Machine Knitting: Essential Techniques

Class Preview

Tackle essential skills for your knitting machine. Learn to cast on, check tension, create shaping, work fun stitches, troubleshoot and more.

Understanding Your Knitting Machine

Meet Susan Guagliumi and learn how knitting machines work, the gauges of yarn they use and some of the differences across brands and types. With an understanding of the commonalities — needle positions, carriage, tension and maintenance — you will be able to explore how your own machine works.

Casting On & Starting to Knit

Waste yarn holds your live stitches until you’re ready to pick them up to graft or add elements such as cuffs or neckbands. Susan shows how to use waste yarn for a speedy open cast-on and begin knitting. Check your tension, play with stitch sizes, add new yarns and learn how to weave in ends automatically.

Basic Shaping & Binding Off

Using your machine’s transfer tools, you’ll be able to manipulate stitches to create increases and decreases for shaping garments. Susan demonstrates shaping methods, shows how to create lacy eyelets and explains how to bind off using the latch tool. Practice what you’ve learned with the included baby sweater pattern.

Shaping With Short Rows

Learn how to use needles in the hold and nonworking positions for shaping with short rows. You’ll be able to achieve a smooth angle on shoulder seams and necklines, for example, rather than the stair-steps of traditional bind-off shaping. Keep your live stitches secure by “scrapping off” with waste yarn.

Manual Patterning

Get creative with your knitting machine using tuck-stitch and slip-stitch patterning. You can knit beautiful textures simply by manipulating the levers on your carriage to keep stitches on hold in one row and knit them on the next. Susan shows you how!

Beyond The Basics

Susan helps you master some tricky yet rewarding techniques that will take your machine-knitting projects to the next level. Learn a stretchy alternative cast-on and a firmer, no-roll cast-on. Experiment with hand-manipulated ribbing using your transfer tools and try some simple cable crosses.

Troubleshooting & Avoiding Mistakes

Made a mistake? Susan is here to help! You’ll learn how to troubleshoot cast-ons, dropped stitches and missing or malformed stitches. If you fail to complete a row or you drop your work, you’ll know how to recover. Finally, Susan addresses carriage and yarn issues, so you can machine-knit with confidence!