machine knitting – Page 5

Yarn Review: Lion Brand Ice Cream

April 9, 2021April 8, 2021 elyknits

Lion Brand Yarns are commonly found at big box general stores and big box craft stores. You can easily browse their selection on their website, which also features free patterns. The price you see on Lion Brand’s website might not be what you pay in stores, especially since big craft stores like Michael’s and JoAnn regularly run yarn specials and feature coupons with up to 40% off.

I used five or six different Lion Brand yarns over a decade ago as a beginning hand knitter and didn’t really care for them, so I moved on. Recently, Lion Brand bought luxury coned yarn company Silk City Fibers (see my review of their Cotton Bambu yarn in this post), so I decided to order a variety of yarns from the Lion Brand website to give them another try.

They now have many different fiber types and blends from wool to yak fiber along with recycled fibers and an eco-friendly cotton version. Their selection has really widened and diversified compared to what they had when I considered them just a cheap yarn company back as a beginner.

Acrylic yarn is what I think of when I think of Lion Brand, so I decided to give one of their acrylic multicolor yarns a try first. Here’s the scoop on

Lion Brand Ice Cream

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.

Lion Brand Ice Cream Big Scoop in Tutti Frutti

About Lion Brand Ice Cream

Fiber Content	100% Acrylic
Yardage	394 or 1117
Ounces	3.5 or 10
Yarn Weight	3 / Light / DK
Made in	Turkey
Availability	Online, Big box craft stores
Put up	skein

Lion Brand Ice Cream comes in two skein sizes, 394 yards for $4.99 MSRP and “Big Scoop” at 1117 yards for $13.49. The smaller size comes in 20 multicolor varieties while Big Scoop comes in 22. The colorways remind me of Dippin’ Dots flavors, and reading the names while hungry is not a good idea!

If you don’t feel like doing the math, that’s about $0.01 per yard at MSRP, and you can frequently find skeins for less at stores like Walmart and JoAnn. If you’re looking for an inexpensive and colorful project, this could be the yarn for you.

Care Guide

Hand Wash	Yes
Machine Wash	Yes
Flat Dry	Yes
Machine Dry	Yes

When it comes to ease of care, it’s hard to beat this yarn. Throw it in the wash with whatever you happen to be washing that time, and the yarn can take it, but don’t iron it or steam it excessively unless you mean to kill the acrylic.

The yarn really softens up in the wash and achieves a bit of drape. I have not used this yarn enough to comment extensively on longer-term wear, but I could see pills forming readily by the fuzz it gained in the wash along with the pills already present in the skein when I wound it into a cake to work with it.

Lion Brand Ice Cream in Tutti Frutti wound into yarn cakes

Knitting Machine Compatibility

4.5mm Standard Gauge	Yes, But*
6.5mm Mid-Gauge	Yes
8mm / 9mm Bulky Gauge	Yes

This yarn can work at upper tensions on standard gauge machines, but they may not be happy about it. It is much more appropriate for mid-gauge machines or bulky gauge at lower tensions.

Swatches, Performance, and Blocking

If you’re curious about how I swatch yarn, please read this post.

It was not a pleasant experience to use Lion Brand Ice Cream on my standard gauge Brother KH-890. My machine didn’t struggle, but knitting with this yarn did not flow like a nicer, smoother yarn would have. My machine did not behave itself at all when I started trying to knit a tuck stitch with a punch card, and after troubleshooting weights, yarn feed, sponge bar, bent needles, and everything else I could think of, I think I have to blame the yarn.

Ice Cream is slightly fuzzy, and my skein came with pre-made pills that liked to catch on the needles. The yarn is not slick, yet it is not scratchy like acrylic “grandma yarns” from years ago or extremely cheap Red Heart acrylic yarn you can find at Walmart. It sits somewhere in the middle that you can be pleased with when you consider its affordability.

All those standard gauge issues aside, Ice Cream worked just fine on the mid-gauge SilverReed LK-150 and Bulky KH-260. I did experience issues with pills catching things occasionally, but for the most part, I didn’t notice any substantial issues.

Lion Brand Ice Cream in Tutti Frutti

Standard-gauge Brother KH-890 stockinette stitch swatch at Tension 10, washed cold on gentle, dried on low*, and gently steamed:

	Before	After
40 stitches	6.25″	6.5″
60 rows	7.25″	6.75″

*This yarn can be washed and dried at much hotter temperatures, but I throw my swatches in with whatever loads need to be done unless they have special care requirements.

I noticed about an half inch of vertical/row shrinkage on my swatch, but I did have some growth stitch-wise/horizontally. Since many of my test yarns and swatches shrink vertically in the wash, I suspect it could have something to do with how I set my stitches after knitting them, so I’ll be sure to test that at a future date.

Ice Cream makes a pleasant fabric. My swatch had a decent amount of drape in it from washing and drying alone.

Pattern Ideas

The gentle colors of this yarn and the easy care scream “baby gifts” to me. I think this yarn is a great choice when making items to gift to busy parents-to-be. Who wants to read a care label when the baby is crying?

I originally planned to feature a tuck baby blanket in this post, but since my standard gauge machine does NOT like this yarn when patterning, I’ll feature the problem swatch, oddly flat honeycomb bubble rows and all, and save the blanket for a future pattern post when repair parts for a bulky gauge machine I’m restoring arrive next month.

tuck stitch test swatch

If you want to make something similar, use Brother Card 2M, knit tuck for four rows and then knit plain stockinette for two rows.

Comparable Yarn

The Bernat Baby Sport line features another DK weight yarn at the same $0.01 per yard cost. Bernat Baby Sport is about as equally available at big box stores, and you’ll find more colors overall with solids, ombres, and sparkles. Bernat Baby Sport is another “just throw it in the wash and forget it” yarn, and it is slightly smoother with less fuzz than Lion Brand Ice Cream.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to Lion Brand, this yarn is almost exactly what my past self expected from them: cheap acrylic yarn. However, this is a pretty decent cheap acrylic yarn with a collection of adorable colorways. The ice cream themed names and colors are very satisfying.

If you’re making a baby gift, I think this is a good choice. As far as budget baby yarns go, this one ranks high up on my list.

I’m at the age where my friends are having kids, and when I ask them what they’d like, “something easy to take care of” is always the answer, even friends who have been more than willing to hand wash an item in the past. There are a few singletons and a set of twins in family friends’ futures, and one of them will receive a gift crafted from this adorably dyed yarn.

As a (former?) yarn snob, I don’t know if any more Lion Brand Ice Cream is in my future. I just don’t seek out budget yarns like I used to as a poor college student, and I like to search for unusual or uncommon fiber content. I really like to work with my standard gauge machine, and she did not care for this yarn. When you get down to it, Ice Cream is still a cheap budget yarn.

Overall, I give Lion Brand Ice Cream a middle of the road 2.5/5. It’s a good value with cute colorways.

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

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

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What Does Brother Punch Card 1M Look Like?

April 2, 2021April 2, 2021 elyknits

Punch cards for knitting machines are magical, but have you ever had trouble visualizing the patterns they make?

Those holes and spaces don’t translate to much inside my head for anything but fair isle patterns. Even though I know what tuck and skip stitches are, I just can’t see them.

That’s where a reference scarf comes in! Like the security scarf discussed in this post about gauge swatching, having a reference scarf with all of a punch card’s options featured can really come in handy, especially for design purposes.

If you don’t want to make your own reference scarf, I’ve got you covered. This post includes pictures from the knit and purl sides of all compatible functions of Card 1M except Plating Tuck Stitch; that is, all functions you can do by pressing buttons or toggling switches without changing any parts of the carriage.

The knit side is not always the right/public side of the work with these stitches, so I will be using “knit side” to reference the side of the work that always faces away from you while you knit it on the machine. “Purl side” references the side of the work that always faces toward you as you knit.

Function compatibility guide for Series M – scan from Brother KH-890 manual

The Brother M series of punch cards came with the KH-890 and KH-891 models. You can find the M series here from Machine Knitting Etc and punch them on a blank card if you do not want to look for them premade on eBay or another site.

I knitted these swatches from blue and white mystery acrylic yarns similar to Millor Piropo at Tension 10 on my Brother KH-890 machine.

Tuck Stitch

purl side of elongated pattern between stockinette stitch

Two Color Tuck Stitch

Skip Stitch

purl side between regular stockinette stitch

Fair Isle

Knit Weaving

I hope you found these pictures helpful in visualizing what Brother Card 1M can do. I will be upgrading my photography setup in the near future, but for now, please enjoy a bonus photo of my cat about to destroy my DIY light box. At least she’s beautiful!

Do you have any tips or tricks for visualizing punch card patterns? What do you use for design references? What other things would you like to see on the blog? Let me know in the comments below!

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Yarn Review: Silk City Fibers Cotton Bambu

March 26, 2021March 25, 2021 elyknits

Silk City Fibers is a wholesale coned yarn retailer that boasts more than 50 types of luxury yarn for knitting and weaving. Known in the past for their 100% rayon chenille yarn, they became part of Orchard Yarn & Thread Company, Inc., better known as Lion Brand Yarn Company in 2019. Perhaps due to the pandemic, in 2020, they opened up their online store and no longer require a wholesale account to purchase their yarns.

Cone put-up allows for much more yardage per item, and though the price per cone may seem daunting at first, remember to consider price per yard and the amount needed for your project. If you’re really buying in bulk, Silk City Fibers offers a discount after 7 cones and even more after 15 cones.

I remember hearing and feeling some concern about Silk City Fiber’s “luxury” yarn status when learning of their purchase by Lion Brand, but instead of seeing much of a change in Silk City Fibers, I have noticed a positive trend in Lion Brand Yarn’s lines with nicer, softer acrylics and new, sustainable and/or recycled yarn blends.

As a former yarn boutique employee, I’ll admit to some yarn snobbery. I’ll also admit that I wrote off Lion Brand Yarns very soon after I started knitting because I did not like what they offered, but my, have things changed for the better since then.

I’ll be reviewing more Lion Brand Yarns and Silk City Fibers offerings in the future, so stay tuned, but for now, here’s one of my Silk City favorites:

Cotton Bambu

About Silk City Fibers Cotton Bambu

Fiber Content	51% Cotton, 49% Bamboo-based Rayon
Yardage/Meterage	1,050 yards per pound
Ounces / Grams	1.2 lbs
Yarn Weight	*3 / Light / DK
Made in	**
Availability	Online, some LYS or Weaving shops
Put up	Cone

*There is not a yarn weight listed for this yarn. Instead, you can estimate its yarn weight by “wraps per inch” around a standard No. 2 pencil or comparing it to yarns with known sizing.

**I was unable to find an exact location where this yarn is made, but many Silk City Fiber and Lion Brand products are made in China or in America with source fibers from varying countries.

Cotton Bambu comes in a very limited color palette of 12 solid colors. There is a slight sheen in the yarn due to the bamboo-rayon, as seen on the right in the picture comparison above. Allergy sufferers or those who are averse to animal fibers will enjoy the smooth cotton and bamboo-based rayon fiber content.

At 1,050 yards per pound and 1.2 lbs per cone, you’re looking at just over 1,200 yards per cone and around $0.25 per yard.

You can purchase Cotton Bambu from both the Silk City Fibers and Lion Brand Yarns websites. Your local yarn or weaving shops might carry Silk City Fibers yarns, but stockists are not listed on either brands’ website. You may be able to find old colorways or fiber combinations through Etsy or eBay sellers.

Care Guide

Hand Wash	Yes
Machine Wash	Yes
Flat Dry	Yes
Machine Dry	Yes

When I first purchased color cards and then cones, this yarn was recommended dry clean only, so I’m glad to see its updated care status listed online.

Cotton Bambu machine washes and dries very well, but it is important to always work from measurements from a washed and dried swatch to account for any changes or shrinkage that could possibly occur in the wash.

If you decide to lay it flat to dry, know that it will take quite a while to dry fully and you may need to flip it so the underside is not damp. I noticed after steaming garments, so they were not soaked as they would be in a wash cycle. This is not unusual for cotton yarns as they are very absorbant.

Knitting Machine Compatibility

4.5mm Standard Gauge	Yes
6.5mm Mid-Gauge	Yes
8mm / 9mm Bulky Gauge	Yes

This yarn works well at upper tensions on the 4.5mm standard gauge machine and works well with the ribber attachment. I most frequently use it on my mid-gauge SilverReed LK-150. I have not used it on a bulky machine, but it is an appropriate weight and would likely work well on any bulky depending on what fabric you are looking to create.

Swatches, Performance, and Blocking

If you’re curious about how I swatch yarn, please read this post.

Stripes of various Cotton Bambu colors from a work-in-progress

Cotton Bambu runs smoothly through the machine and patterns well using a punch card. It makes a nice rib using the ribber attachment. If you need to rip out work due to a mistake, it loses a bit of its twist. Loose ends will un-twist and fray due to being a smooth, plant-based fiber, so be sure to securely weave in ends before washing.

If your cat decides to claw up a cone, the individual threads that make up the yarn will run and pull for a bit, so be sure to keep your yarn safe from predators when photographing and storing! I assume catching this yarn on needle hooks might have similar results with individual threads of the yarn pulling.

Mid-gauge SilverReed LK-150 swatch at Tension 4, washed cold on gentle and dried on low:

	Before	After
20 stitches	4″	3.875″
30 rows	4.5″	4″

Cotton generally shrinks some in the wash, but as long as you are working from the gauge of a “finished” or washed and dried swatch, you should not run into problems. (I cannot stress the importance of this enough!)

Though there was some shrinkage, there was minimal to no fuzzing or haloing of the yarn in the wash and no loss of stitch definition whatsoever in my swatches.

Using the above numbers, my swatch shrank about 3% horizontally/stitch-wise and about 11% vertically/row-wise.

If you’re worried about shrinkage, the rayon-bamboo content does more than simply add to a garment’s drape. Cotton Bambu blocks very well and gives you quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to any surprises you might find in your finished garment. I’ve been quite thankful for its blocking ability before when I miscalculated a stitch conversion factor and wound up with a garment that was just a bit too short for my liking.

Standard-gauge Brother KH-890 swatch at Tension 10, washed cold on gentle, dried on low, and gently steamed:

	Before	After
40 stitches	6.5″	6.75″
60 rows	6.5″	7″

When I say “gently steamed,” I mean that I passed the steamer head above the yarn swatch and used it to iron out wrinkles and unroll the sides of the stockinette stitch swatch. I did not pin or mark desired dimensions and pull or push the fabric to create stretch, I merely used the steam to relax the swatch to see where it would go without coaxing.

You cannot “kill” cotton as you can acrylic, and bamboo-rayon doesn’t quite “kill” like a normal acrylic will and lose all of its elasticity, but steaming Cotton Bambu does increase the drape. The cotton content prevents and protects the rayon-bamboo from behaving as a fully acrylic yarn will.

Using the above numbers for my standard swatch, my steam blocking was able to increase the horizontal/stitch gauge by around 4% and the vertical/row gauge by around 8%. Over something like the 15″ body of a garment, that is an increase of over an inch of length.

Blocking can make a significant difference, and if you need more give than a gentle block, Cotton Bambu will be able to stretch more than I demonstrated, but it does have limits due to the cotton content. I suggest double-checking your math instead of relying on the yarn to save you as I had to do!

Pattern Ideas

I’ve used Cotton Bambu in many projects and have plans for many more for both customers and myself. Click the pattern name for a link to the download page of each pattern.

Left: Kelso by Meghan Kelly (hand-knitting pattern) in Silk City Fibers Cotton Bambu Color 116 Grass. $8.00 USD on Ravelry. Sample knitted on SilverReed LK-150

Right: Mid-Gauge Ladies Lace Yoke Top by Irene Woods (machine knitting pattern). Free from Clearwater Knits. Size XL on a Size L dress form. Sample knitted on SilverReed LK-150

Both of these patterns involve hand-transferred lace. Irene Woods’s pattern includes very detailed information on the lace in a circular yoke for those who have not tried it before.

Lion Brand CoBoo

I have not been able to officially confirm this, but I believe Lion Brand’s CoBoo yarn is Silk City Fiber’s Cotton Bambu yarn.

Lion Brand CoBoo comes in 3.5 ounce, 232 yard cakes, is 51% cotton and 49% rayon-bamboo, and has the same care instructions. (The online listing description states 50/50 content, but the actual ball band label reflects the 51/49 ratio.)

While CoBoo comes in 20 colors, it features many exact matches to Cotton Bambu right down to color names (Grass, Steel Blue, and Orangeade are pictured above). It also has the same number of plies and the same twist.

Lion Brand’s website list price is $5.99 per cake, which puts price per yard around the same $0.25 as Cotton Bambu, but you can find it on sale for as low as $2.99 per cake on JoAnn’s website depending on their sale of the week.

Final Thoughts

Silk City Fibers Cotton Bambu is a wonderful yarn, and at $30.99 a cone, it feels pricy. Silk City Fibers touts themselves as a luxury brand, after all, and I feel they live up to it with Cotton Bambu. At around a DK weight, Cotton Bambu makes substantial but not heavy garments appropriate for spring, summer, and fall or year-round wear in warmer climates. Its drape adds to the luxurious and smooth feeling of this yarn against the skin.

For a similar drape and smooth feeling and the same ~1200 yard amount in Berroco Comfort DK, a 50/50 Nylon Acrylic blend with 178 yards per skein at $3.75 per skein, you’d pay around $27.00 (about $0.23 per yard). I think a cotton blend costing about the same as a nice, quality acrylic yarn is a very good deal. (For a review of Berroco Comfort in Worsted weight, check out this post.)

With only 12 colors to choose from, Cotton Bambu has work to do in the color department. Three of the twelve Cotton Bambu colors were added very recently, so I am hopeful for more colorways in the future. Lion Brand’s CoBoo version it better at 20 colors. If you’ll be working with a smaller amount of yardage or you want to do colorwork, I’d opt for the CoBoo version.

In fact, if you simply want to try this yarn before you invest in an entire cone, I recommend choosing the CoBoo version first.

Cotton Bambu is a wonderful yarn and one of my absolute favorites overall for any type of knitting, but price and limited color palette affect its rating when I look at it more objectively. The fact that a more colorful and widespread/readily available through big box craft store version is around detracts a bit from its rating, for me. Combining all of that with great drape, a smooth and sleek feel, and a decent price, I give Silk City Fibers Cotton Bambu a 3/5.

Have you used Silk City Fibers Cotton Bamboo before in your machine knitting? What about in your hand knitting or weaving? What kind of projects did you use it for, and what did you think of its performance?

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

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Finding Machine Knitting Patterns on Ravelry

March 19, 2021March 19, 2021 elyknits

From colorwork trends to brioche fads, you can find nearly everything knitting, crochet, or yarn-related on ravelry.com. I’ve been a user for years now, and I can spend hours looking through patterns, projects, and yarn pages.

Ravelry has over 600K hand knitting patterns and is quickly closing in on 400K crochet patterns, but there are only 3,775 machine knitting patterns listed in their database.

That doesn’t mean you can’t find things to knit on your machine, though! Ravelry’s search feature has a wonderful amount of refinement options.

If you haven’t used their expanded search features before, I recommend reading Ravelry’s own tip articles on refining searches and saved searches.

Here’s how I use Ravelry when I’m looking for patterns to knit using my machines. The process is pretty straightforward, and you’re really only limited by how many modifications or adjustments you’re willing to make so a pattern will work.

This is where you can get really picky about what you what to knit and what you’re willing to do for modifications. Do you want to work with multiple colors? Scroll down the left side and select the number of colors you want to use from the “Colors used (typical)” box. Do you only have a certain amount of yardage in that special skein? Limit your search to a yardage/meterage range.

Craft Type

First of all, try refining by “Machine Knitting” as your craft type! Ravelry is nearing 4,000 machine knitting patterns in their database, after all. The term includes Addi circular knitting machines as well as Circular Sock Machines (CSM), but many patterns will indicate compatible machines in their titles.

If you sort by “New to Ravelry,” you’ll find there are designers like Lauren Riker who regularly upload new patterns. I find that new designs by Machine Knitting Monthly are only sporadically included in the database, though.

If you didn’t find something that spoke to you in the “machine knitting” tag, don’t worry. There are a lot more options out there.

Do the Math with a Schematic

If you know how to use proportions and your pattern has a schematic, you can fill in stitches and rows per inch using the pattern garment’s measurements to fit whatever machine gauge you’d like to use.

Ravelry has the searchable pattern attribute “has schematic” (just start typing it in the search bar and it will pop up), but not all designers will check the box so the database knows this.

I’ll do a more detailed post on knitting math in the future, so stick around if this is something you’re interested in learning more about!

Search Refinement: Yarn Weight

When you’re considering a new project without making anything specific in mind, think about what machine you want to work with and compatible yarn sizes.

If I’m working with my 4.5mm standard gauge machine, I generally select yarn sizes of sport weight and lighter. If it’s my 6.5mm mid-gauge, I select fingering through worsted weights. If it’s my bulky machine, I switch to excluding yarn sizes with the drop-down menu at the bottom of a search refinement box. and remove super bulky from search result possibilities.

Remember to consider the size of the garment you want to make and how many stitches/needles you’ll need. Standard gauge beds have 200 needles. Mid-gauge beds have 150, and Bulky beds have 120. If your pattern needs 300 stitches, you probably need to do some math and play with stitch gauge to make things work.

Search Refinement: “Worked-Flat”

I like to start out my potential machine knitting project browsing sessions with “craft: Knitting, has photo: yes, and attributes: worked-flat” as the minimum search refinements.

If something is worked flat already, you generally don’t have to worry as much about dividing pattern or colorwork repeats.

Some patterns are worked in-the-round and then separated at the arms to be worked flat, but they’ll show up in this search refinement. You can generally divide the total stitch count in half and then work front and back separately and be just fine. I like to add one stitch to each side of the separated halves as a selvedge stitch for later mattress stitching.

Once you’ve found a set of search refinements that fits what you’re looking for, be sure to save your search! Ravelry lets you save multiple searches, so you can select search terms according to your mood and come back to them whenever you want.

First Translations

If you’re worried about converting patterns to your machine or you’re just not sure about your skill levels, first try a knitting project that requires fewer modifications to make it to the machine.

A lot of DK weight patterns are at easily achievable gauges for the SilverReed LK-150 and have stitch counts that fit within your 150 needle limit. If you’re new to translating hand-knitting patterns to machine knitting, this can be a great place to start because you will be able to knit some patterns nearly exactly as written.

The Mojave Collection as seen on ravelry.com

I have knitted most of the patterns from the Mojave Knits Collection by Meghan Kelly on my LK-150 without modifications. I’ve also used some of them on my Brother KH-890 standard gauge at upper tensions. Most of the patterns feature a large amount of stockinette stitch with smaller areas/panels of eyelets that can be easily created with a transfer tool.

From left to right, these hand-knit patterns were made on the LK-150 machine: Desert Queen in Plymouth Dandelion, Kelso in Silk City Fibers Cotton Bamboo, Desert Queen in Jody Long Cotton

Hybrid Knitting

If you also hand knit, consider knitting garter stitch borders or complicated lace repeats by hand and then hanging your work on the machine when you come to a more machine-friendly part.

Don’t limit yourself to one craft just because you think you have to! Machine knitting does some things better than hand-knitting, and hand-knitting does some things better than machine knitting.

For the Alanis Sweater by Elizabeth Smith below, I finished the last few short-rows in the yoke shaping by hand because I didn’t want to worry about wraps and the garter bar. The sweater is knitted in-the-round by hand, but it was easy to separate the sides and add selvedge stitches.

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Stay Flexible

When you’re looking at your pattern, keep an open mind. You can always replace hand knit borders with a machine knit variant. Mock rib is simple on the machine and is often included in your machine’s manual. You can ladder down purl stitches and latch them up with the latch tool as knit stitches for true ribbing, or you can use a ribber attachment if your machine has one.

If a lace pattern has purls in it, you can re-form them with the latch hook or simply leave them as-is for your own variation without the purl bump on the right side of the garment. If you don’t want to hand-transfer a lace pattern, consider replacing the lace area with a lace carriage punch card pattern.

If you can crochet, don’t rule out a crochet edging, either!

When you translate and modify a pattern to fit your machines, you really can create something one of a kind.

Because you’re modifying a pattern, remember there’s a chance it might not look exactly like the designer’s original piece. You are completely changing the craft they designed it for, after all. I personally don’t mind differences that might arise when changing crafts because they just add to the originality of the garment.

That being said, sometimes your attempts to modify a pattern won’t work. Whether it’s because of a gauge calculation error, a stitch miscount, or you need to keep working on your machine knitting skills, you might not succeed on your first or second try. Maybe that stitch wasn’t meant to be done by machine.

You might finish a garment and then be hit with something in hindsight that would have worked for your project much better than the choice you made, and that’s OK.

Don’t be afraid to rip out something that doesn’t work! You are allowed to rip it out and start over. If you’re like me and you need permission to undo something you spent a lot of time on, even though it didn’t work, here’s your sign. You can rip it out. It is OK. Learn from it, take a deep breath, and move on. You’re still on the right path and leveling up your skills.

How do you find patterns to knit on your machine? What search refinements do you like to use on ravelry? Do you use another site to find patterns, or do you stick to books and magazines?

Let me know in the comments!

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How I Swatch Yarn

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 elyknits

There are SO MANY different methods floating around about how to swatch your yarn, but the one I’m about to share with you is the best one I’ve learned yet. It can take a bit of extra time and scrap yarn (let’s be honest, who doesn’t have a ton of scrap yarn tangling around?), but if you keep your swatches (and you should!), you’ll save yourself some trouble in the long run, especially if you find yourself returning to the same yarns over time.

Why this method? Well, do you have Multiple Project Syndrome? I sure do! I often dive into a new project or swatching a yummy new yarn and then end up giving in to the lure of yet another squishy new yarn before I’ve completed using a previous one.

That’s where this method comes in handy–you don’t have to remember anything about the swatch other than what yarn it is! The tension number or knitting needle size, the stitch numbers, the row count? It’s all right there in the swatch itself when you do it this way. There’s no guessing. The eyelets you see in the picture below are a code that tells you what machine was used and what tension the swatch was knitted at! The contrasting scrap yarn marks the beginning and end rows, and the small loops around the stitches in the middle mark the same number of stitches between them every single time.

This method is consistent, and I’ve found it to be the most accurate way of calculating stitch and row gauge because it leaves extra fabric around the area to be measured, which makes for less distortion of the stitches. The contrasting color markers make it easy to immediately find your measuring start and end points.

And this method isn’t just for machine knitters! I use it when hand knitting, too. Instructions are for machine knitting, but a hand knitting summary will follow.

Note: This tutorial does not include how to calculate gauge, only how I swatch yarn.

Drag arrows to see front and back sides of this Jody Long Coastline Color 005 yarn in my swatching style.
Eyelet code marks rows in the bottom of the scrap yarn, and you can clearly see the beginning and end of the main yarn on the purl/wrong side of the swatch.

Materials

Main Yarn (to be swatched)
Scrap yarn of similar size but contrasting color. It should be able to handle the wash/dry/blocking you plan for the main yarn
Knitting machine set to tension of choice with coordinating latch tool, transfer tools, weights, and cast-on accessories
Metal, Plastic, or Wooden Ruler (not a tape measure, which can stretch with use and time)
Straight Pins
Towel or blocking board

Skills Needed

Cast On
Using Weights
Using Transfer Tools to make eyelets
Using Latch Hook Tool
Switching Yarn Colors
Cast Off

How To for Standard Gauge Machines

Cast on 60 stitches with your cast-on of choice in scrap yarn. (L30 to R30 on your needle bed)
Hang your cast-on comb and weights as you normally would.

Knit 2-4 rows.
About 4-6 stitches from the right side edge of the work on your machine, use a transfer tool to make eyelets equaling number of stitches for each number in your machine’s model number, skipping 3-4 stitches in between each number.

Examples:
Make eight eyelets, three plain stitches, nine eyelets, three plain stitches, and then one eyelet for the machine model KH-891.
Make one eyelet, three plain stitches, then five eyelets for the model LK-150.

Knit 2-4 rows.
About 4-6 stitches from the edge, make the number of eyelets that equals the number setting on the tension dial that you are swatching, e.g., five eyelets for Tension 5, eight eyelets for Tension 8, etc.

Knit 2-4 rows.

Switch to Main Yarn.

Knit 30 rows.

Using scrap yarn and your latch hook, secure the scrap yarn around the stitch on needles L21 and R21. There should be 40 stitches between the marked needles. If you wish, pull these stitches all the way out to HOLD position on your machine to ensure they knit.

Knit until you have completed 60 rows in Main Yarn.

Switch to Scrap Yarn.
Knit 2 rows.

*From this point, you may repeat the process from the eyelet row that marks the tension dial number if you wish.*

Knit a total of 4-6 rows after Main Yarn.

Bind off using bind-off of choice.

Measure stitch and row gauges before blocking and record those measurements.

Wash and Block swatch as you intend to wash and block your project. Consider hanging weights (machine weights or fishing line weights work well) to mimic how the bulk of a larger garment might wear.

Measure stitch and row gauges AGAIN after you have washed and blocked your swatch. Record your measurements. Note any shrinkage, yarn performance, and anything you noticed about the yarn along with your measurements.

Always work from your finished swatch measurements.

Drag arrows to see the front and back side of connected swatches, or a “security scarf” of gauge.
This yarn swatch is Berroco Comfort in Color 9747 “Cadet.”
You can see eyelet rows denoting tension size changes in the red or grey scrap yarn between the blue main yarn.
You can see wrapped stitches denoting 20 stitches between markers.
(I apologize for the messy cast on that obscures the machine model number code row. This was knitted on the LK-150.)

Measuring Your Swatch

Gather your swatch, straight pins, ruler, and blocking mat or towel.

When you measure, your swatch should be on a flat surface and unstretched. Pin it to the blocking board or towel for stability so it will not move while you measure, but don’t stretch it out.

Stitch Gauge:
Measure with the knit side of the fabric facing up.

The stitches wrapped in scrap yarn always denote 40 stitches between them for standard gauge swatches or 20 for mid-gauge and bulky swatches, but the wrapped stitches can distort the stitches next to them a bit. Simply move your ruler a couple rows down and measure between the marked stitches.

Record your measurements! I use a binder. Some people prefer to write notes in their ravelry.com yarn stash pages. Whatever you do, keep a record of your measurements.

Keep your swatch! Do you need to meet a specific stitch gauge from a hand knit pattern that you’re translating to the machine, but it’s given over a different number of stitches? Just count them out on your swatch and go from there!

Row Gauge:
Re-pin your swatch with the purl side of the fabric facing up. Do not stretch out your swatch. You can clearly see the purl bumps of color where the main yarn begins and ends. Using your ruler in the middle of the swatch, measure from the start of the main color purl bump to the last of the main color purl bump.

Record your measurements and keep your swatch! This is so helpful in the long run, so I will keep stressing this!

Drag arrows to see the front and back sides of this swatch. Yarn is 316 Dye Studio’s House DK in Spruce.
As you can read from the code rows’ eyelets, this was knitted on the LK-150 at Tension 5.

How To for Mid-Gauge and Bulky Gauge Machines

Cast on 30 stitches with your cast-on of choice in scrap yarn. (L15 to R15 on your needle bed)
Hang your cast-on comb and weights as you normally would.

Knit 2-4 rows.
About 3-5 stitches from the right side edge of the work on your machine, use a transfer tool to make eyelets equaling number of stitches for each number in your machine’s model number, skipping 3-4 stitches in between each number.

Examples:
Make eight eyelets, three plain stitches, nine eyelets, three plain stitches, and then one eyelet for the machine model KH-891.
Make one eyelet, three plain stitches, then five eyelets for the model LK-150.

Knit 2-4 rows.
About 3-5 stitches from the edge, make the number of eyelets that equals the number setting on the tension dial that you are swatching, e.g., five eyelets for Tension 5, eight eyelets for Tension 8, etc.

Knit 2-4 rows.

Switch to Main Yarn.

Knit 15 rows.

Using scrap yarn and your latch hook, secure the scrap yarn around the stitch on needles L11 and R11. There should be 20 stitches between the marked needles. If you wish, pull these stitches all the way out to HOLD position on your machine to ensure they knit.

Knit until you have completed 30 rows in Main Yarn.

Switch to Scrap Yarn.

*From this point, you may repeat the process from the eyelet row that marks the tension dial number if you wish.*

Knit 4-6 rows.

Bind off using bind-off of choice.

Measure stitch and row gauges before blocking and record those measurements.

Wash and Block swatch as you intend to wash and block your project. Consider hanging weights (machine weights or fishing line weights work well) to mimic how the bulk of a larger garment might wear.

How To Modifications for Hand Knitting

Skills needed:
Cast on
Knit
Purl
Stockinette stitch
Yarn Over (YO)
Knit 2 together (k2tog)
Bind off

Instructions:
With scrap yarn, cast on 30 stitches.
Knit 2 rows in stockinette stitch.
On the Right Side or Knit Side of the swatch, perform a “Code Row” by creating the number of eyelets that equals your knitting needle size.
For example, on a size 6 needle:
Knit 4 stitches, (YO, k2tog) six times, and knit to end.
Knit two more rows in stockinette stitch.
Switch to Main Yarn.
Knit 15 rows. Use a small piece of scrap yarn to mark the fifth and twenty-sixth stitches by wrapping them with the waste yarn and looping it on itself or tying it in a knot around the stitch.
Knit 15 more rows for a total of 30 rows with main yarn.
Switch to Scrap Yarn. Knit 2 rows or Repeat from “Code Row” with another size needle.
Bind off.

Notes

Feel free to fiddle with the number of scrap yarn rows in between your main yarn as long as you leave some space around the eyelet rows to allow for any distortion they might cause in your fabric. Sometimes I will knit more rows and sometimes I want to do as few as possible.

If you’re working with a limited amount of yarn, you can always unpick your swatch and use it, but you should try to buy enough yarn to keep your swatches as reference. If you’ve recorded your measurements in a safe space, I suppose you don’t have to keep your swatch around if you don’t want to.

I store my swatches in an old Lebkuchen-Schmidt Nuremburg tin, but you could graft your swatches together to make pet shelter blankets or use them for coasters if you know you’ll never need them again. (Oh the sadness of discontinued yarns!)

How do you swatch on your machine? Do you use this method or something similar? Do you save your swatches? What about favorite yarns? Are there any you return to that would benefit from swatching this way? Let me know in the comments!

Credits and Sources
Pamela Carrico of CMO Designer Knits— my knitting machine teacher, mentor, and friend.
Diana Sexton Designs of Lafayette, IN– handout packet pages 57-58, “Security Scarfs.” I was unable to locate an online presence.
“How to use your Knit-Leader” KL-116 manual, page 7. You can find various machine and accessory manual PDFs at machineknittingetc.com.

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Review: Machine Knitting Monthly – February 21 – Issue 277

February 23, 2021 elyknits

Welcome to the first of many review posts! Today we’re looking at the February 2021 edition of UK-based Machine Knitting Monthly. This post will also be a bit of an overview of what the magazine has to offer.

I’ve been a subscriber to this magazine for over a year, and it’s one of the only machine knitting magazines left. It costs around 10 USD including shipping, and it generally arrives towards the middle of the listed month for me. (For a US-based mag, check out Country Knitting of Maine’s News & Views magazine.)

What’s in this issue?

First up, let’s look at Machine Knitting Monthly’s regular setup. You can expect an average of eight patterns per issue, and newer issues include instructions and/or conversion factors for both standard and mid-gauge machines. All patterns feature a schematic, so if you do the knitting math, you can knit them out of whatever yarn you like on your choice of machine.

You’ll find features on fashion in the “Style File” if you’re looking for inspiration, quick craft book reviews, and the magazine’s own letter section, “Dear Anne,” where you can see what other readers are working on and where they’re having issues. I love to see what others are working on, and I feel solidarity and a bit of encouragement when I read of others’ struggles and the solutions offered. For a sense of community, this magazine section is my go-to, especially during the pandemic.

The magazine has been on a self-striping yarn kick for about four issues now, and while I’m ready for them to move on to something new, they’ve managed to pick some pretty decent patterns that show off self-striping yarn well, as seen in the cover’s main feature, the sweater Cold Comfort.

Machine knitting instructor, designer, and author Susan Guagliumi has been a regular in recent months. Her book, Hand-Manipulated Stitches for Machine Knitters is a MUST HAVE for all machine knitters in my opinion. This month’s contribution is a Fair Isle colorwork cardigan. The pattern supplies a punch card template, but don’t worry if your machine doesn’t have punch card capabilities. You can hand-select the needles for this pattern and achieve the same result.

February 2021’s Designer Spotlight shines on Alison Dupernex and features a look at her use of color choice and textile design. I particularly enjoyed the visual textures created by her included pattern, Tiger Stripe.

Machine Knitting Monthly’s own designer, Bill King, regularly features techniques in his column. This month’s, entitled “Lean on me,” features leaning cables and eyelets made by using groups of needles and short-rowing techniques. (You can see an eyelet version of this element used in Linda Jensen’s Serpentine Shawl pattern on etsy.) This issue also includes a reprint of Bill King’s Fandango design.

Most patterns and techniques are designed for Silverreed/Brother/Knitking-style machines, but Machine Knitting Monthly now features a regular section called “Passap People” with techniques especially for Passap machine users.

The magazine also reprints a column with the conversational wisdom of the late Joan Lafferty.

You’ll see standard advertisements, but these are better because many of them are machine knitting and cone yarn related. You’ll often find discount codes for subscribers, so that’s a nice plus!

Thoughts

It’s been a few years since I started machine knitting, but I’m still eating up any form of machine knitting media I can find. Since this is one of the few print media machine-related things still around, I subscribed as soon as I found out about Machine Knitting Magazine and it fit into my budget. Sometimes I think I’m still in the honeymoon phase of machine knitting where everything seems gloriously and intimidatingly possible. If it exists for machine knitting, I want it, and I will do what I can to throw money at it and support it. As they say on their cover, Machine Knitting Magazine has been around for 34 years, and I’d like them to be around for many, many more.

That being said, the magazine’s patterns can really suffer from that vintage feeling that a lot of machine knitting has floating around it. The patterns may use newer, flashier things like self-striping yarn, but a lot of them feel like those same classic patterns from the vintage books. (I don’t mean to pooh-pooh vintage patterns. Classic shapes are classic for a reason, so hoard those vintage pattern books when you find them. I definitely do.)

I’m a thirty-something American, so I’m pretty sure I’m not Machine Knitting Magazine’s target audience. I’ve heard people lament it’s a dying art in the USA. Many of the machine knitters I attended seminar were past their fifties and sixties, but many were younger. Gen X and Millennial machine knitters do exist! But where do they get their patterns?

I’m an avid ravelry.com user, so when I compare the pattern feed of ravelry to what’s showing up in Machine Knitting Monthly, the magazine comes up short on color choice, stitch usage, textures, and garment variety. It’s difficult to find a lot of their patterns even listed in ravelry’s database (although you and I can submit them and change that fact since the database is user generated).

Comparing a monthly magazine to an internet pattern database and social platform is not a fair comparison whatsoever, but it highlights what I personally would like to see in the magazine — more variety.

But therein lies the rub– ravelry has an abundance of designers and content creators, while many of those who would do so for machine knitting have retired or passed away. Many are of an age that generally just isn’t tech-savvy.

So where does that leave us? It’s up to the machine knitters of today to create that variety and get it out there so others can see it and we can grow our craft. ravelry.com has a machine knitting section, so there’s a place right there in the biggest yarn community on the internet for us.

Pulling back from that ranty tangent and getting back to the magazine review, I truly like but also dislike that Machine Knitting Monthly will rerun patterns and columns. On one hand, a rerun means that something that might have been published before I could even read will reach my eyes, but on the other, a reprint makes me wonder again about lack of content.

The technique sections are inspiring, and I enjoy the friendly tone of the late Joan Lafferty’s column reprints. I enjoy that window into the machine knitting world of the past.

Machine Knitting Monthly has great picture tutorials– this month’s focuses on invisible seam grafting/Kitchener stitch, something I just could not grasp until I saw the way many machine knitters graft — off of waste yarn, so it might be handy to those of you who still need assistance with seaming.

So, with all of that said, let’s deliver some sort of rating.

Simply for existing, Machine Knitting Monthly itself gets a 5/5.

Because of the continued insistence on self-striping yarn and lack of variety in patterns but extremely helpful tutorials with great technique highlights, February 2021’s Issue 277 gets a solid 3.5/5 from me.

I hope you enjoyed today’s review. Do you subscribe to Machine Knitting Monthly, too? What did you think of this month’s issue? What did I miss in this review that you’d like to see? Let me know below in the comments!

I am not affiliated with any of the individuals listed or linked here unless otherwise noted. All opinions are honest and my own.

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So you’ve inherited a knitting machine… now what? Starting from Scratch with Machine Knitting.

February 8, 2021 elyknits

There are so many things to consider when you find yourself with a knitting machine. What even is it? It says it’s a machine that knits in the name, but how does it do that? What if you don’t hand knit? Where do you find the yarn? How much space is this thing going to take up in the house?

If no one around you knows anything about machine knitting, you’re going to have to do the work yourself to track down the resources (and I’m here to help!). But before you start going crazy with all of the questions a potential new hobby brings, it’s time for the first significant stop in your knitting machine journey.

It’s not Google. It’s YouTube.

Googling your new hobby is a great way to find articles and inspiration, but you’ll often find yourself in too deep and overwhelmed by knowledge and terms when you dive head first into forums and specialized sites. You’ll get there in machine knitting, too, since that initial overwhelmed feeling can happen with every hobby, but stopping and watching first can help you catch your breath.

Take the time to see the possibilities in machine knitting. Try not to let any terms catch you off guard, and make a mental note of anything that catches your interest for later. Remember, you’re just watching for now.

Here are a few videos to get you started:

Machine Knitting a Sweater – Time Lapse by Lorna Watt – Start to finish of a cat sweater

Fruity Knitting Podcast Episode 105 – Interview with machine knitting instructor Susan Guagliumi – This episode is especially good for hand knitters wondering about machine knitting. In addition to a two part interview with Guagliumi, Fruity Knitting interviews a hobby machine knitter who does not hand knit.

Brother KH-860 Knitting Machine Demo by Buckwsr – sampling of many different knitting machine functions

What do you think? Were you inspired? Intimidated?

Machine knitting does have more of a learning curve than hand knitting or other yarn crafts, but don’t let that discourage you. Watching others work will open your mind to the endless possibilities of the craft.

If the dive into machine knitting does become too much, remember, there’s a pause button, and you can always come back later. Those of us in the machine knitting community will be happy to have you join us whenever you’re ready.

Where did your YouTube machine knitting video dive take you? Share some of your favorites in the comments below!

If you’re an experienced machine knitter who didn’t have YouTube when you began, where did you start?