand Knitting Yarn Prep

You might have encountered one of these problems before: the yarn stopped flowing through the tension unit and the tension wire bent all the way towards the carriage and needle bed, the carriage jammed, an entire row knitted at a much tighter tension than you wanted, the yarn broke. 

If you are experiencing problems when you machine knit with hand knitting yarn, your yarn preparation (or lack of) might be the problem. Here are some things to consider about different yarn put-ups and the ways they can affect your tension while knitting. 

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Hank
Must be wound into ball or cake before use

Donut
I absolutely hate the donut put-up, so I’m going to rant about it!

It does nothing other than look pretty on a shelf. Hand knitting will cause it to fall apart. Putting it in your bag after purchase will cause it to fall apart. Looking at the outer layer cross-eyed will start it on its slinking, unwinding, collapsing journey!

Unstable put-up
Uneven tension
Needs to be contained
Flops around

Yarn Ball
Can roll away
Needs to be contained in a basket or bucket
Yarn can get caught under the weight of large balls causing uneven tension

Skein
Center pull often results in “yarn barf” and/or collapsing skein
Needs to be contained
Outside pull means flopping/traveling/rolling skein and uneven tension as yarn enters machine
Outside pull means stopping after a row to pull out enough yarn to knit a row every time to avoid flopping

Cake
Manual-recommended put-up for Silver Reed LK150
Flat top and bottom
Should not roll
Most even tension of all put-ups mentioned so far
Require ball winder and swift

Cone
Best put-up for machine knitting
Even tension
Large yardage
Not a commonly used put-up for hand knitting yarn

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You aren’t an awful knitter if you don’t knit from yarn cakes or cones! But they are the best put-ups that are least likely to cause issues.

I’ve knitted center pull from a skein before. Everything turned out fine, but I did have to stop and fix a few tension issues as I knitted.

I knit from yarn balls all the time, especially for scrap yarn. Sometimes they jump out of their container when I’m knitting quickly and I have to chase them down. It happens.

Knitting from less than ideal put-ups just means I accept I might encounter problems and have to fix them.

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A Note on Yarn Cakes

Ideally, yarn winders should wrap around the sides of the cake and not on top or bottom.

If your yarn winder wraps the yarn around the sides and over the top and bottom, the cake will flop and turn like a yarn ball and add additional tension as it does. This is not an ideal cake for machine knitting, but you can make it work by pulling yarn out periodically so it doesn’t have to flop and roll.

Flopping that happens to an “ideal” cake that isn’t wound over the top/bottom likely means there is not enough lead length of yarn from the cake to the tension unit to the carriage (such as the yarn sitting on the table instead of the floor behind the machine), so be sure to give your yarn ample space as it feeds into the tension unit.

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Finding Cone Yarn

There are many places to find cone yarns online, but PLEASE visit your Local Yarn Shop first!

If they don’t have any cones, just ask. Most shops are more than happy to custom order yarns. (Just remember some distributors have minimum orders and it might take a bit to meet that number!) And if you don’t have a yarn ball winder and swift, most LYS will wind the yarn you purchase there into cakes for you.

My Local Yarn Shop, Get Stitchin’ in Tulsa, OK just became an Ashford dealer! I don’t weave or spin much, but do you know what comes on cones? Weaving yarn!

(Disclosure: I teach classes, sell Silver Reed knitting machines, and sell my work at Get Stitchin’, but I’m not paid to promote it. I mention it because I both sell and shop there.)

Carrico’s Creative Corner in Bartlesville, OK, my mentor Pamela Carrico’s shop, has a wonderful array of cone yarns as well as hand knitting yarns. Pamela sells cone yarn by the pound, which is a great option for knitters who don’t want to commit to an entire cone and thousands of yards of one color. She also often has new old stock of discontinued yarns that were made especially for machine knitting.

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In the end, the amount of preparation you do when machine knitting with hand knitting yarn is about what you’re willing to put up with. You may be willing to deal with a ball rolling around or unwinding from the outside of a skein before knitting every row, but if you find yourself constantly encountering tension issues and uneven knitting, look to your yarn put-up and preparation first.

Thanks for coming along on my machine knitting journey! How do you prep your yarn? Are you strict about it, or do you knit from whatever you feel like using at the time? Let me know in the comments!