Tag: knitting

resources

Looking for Machine Knitting Media? Pin it!

elyknits

Sometimes you just want to scroll the internet and see what others are doing with their knitting machines. You might use Facebook groups or your Instagram feed, but what about Pinterest?

I’ve used Pinterest since it began in 2010. I planned my wedding by making mood boards and plotted out interior designs for our first house. Now I use it for nail art inspiration, bullet journaling spreads, hair styling tips, and yes, machine knitting.

Pinterest’s machine knitting recommendations for me

I’ve been making stockings lately, so I searched Pinterest for punchcard patterns.

search results for machine knitting punchcards

Not bad! But I should’ve specified “Christmas punchcards”….

Sometimes Pinterest gets hand knitting, machine knitting, crocheting, and other yarn crafts confused, but that’s okay!

They’re at least knitting charts!

Don’t be upset if your search brings up hand knitting or even cross stitch charts! Remember that you can hand transfer lots of lace patterns and hand select colorwork patterns, so even if a chart wasn’t originally meant for the knitting machine, you can still put it to good use!

You can check out my Machine Knitting board on Pinterest here and follow it if you want.

my machine knitting board

What sites do you use to find machine knitting inspiration or patterns? I’m always on the lookout for new inspiration!

Knitting Machines, News, Seminar

Spring Machine Knitting Seminar

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It’s been a while, everyone!

I hope you’ve been doing well!

If you follow me on Instagram (@ely.knits), you’ll know that I recently hosted my first machine knitting seminar in Tulsa at Get Stitchin’!

“Fit, Fabric, and Finishing” was our theme on October 15. Pamela Carrico of CMO Designer Knits showed us ways to tailor knits to be truly custom, well-finished items and reminded us that we make fabric and can make so much more than just sweaters on our machines.*

Things went so well that we decided to schedule the Spring Seminar already!

**Important Date Change!**

Updated February 2023

Join us Saturday, April 1, 2023 from 10AM-4PM for a machine knitting seminar featuring Oklahoma’s own fiber artist Pamela Carrico!

Pamela has over 44 years of experience in fiber arts and creates one-of-a-kind handmade pieces that have traveled the world. 

The spring machine knitting seminar is brought to you and sponsored by ELY Knits. (Me!)

Click the date above or this link to go to Get Stitchin’s website and sign up! We’ll be teasing out more info as we get closer to seminar, so stay tuned!

First sneak peek:

Do you know what a body block is?

*If you missed it and would like to purchase a copy of the patterns we learned, check Pamela’s Etsy store, where PDF downloads will be available for purchase soon.

If you were wondering where in the world I’ve been and why there haven’t been any posts in ages, here’s the personal stuff:

We moved!

Before, I had the smallest bedroom in the house stuffed full of my knitting, but now we’re on an acreage and I HAVE A STUDIO! I’m so excited!!

It’s still a huge mess even though it’s been six plus months since we moved… but things are beginning to shape up.

I have shelving for my vintage magazine and book collection and a wall of pegboard for my cones and hanks. My to-be-cleaned-and-restored machines have their own shelf in a workroom so I can keep any chemicals separate from the yarn.

It still seems unreal to have a studio, but I have one with two rooms now! And running water! (If this place had a bathroom I’d get a mini fridge and a cooking burner and just live here. Sorry husband…)

Eventually I’ll teach private lessons in the studio, but for now, I’m keeping things at Get Stitchin’ in Tulsa.

I’ve had two surgeries since the move, and recovery has taken a while.

One of the surgeries fixed a tendon issue in my thumb and wrist, but I still have numbness in my hand from the nerve being moved to reach the problem. That should continue to fade as time passes. (See this post for some background on my hands.)

While I’m pretty much recovered from my surgeries, I still have some specialists left to see for a more systemic health issue, so it may be a while before I return to my previous schedule. Even though I hate to, I don’t feel like I can 100% commit to regular posts yet.

But I will still do my best!

You can keep up with things I think are interesting but perhaps not blog post worthy on my Instagram @ely.knits.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you soon!

News

What a year!

elyknits

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year, everyone!

I hope you’re spending the end of the year how you want, where you want, with whomever you want.

From launching ELY Knits as a site to attending my first in person market in years, a lot of things have happened this year. I didn’t accomplish everything that I wanted to, but I was able to do some unexpected things like team up with a local store to become a machine dealer and team up with some local fiber artists to make some exciting projects for 2022.

I’m looking forward to next year. If you’d like to see specific techniques or yarns, as always, drop your suggestions in the comments below or send me a note through the contact page.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me on this machine knitting journey.

Good luck on your last minute knitting, and may you always win at yarn chicken.

hand knitting, Knitting Machines

Knitting with Hand and Wrist Pain: My Journey to Machine Knitting

elyknits

This post includes my own experiences with pain and hand and machine knitting and should not be considered medical advice. If you have a concern about knitting-related pain, you should seek help from a medical professional.

More Common Than You Think

Over the years I spent working in a yarn shop, I heard a lot of things about customers knitting less or even stopping their hand-based yarn hobbies altogether because of hand pain.

Quite a few of our shop patrons experienced occasional or chronic hand pain, and their responses to it varied as much as their yarn projects.

Some customers swore off small yarns and began knitting with bulky yarns on large needles. Others blamed the bulk of large projects and decided to only work on small, lightweight pieces.

Some knitters swore by compression gloves to remedy their pain. Others relied on copper bracelets and rings to help with blood flow to their fingers. Some made lotions and balms with different oils to soothe and relax tired hands. One customer even suggested certain yoga poses to help release arm and hand tension.

Whether it’s arthritis, carpal tunnel, or tendinitis, knitting is a repetitive motion, so it does carry a bit of a risk of injury or aggravation with too much of it.

But what do you do when the pain gets to be too much and you can’t knit more than a row or two without stopping to rest or reaching for some medical pain relief?

If you’ve ever seen a knitting machine, you may think it could be the answer to keep you knitting.

Pushing a carriage across a needle bed to make a blanket or turning a crank to make a sock seems like such a simple motion compared to the steps you complete to make a stitch in hand knitting.

Knitting that quickly and simply must be super easy, right?

Life with Hand Pain

I’ve had issues with the joints in my hands and arms since I was a child. They gave me trouble with things from learning piano to writing class notes.

I learned to hand knit in college, but I didn’t ever knit long enough in one sitting to notice anything past the usual pain, swelling, and weakness flaring up, and it did that anyway with normal daily activity.

A doctor first noticed a bit of minor arthritis in one finger in my mid-20s, but she wasn’t able to pin down a reason for the rest of the weakness, inflammation, or swelling of my hands and arms.

She told me I should just stop knitting.

That advice came right as I was launching an Etsy shop and beginning to attend craft shows. It was a day ruiner, that’s for sure.

I loved knitting, and I wasn’t about to give it up, so I decided to follow the advice of my fellow knitters and tried stretches and compression gloves along with frequent breaks to alleviate my hand pain. If my hands were swollen and weak that day, I wore my braces and read knitting magazines or browsed ravelry instead.

I tried taking over the counter medicines and went back to the doctor again, but she still said there wasn’t anything wrong with me other than that small spot of arthritis. At this point, I was barely able to hold a pen or a fork, let alone knit.

I randomly saw a machine knitting video on Youtube. I don’t think I knew knitting machines existed before 2017, to be honest, but I finally started considering one a solution that could keep me knitting.

Hand Involvement in Machine Knitting

If you think machine knitting is only pushing a carriage across a needle bed, you’d be incorrect.

True, that is the most basic action in machine knitting, but you use your hands a lot.

If you have a manual machine like the SilverReed LK-150 or Brother KX 350 (click here to read a post about cleaning and testing this machine), you do everything besides knitting the stitches themselves by hand.

Needle selection is by hand. Transferring stitches for increases, decreases, lace, or cables is done by hand with specialized tools. Any decent cast on with a finished edge is done by hand wrapping or using the latch tool. Bind offs? By hand. Seaming? Unless you buy a linking machine, you’re doing it by hand.

And that’s the thing. It is quite easy to remove the majority of the hand manipulated element of machine knitting, but it isn’t cheap. You have to buy specific machines or accessories to lessen your manual involvement.

You can hand select and do things manually on all machines, but punchcard and electronic machines have settings that enable a lot less handwork. Those extra functions come with extra cost. They are more expensive, sometimes double the cost of the manual machines mentioned above, and some require buying even more accessories to accomplish what would otherwise be manual tasks.

Lace and intarsia specialty carriages can be over $100 each. Buying a second bed to knit ribbing can run about $500. Whether you buy used or new, you’re still looking at a range from a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand invested in removing the manual element from your knitting.

Adapting to Painful Hand Knitting with Machine Knitting

I still hand knit. It is what started me down the fiber road, after all. But I cannot knit as much as I used to. I’m down to about a tenth of what I once could do. Moving my hands in certain ways seems to flare things up more than others, so I’ve written off entire stitch patterns if they hurt.

It definitely feels awkward as an instructor to say I physically can’t do that knitting stitch other than showing how it’s done once or twice, but awkward is a better feeling than pain. I tell my students as long as they’re forming the stitches correctly, there’s not really a “wrong” way to knit. But if it hurts, that’s knitting the wrong way.

Some days I wake up and my hands feel fine. Others I can barely hold the spoon to eat my morning oatmeal. Checking how my hands are functioning is a part of my morning routine now.

I modified how I hand knit so that most of the motion comes from my better hand, my left. My right hand is basically a needle stabilizer. I can knit this way with braces on my hands, so I still get a little bit of hand knitting accomplished on painful days.

Moreso than trying to knit wearing my braces, I look for ways to blend hand my hand and machine knitting together. I figure out what parts I can hang on a machine so I can save my hands. Does the pattern call for 12″ of stockinette stitch? That’s going on the machine. Is there a complicated lace repeat on a hem? I’ll do that by hand with plenty of breaks on a good day or I’ll try to find a similar punchcard lace pattern on the machine.

I can operate almost every function of a punchcard machine on all but the worst pain days. I can push a machine carriage and change lever- and button-based settings; I can use transfer tools, the latch tool, and thread the machine’s tension unit. I’m not going to choose something with a lot of hand manipulation like cables or hand transferred lace on a bad pain day, but that’s easy enough to stay away from.

Return to Teaching

I had to pause teaching classes and working at the yarn shop when the pandemic started, and after the shop closed earlier this year, I was unsure if I’d teach hand knitting again.

I’m currently working with Get Stitchin’ in Tulsa, OK to offer classes and SilverReed machine sales through the shop. It’s a dream come true for me to be teaching again and connecting with the fiber community once more, but working around my hands sometimes feels iffy.

When you check the Classes page on Get Stitchin’s site, you’ll see hand knitting classes. With me. I’m not stopping, but I am adjusting.

I have to give myself much more time to compete a project. What would previously have taken me less than a month might now take three. Trying to have a sample done in time for in-store class advertising has been a little rough on my hands. Instead of the larger projects I once wanted to do with multiple-part classes, I’ve chosen smaller things that teach and reinforce skills and concepts but do it in a more compact project.

Worth It

Investing my time and money into knitting machines has enabled me to continue on my fiber journey. I didn’t have to give up my creative passion, and that alone makes machine knitting priceless to me. In addition, I’ve been able to speed up my design process because knitting a piece on the machine takes so much less time than doing it by hand. Making mistakes and ripping them out is not necessarily an uncommon occurrence for me when I’m working on the machine, but making those mistakes has given me more confidence in my ability to create and fix designs.

Knitting machines can’t always produce the exact same fabrics that hand knitting can, but there are analogs and even more stitch options to produce all kinds of wonderful fabrics that would be nearly impossible, or at the very least extremely impractical, to do with hand knitting.

I did manage to get some answers regarding my hands this year with a new doctor, but other than steroid shots, there’s not much that has been able to help. There are a couple surgical options in my future, but one always has to weigh risks and benefits with them. How long will I have to stop knitting to recover, and is it a permanent solution? I’m cautiously optimistic that I may finally be able to eat, write, and hand knit pain free someday.

Have you experienced yarncraft-related hand pain? What did you do to combat it? Did you turn to machine knitting to stay creative? Are you considering a knitting machine to give you more flexibility in your knitting? Let me know in the comments below, and, as always,

Thank you for coming on this knitting journey with me.

Knitting Machines

Cleaning a Brother KX 350 – Start to Finish

elyknits

There aren’t really many entry level or hobby options for knitting machines in production these days. Your options are the SilverReed LK 150 6.5mm mid-gauge or … nothing. That’s it. The LK 150 is the only hobby plastic machine still in production.

The LK 150 is a great machine, and I love mine, but the $440.00 MSRP is a lot of money for something you might not be certain about.

BUT if you look to the used or vintage market, you might be surprised with what you can find.

The Brother KX 350 is another mid-gauge plastic bed hobby knitting machine. Many are still floating around in good condition. All they need is a little love, and they’ll be knitting for you for years.

The KX 350 was made in Japan and has 130 needles where the SilverReed LK 150 has 150 and is produced in China. The KX 350’s needles are 7mm apart where the LK 150’s are 6.5mm. The KX 350 cannot “officially” plate yarn, but there is a trick to make it work, where the LK 150 has a yarn plating function built into the carriage. Both machines are manual where the user selects all needles, and both machines can use most hand knitting yarns.

a LOT of knitting machines and my little helper, Pete

I recently purchased a lot of Brother and Studio machines from an estate sale. Luckily for me, their former owner was a knitting machine dealer and used and maintained her machines well. They’ve been sitting for a couple years, but the buildup on the machines is much less than what I’ve found on other vintage machines that sat for over a decade before I cleaned them.

Other than the accessories and pieces being stored by type (tension units with tension units, cast on combs with cast on combs), the recent machine lot is in good shape.

This makes the restoration process for the majority of these machines more of a simple cleaning rather than replacing and repairing parts like my on-hold Brother KH 260 restoration with a broken patterning unit. That one has to wait until I can procure parts, which is one of the downfalls of working with out of production machines versus current models.

The Cleaning Process

Inventory the Machine

Before I started cleaning, I downloaded the KX 350’s manual from Machine Knitting Etc. I checked parts and accessories against the manual so I could order any missing items as soon as possible.

The accessories for my newly-acquired machines are scattered throughout machine cases and random boxes, but this KX 350 was only missing a 1×2 transfer tool. That’s not too bad, and it could still pop up somewhere.

Cleaning Supplies

  • LPS 1
  • LPS Food Grade H1
  • Dawn dish soap
  • Lukewarm water
  • Toothbrush
  • Clean paintbrush
  • Old towels
  • Blue paper towels
  • Mineral Spirits
  • Glass jar with lid
  • Sponge with Brillo pad side
  • Washi tape

Cleaning the Needle Bed

I started by removing the needles from the needle bed and storing them in my glass jar.

I attempted to pull the old sponge strip out of the machine in one piece, but it had other ideas.

quite dead sponge strip bits

The old sponge strip had no memory or spring left to it, and the places where the needles rested were clearly visible.

nicely dusted but still a bit dirty needle-free KX 350 needle bed

Once the needles were out of the way, I used my clean paint brush to brush away as much dust and dirt as possible. I was surprised at just how much cleaner the machine was with just a little bit of dusting.

I used a paintbrush because the bristles were long enough to reach into the needle slots where the toothbrush couldn’t. As long as your brush doesn’t shed bristles, you should be fine. You don’t want to have to fish out bristles in addition to the rest of your cleaning.

I filled a bowl with tepid water and a little bit of Dawn dish soap. I used a lightly wetted toothbrush to scrub away the dirt and grime.

Emphasis on the lightly.

The bottom of the needle bet still hosts metal parts, so I was careful not to over-wet the toothbrush and slop water everywhere. I worked in small areas and wiped things dry as I went. I did scrub the metal sections, but I was very careful to thoroughly dry them.

I could have removed the metal support sections and cleaned them separately, but they were not dirty enough to warrant it in my opinion. There was no rust to remove.

bottom view of the KX 350’s needle bed with metal support parts and spring-loaded clamp holder

If you are cleaning a KX 350 and decide to remove the metal support pieces, I recommend taking pictures of each support piece and its screws individually before and after removal and keeping them in labeled bags to ensure you don’t lose screws and parts. You’re always better off safe than sorry when working with vintage machines since parts have iffy availability.

For any remaining grime in the needle slots, I sprayed a tiny bit of LPS 1 and scrubbed it with the toothbrush. According to Ask Jack at The Answer Lady, LPS 1 is safe on plastic bed machines as well as metal machines, but I think it’s best to attempt soap and water first.

needle bed before / after

After I finished the needle bed, I took my toothbrush and soapy water to the carriage and wiped the metal carriage plates and accessories with an LPS 1 wipe. (I ordered my LPS 1 wipes from EMI Supply.)

I placed a strip of washi tape on each accessory and put a matching strip on the needle bed. I have quite a few machines, especially mid-gauge and bulky, with accessories that all look about the same at a glance, so I make sure to give each machine its own washi tape code.

Replacing the Sponge Strip

You should always replace the sponge strip in a new-to-you machine unless the seller explicitly states they have installed a new sponge strip and you have checked that it is new. Trust but verify!

The sponge strip/sponge bar is vital to your machine knitting fabric properly.

All that said, replacing the sponge strip in a plastic hobby machine is for. the. birds. This vital process is tedious at best. Give me a metal machine’s sponge bar any day!

The KX 350 has the added insult of these bars across the sponge strip channel.

Don’t worry, I cleaned the grimy bits out of the sponge strip channel!

I used a transfer tool to help scrunch and inch the sponge strip through the channel and under the bars, but any narrow, blunt-tipped object would probably work. I tried to pull the strip with tweezers initially, but it tore the end of the strip and began to tear at the part under the channel bar. I don’t recommend pulling the sponge strip through.

Sponge strips are longer than the needle bed, so I simply snipped off the ugly end, but it would have been fine to leave it as the ends are not actively supporting any needles during knitting.

freshly inserted sponge strip

Needle Cleaning

Upon closer inspection, quite a few needles from this machine had rust on them. A few latches were rusted in the open position, but the majority of rust was in small patches along the length of the needle between latch and butt and would not affect their functionality in knitting. It seems like these needles had some sort of metal plating on them that had just worn off.

While I worked on cleaning the needle bed, I let the needles soak in some mineral spirits in a sealed glass jar.

bits started to come off the needles as soon as I filled the jar

After I finished the needle bed and carriage, I sat outside on my porch and wiped down each needle with blue towel and checked the latch function. It was another task on the tedious end of machine cleaning, but it’s worth it to do it all at once rather than pulling supplies out again mid-test knitting.

I used the toothbrush and a sponge Brillo pad to remove rusty spots, but I think steel wool might have worked better in hindsight.

A couple needles had rough formerly-rusted parts on the actual hook of the latch that could catch on yarn, so I soaked them again overnight and scrubbed them as best as I could before returning them to the needle bed.

I sprayed the needle bed slots with H1 Food Grade lubricant and made sure to wipe off any excess from the top of the bed before reinstalling the needles. I gave the carriage a spray of H1 as well to prepare it for knitting.

Brother KX 350, cleaned and assembled, mid test knit

Test Knitting

With the bed freshly cleaned and assembled, I started test knitting. I used leftover Piropo, a vintage acrylic Millor yarn.

When testing a machine, I believe you should knit using every single function the machine has available. If your machine has a punch card, you should test the punch card functions. If you have a lace carriage, you should test the lace carriage.

For the KX 350, testing means knitting stitches that use the part and hold levers on the side of the carriage for tuck and skip stitches along with some fair isle colorwork. Testing at different tensions is important, too.

Final Thoughts

I bought this lot of machines intending to clean, refurbish, and resell most of them, but working with this KX 350 has me really tempted to keep it. This sturdy little manual machine has a lot of knitting left in it.

Cleaning was a series of simple, sometimes tedious tasks that ultimately added up to about a day or long afternoon of work if you don’t count the downtime of soaking needles.

Since I’m pretty sure the missing transfer tool is floating around my machine shelf, the only part replacement I needed to complete was changing the sponge strip. And replacing a sponge strip/bar is a part of regular knitting machine maintenance, so I feel like that barely counts.

I hope reading through my cleaning process helped you whether you are looking to revive a used machine or simply storing up tips for the future.

If you’re interested in what working on a metal bed machine looks like, check out this post on a Brother KH 260 restoration in process.

Keep an eye here on the site in the future for the Store tab featuring cleaned, refurbished, and TESTED vintage machines in addition to patterns, finished garments, and machine accessories.

Thanks for coming along this knitting journey with me!

yarn review

Yarn Review: Lion Brand Touch of Yak

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I bought this yarn in 2020 to review, and, well, 2020 (and now most of 2021) happened. Now it’s on clearance, but if this yarn seems like it’s for you, you might find a good deal on

Lion Brand Touch of Yak

Touch of Yak in Water Lily

All opinions are honest and my own. I am not affiliated with any company or individual mentioned or linked unless otherwise noted. I purchased this yarn myself and did not receive compensation for this review.

About

Fiber Content90-% Acrylic / 10 % Yak
Yardage/Meterage219 / 200
Ounces / Grams3.5 / 100
Yarn Weight4 / Medium / Worsted
Made inChina
AvailabilityLocal Yarn Store, Online
Put upSkein

This yarn is on clearance for $6.99 at the time of this post, so if it’s something you’re interested in, grab it while you can. The clearance price brings the price per yard down from $0.06 per yard to $0.03 per yard.

Originally retailing for 13.99, Touch of Yak is part of Lion Brand’s “Touch of Luxe” collection. The listing mentions “Yak fiber is as soft and warm as cashmere, with wonderful drape,” but with 90% of this yarn being acrylic, any drape you achieve will be from steam blocking or “killing” the acrylic.

Colors are soft, muted, and generally neutral. Now that it’s on clearance, three colorways remain.

Care Guide

Hand WashYes
Machine WashYes
Flat DryYes
Machine DryNo

I machine washed and dried this yarn with no problems. To be honest, I couldn’t tell any difference made by the minimal presence of yak fibers compared to any other decent machine washable and dry-able acrylic.

Knitting Machine Compatibility

4.5mm Standard GaugeNo
6.5mm Mid-GaugeYes
8mm / 9mm Bulky GaugeYes

This is a worsted weight yarn. I wouldn’t put it through any standard gauge machine, but it worked fine on other gauges.

Touch of Yak in Waterlily in a warm light
Pattern: Mirror Cable Mitts on ravelry

Performance

This yarn knitted up fine. It wasn’t anything special, but it wasn’t terrible to work with. When I transferred stitches to form cables, the yarn was annoyingly splitty, but plain knitting was fine. The stitch definition was fine for cables and the finished project looked nice.

There’s really nothing to point out if you treat this like any decent acrylic. The yak is nowhere to be found, especially if you’ve worked with 100% yak fiber before. If you haven’t, you might be able to convince yourself this yarn is softer than another mid-range acrylic, but really, it’s not anything special. There is a slight halo of potential yak fiber if you squint. Maybe?

Blocking

This yarn is 90% acrylic, so block it as such. Too much heat will “kill” the acrylic and freeze it in place. “Killing” acrylic is literally melting the plastic it is made of. You’ll achieve a great drape with this but lose any other properties acrylic might offer.

Careful steam blocking is my blocking method of choice for all yarns, even acrylics, but you should make sure you do not leave your steamer in one location for too long.

Touch of Yak in Water Lily wound into a cake

Final Thoughts

This yarn is fine. That’s it. It’s fine. The “touch” of yak is barely noticeable. It feels like almost any other mid-range acrylic. It’s soft, it works, it’s machine washable, and even though it says not to, it really is machine dry-able. The color range is limited, and the yarn is now on clearance. If you like a slightly softer than normal acrylic and you snatch it up, this could be a good yarn for you provided you aren’t picky about colors. Just don’t expect anything that actually touched a yak when you purchase this.

I give Lion Brand LB Collection Touch of Yak a 2 out of 5 score.

Have you used Lion Brand Touch of Yak before in your machine knitting? What about in your hand knitting? What kind of projects did you use it for, and what did you think of its performance?

Are there other properties you think I should include in my yarn reviews? What yarn should I review next? Let me know in the comments!

News

State of the Ewe-nion 2021

elyknits
Hmmm… I hate myself a teeny bit for that pun.

There are quite a lot of new and exciting things in the future for ELY Knits, so today’s post is going to be different than the usual review or tutorial. Announcements, new policies, and fun fiber collaborations–all that news is right here!

Patterns and Pricing

Going forward, ELY Knits will still have free patterns, so don’t worry! Free patterns will usually feature both hand knitting and machine knitting versions, but expect there to be some time between the releases of each version.

Patterns from my old blog, Emily Does Everything will remain free but change format from blog posts to free PDF Ravelry Downloads.

New, paid versions of old patterns will be released featuring different sizes and more instructional content. If you want to figure out the sizing yourself, download the free version. If you’d rather have me do it for you, that’s what the paid version is for!

The end goal is monthly patterns, but I’m staying flexible on that one because so much is happening at once!

Ko-Fi Support

Like Patreon, Ko-Fi offers readers a chance to “buy me a coffee” as thanks for the content I produce, but Ko-Fi doesn’t take a percentage of any of the funds.

If you’d like to support the website, yarn reviews, pattern development, tutorials, and more, you can check out my Ko-Fi page at Ko-fi.com/elyknits.

Like Patreon, Ko-Fi now offers memberships. I haven’t enabled memberships yet, but if you’re interested, let me know! Members would receive perks like early pattern access, free copies of paid patterns, knitting help, and the ability to submit options and vote for the next yarn review choice.

Advertisements

In order to help support the site, I’ve enabled advertisements. Advertisements are not chosen by me. They are selected by an algorithm based on your browsing. If you encounter an inappropriate ad, please report it.

This one’s a big one!

Lessons

I’ll be working at a local yarn store again! I worked at my (now closed) LYS for five years before the pandemic.

I have desperately missed being in fiber fellowship with yarn lovers.

This November, I’ll be joining Get Stitchin’ in Tulsa, Oklahoma to offer intermediate and advanced hand knitting classes along with machine knitting lessons.

Knitting Machine Sales

That’s right! Machine knitting lessons mean Knitting Machines FOR SALE! Partnering with Get Stitchin’, we are offering new Silver Reed Knitting Machines for sale.

The LK-150 Knitting machine is a plastic bed mid-gauge machine with nearly limitless capabilities. Different stitches are created by manually selecting needles and changing simple carriage settings. As my mentor Pamela Carrico says, YOU are the brain with this machine.

Most of the yarn reviews, patterns, and projects featured here on ELY Knits use the LK-150 mid-gauge 6.5mm machine.

This is the machine most suitable to the majority of hand knitting yarns and is a great place to start for beginners.

Classes will be based around projects on the LK-150.

For those who want to learn more before purchasing a machine, we’ll have demo days along with a lecture-style class to teach you all about what you can do with the LK-150 and other machines.

We’ll have metal bed machines available for order, too, along with…

Design-A-Knit 9!

The DAK9 software offers nearly endless knitwear design opportunities and directly connects to electronic knitting machines via the Silver Link 5 Cable.

It’s not just for machine knitters, though. Even without a machine and the cable, you can design your dream sweater and more using this extensive software.

Keep your eyes peeled for future announcements here and @ely.knits on Instagram for news on Knitting Machine and Design-A-Knit 9 demonstration days at Get Stitchin’ in Tulsa.

Online Sales

The ELY Knits online store will be launching soon along with the re-opening of my KnitPurlEverything Etsy shop as ELY Knits.

The Etsy shop will focus on ready-to-ship knits where the ELY Knits store (the SHOP tab at the top, coming soon) will offer customization options.

Now for a bit about what we’ll be doing with online sales.

Shipping Materials

We reduce, reuse, and recycle in my house. It’s not just a smart and frugal business and personal choice. I believe it’s better stewardship of our environment to use and reuse where we can.

Purchases from ELY Knits may arrive in many different types of boxes with different types of packing. As we use up the last of our plastic mailers, we will transition to 100% compostable or recyclable materials.

Knits do need protection from wet weather, so some will still ship in plastic. However, this plastic will be reused shipping materials or recyclable materials made from recycled plastics.

Now for the yarn! You didn’t think you’d get through an ELY Knits post without talking about yarn, did you?

Yarn Composition

I like to think of myself as a bit of a recovered yarn snob. I don’t mind acrylic or synthetic fibers. I think those yarns definitely have their place and uses, and quite a few of my go-to yarns are natural and synthetic blends. I’ve even reviewed a few of them here on the site.

But. I think natural fibers are superior options, especially since I want to support my local fiber community as much as possible. And there are fiber farms in Oklahoma, y’all!

I do have synthetic and semi-synthetic yarns in my inventory currently. These will be used completely and then replaced with a natural alternative.

There are some semi-synthetic fibers like Tencel that recycle over 90% of the chemicals used in the extraction process that will likely stay in my stash.

Old yarn stock and recycled synthetic yarns will also stick around. I do my best to reduce yarn waste wherever possible. If I find old stock yarns, even if they’re synthetic, you can bet I’ll bring them in and use them appropriately.

And last but not least,

Collaborations

If everything else I listed out wasn’t enough, EVEN MORE good things are coming! I’m collaborating with local indie dyers and fiber artists to bring some really cool kits and patterns to you in the future.

Covid delays are the norm these days, so I don’t have a specific timeline for some of these projects yet, but rest assured they will be amazing!

Oh, and Yarn Dyeing friends? Hand Knitting Design friends? If you’d like to collaborate on a hand and/or machine knitting project, hit me up!

Whether you’re looking for a pattern to highlight your yarns or you’d like to make your hand knitting pattern more accessible to machine knitters, I have you covered!

I am always up for working together with my fiber friends.

Thanks for wading through all of that! I wasn’t sure when or how to announce some of these things in posts with more concise topics, so I appreciate you sticking around to the end and reading all of the wonderful things coming your way via ELY Knits.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments below!

What ways do you reduce, reuse, and recycle in your fiber life?

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Free Machine Knitting Pattern: Sarah in Lace

elyknits

Hello all, and here’s to another happy day of knitting!

Did you see last month’s free hand-knitting pattern, the Sarah in Lace cowl? I am so grateful for all of the wonderful feedback I’ve received about this piece.

Thank you all for your support!

This month, it’s the machine knitting version’s turn!

Sarah in Lace – Machine Knitting Version

Ideal for hand dyed or natural yarns with slight color gradient, this cowl will let the yarn speak for itself. Cables on each side create a scalloped, slightly rolling edge without allowing the normal roll of stockinette stitch.

The simple lace repeat is suitable for beginners familiar with the latch tool and transfer tools.

The length and width are easy to modify–just add lace repeats to achieve your desired size, but note that adding repeats will require more yarn.

Gauge is not vital to this project, but you do not want a tight fabric.

This is the machine knitting version of this pattern.

Visit this post if you’re looking for the hand-knitting version.

Written and Charted Instructions

The lace chart and simplified instructions are on one page (page 5) to be printer-friendly for more experienced knitters, and detailed written instructions for newer knitters follow.

In the written instructions section, I take you step-by-step through the first lace row and the first cable row. The other lace and cable rows build off of those techniques, but are not explained in detail, needle number by needle number.

Decrease Choices

Like its hand-knitting sister, this PDF pattern contains modification tips to help you really make this piece your own.

There are different choices of decreases with instructions for each.

On the left, you’ll see the original decrease intended for the pattern. The detailed row instructions in this pattern assume you are using this decrease.

The yellow sample pictured on the right shows two other decrease options-one on the left of the sample and one on the right. Instructions are provided for this decrease in the pattern notes but not the detailed row instructions like the original decrease.

Pattern Repeat Tip

Mark it up!

Use a set of wet erase markers like Expo’s Vis-à-Vis markers (non affiliate link) to denote cabled stitches, purl stitches, or central stitches of the lace pattern repeat on the bed of your knitting machine. This can help you remember where to start each lace repeat, which stitches to ladder down to latch up as purl, and which direction cable crosses should go.

In this picture, I’ve used an “X” across two needles to denote the center of the lace pattern repeat’s “V” shape. A bullet marks the needle that I need to ladder down and latch up purl stitches on, and diagonal arrows and “CC” for “cable cross” remind me which direction the four-stitch cable over those needles needs to go.

Wet erase markers work great for any project with pattern repeats and are easy to remove once you’ve finished. Have you given them a try yet?

You can find this pattern in my Ravelry Store as a Free Ravelry Download.

This pattern is available to non-Ravelers, too, so don’t worry about signing up unless you want to. download now

As always, please contact me if you find anything missing or notice an error in my patterns. I will correct them ASAP.

Thanks for coming on this machine knitting journey with me! If you like what you see and want to help me bring more machine knitting content, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi.

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Free Hand-Knitting Pattern: Sarah in Lace

elyknits

Hello all, and happy Friday!

Today I’m sharing the first of many patterns on the new site! Meet

Sarah in Lace

Ideal for hand dyed or natural yarns with slight color gradient, this cowl will let the yarn speak for itself.

The simple lace repeat is suitable for confident beginners familiar with yarn overs, decreases, and simple cables.

Cables on each side create a scalloped, slightly rolling edge in place of the standard garter stitch edging. The length and width are easy to modify–just add lace repeats to achieve your desired size.

Gauge is not vital to this project, but you do not want a tight fabric.

This pattern includes tips on how to modify the edging cables as well as how to adjust both length and width, but please note adding repeats will require more yardage.

This is the hand knitting version of this pattern. (But don’t worry, if you don’t want to translate it to the machine yourself, the machine knitting version will be out soon!)

You can find this pattern in my Ravelry Store as a Free Ravelry Download right here!

It’s available to non-Ravelers, too, so don’t worry about signing up unless you want to. All the pattern details and updates are on the Ravelry page along with extra pictures.

You can also click this link to download now.

A little about the design…

I designed this cowl for my lovely friend Sarah of DoubleDutchYarn back in the fall of 2019 for a juried craft show she was featured in. A lot of life has happened since then, and I’ve learned to take better and more numerous photos.

Here is the only one I have of the original Sarah in Lace cowl!

This creamy alpaca goodness was so soft. It draped like a dream. I just couldn’t help rubbing my face on it, which was a bad idea since I’m allergic to alpaca! The temptation of that delicate yarn halo was just too much.

Poor Sarah felt so bad when I told her about my eyes watering while I wore a bandana over my face to knit this up, but she didn’t know about my allergy, and my fellow allergy sufferers know some things are just worth it.

Sarah offers small batch, locally curated yarns. When you shop with her, you’re supporting local farmers, millers, dyers, and of course, designers like me.

And be sure to stay tuned! This isn’t the only time Sarah and I have collaborated with yarn!

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Knitting Machine Restoration: Part One

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Meet one of my newest machines, the Brother/KnitKing KH-260. It’s a 9mm bulky gauge metal bed machine with punchcard capabilities that can do fair isle, punch lace, tuck, slip stitches, and more. With the right attachments, you can knit intarsia colorwork and ribbing.

This machine was definitely on my WANT list, and my mentor saved it for me when it came to her after its owner passed away.

I don’t know much of this machine’s history other than it was said to be well used and loved. I don’t know how long it sat in storage or where its missing bits are, but I’m happy to have it in my growing (although don’t tell that part to my family) machine collection.

This series isn’t really a tutorial, more of a progress log, but I’ll include links to resources I’ve used along with descriptions of my process and things I’ve learned along the way. Things might be a bit jumbled since this is my first true restoration and I don’t know some of what I’ll need to know yet, but I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you learn something fun and interesting along the way.

Welcome to my first restoration project!

Before I began cataloguing what I had, I went to MachineKnittingEtc.com to find PDFs of the instruction manual, the parts list, and the service manual for this model. (The site is an amazing resource, so be sure to take some time to browse it. It isn’t just instruction manuals, as you can see in this brief overview post.)

This lovely machine doesn’t look much different than what she did out of the box other than her yellowed color. ABS plastic normally yellows due to time, UV exposure, and bromine in the plastic’s composition. That’s just cosmetic, and it’s to be expected for a machine around 30 years old. There are ways to bleach the plastic, but it will re-yellow with time, and the plastic bleaching process could potentially weaken it. There’s nothing wrong with yellowing.

This baby is missing a few parts, though. The rod of the tension mast is missing along with the take-up spring (the antennae-like part) of the mast. The yarn-holder part of the tension mast seems to be part of a color changer with four yarn hole options and not the two-holed part that came standard with the machine. The needle bed number-marking sheet is present but not attached, and most of the accessories are missing.

Fortunately, those parts are generally inexpensive and fairly easy to find and replace on eBay or Etsy. For the accessories, I can just borrow them from my other bulky machine, the Brother KH-230.

With parts catalogued and manuals in hand, it was time for a clean.

This poor girl was dusty. I used LPS-1 wipes to remove most of the dust and grime from the needle bed and used a can of the same chemical to spray down the carriage after carefully removing the plastic casing. I used tweezers to remove what dust bunnies I could and waited for the LPS-1 to reveal more.

You can definitely use the LPS-1 from the spray can with a non-lint cloth to wipe dust and grime away, but I bought a few wipes to try them out and to reach the free shipping threshold. (We Millennials do love our free shipping, after all.) I bought mine from EMI Supply (non-affiliate link).

If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far about knitting machine cleaning, there is always more dust or grease somewhere. Once you spray a machine down with LPS-1, the buildup just starts seeping out of every crevice.

The carriage tuck button was stuck due to gunk and grime, so I used a few drops of Marvel Mystery Oil to help that get moving. That stuff works miracles.

I learned how to clean knitting machine carriages from this Answer Lady Ask Jack video. I recommend watching all of their videos if you have an interest in machine knitting maintenance and repair!

After replacing the sponge bar with a new one and borrowing the tension mast and accessories from my Brother KH-230, I set up the KH-260 for plain knitting.

Things were going well until I attempted patterning with a punch card.

As you can see from my Instagram clip, there’s something pretty wrong with my punchcard unit!

One pass of the carriage resulted in way too many row advances of the punchcard.

And the needle selection? That was a mess, too. Some needles in the center of the 24 stitch pattern never selected.

Let me back up a bit.

Since plain knitting was fine, I went straight to patterning with tuck stitch with plans to go to skipstitch afterwards because I saw on someone’s Instagram post (I’ll update with a link if I can find it again!) that tuck and/or skip stitches really show what a machine can do and point out any faults in its performance.

I removed the test knitting from the needle bed and took the sinker plate off of the carriage so I could see the movement of the needles clearly. (You can do this to find the center of a pattern or where the repeat starts when your machine is working normally if you want to be precise about pattern placement.)

After that, I took off the card stop lever knob and panel covering the card reader unit on the right side of the machine.

I used a small screwdriver that came with a nail polish display rack kit, so I’m not sure what size it was other than perfect for knitting machine maintenance. I will figure out the screwdriver size and update later with details.

As seen in the picture below, the card reader has cracks in the rotary cam (the ivory colored barrel-shaped part). These cracks are likely due to expansion and shrinkage from being stored in a hot attic or garage. There are also cracks along the opposite side.

The plastic direction indicator piece that shows which direction the carriage goes was broken and had disappeared into the void of the machine. The timing belt guide plate to the right of the rotary cam is very loose (as you’ll see in the second video embedded above with my Instagram post). I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be that loose, but I did end up removing it and replacing it as one of the screws holding it was barely in its designated hole.

I used long tweezers from my nail art kit to help me position the screws. Definitely add a pair of these to your machine knitting kit when you can. They’ve been incredibly handy in fishing for dropped parts or reaching into tight spaces.

According to the maintenance manual and Ask Jack videos, the timing belt seems to be timed correctly, so that is a bit of a relief, but I’m not quite sure what to do next. The looseness of the timing belt guide plate seems to be a problem. Placing my hand on it so that it can stop the turning of the punch card clutch gear seems to solve the issue of the card reader turning too many times, but only in one direction.

The carriage also makes a loud CLUNK as it passes across the needle bed when it is in patterning mode. That’s not right, either.

At this point, I don’t know enough about knitting machine maintenance to fix the patterning issue, so I’m actively reading through parts and service manuals, Ask Jack articles, and old forum posts to learn more.

My standard gauge Brother KH-890 machine also has a punchcard unit, so I plan to remove the panel and watch how that machine works in hopes they are similar enough for me to find a clue on how the KH-260 should behave. The loose timing belt guide plate might not actually be an issue.

While I’m figuring out what to do about the punchcard unit, I’ve removed all of the needles from the needle bed for a quick wipe down with LPS-1, and I’ll use needle-nose pliers to straighten any that are bent. I’ll also straighten a couple crooked gate pegs at the end of the needle beds.

I keep all of the needles, screws, and miscellaneous pieces in the same glass jar so nothing will be lost. Now all I have to do is keep my cat away from the jar and we’ll be in a good place regarding loose pieces!

Progress So Far

ProblemActionCompleted
Missing Accessories/Tension Mast PartsBuy on eBay or Etsy
Dirty CarriageLPS-1 and Marvel Mystery Oil cleaningCheck mark, Wingdings font, character code 252 decimal.
Dirty Needle BedLPS-1 Wipe DownCheck mark, Wingdings font, character code 252 decimal.
Dead Sponge BarInstall replacementCheck mark, Wingdings font, character code 252 decimal.
Missing Punchcard Indicator PieceBuy Replacement/InstallCheck mark, Wingdings font, character code 252 decimal./ X
Cracked Rotary CamDetermine if it works as is or needs to be replaced
Loose Timing Belt Guide PlateDetermine if it’s a problem- Watch KH-890
Needles Not Patterning CorrectlyInspect Card Feeding Unit and Needle Selecting Units, then ???
Punchcard Reader Turning too muchInspect Card Feeding Unit and Needle Selecting Units, then ???
Carriage CLUNKNo. Idea. Blame the Punchcard Unit?
Crooked NeedlesRemove and straighten with pliers
Crooked Gate PegsStraighten with pliers

I have a lot left to learn, but there are still things I can do at my current skill level. In between internet sleuthing sessions, I’ll be straightening needles and hunting dust bunnies.

And despite that list of problems, this machine still works. I can still do those fancy skip and tuck stitches, but I’ll have to do the needle selection myself. Being a bit of a lazy knitter, that is less than ideal, but I can still use this wonderful machine.

Thanks for coming on this knitting machine repair journey with me! I’m so excited to learn more about knitting machines through restoration. If you have any tips, tricks, or experience to share, be sure to leave a comment below or email me through the contact page!