Using a knitting machine at home really came into its own after the Second World War. The Red Cross, amongst others, made use of knitting machines. The need for socks for troops soared during the First World War and although many socks were hand knit, machine knitted socks were also made on the knitting machines of the day. (This is almost like the loom knitting setup – but more about that below, in the second part of the article.) Initially, yarn was placed by hand, until about two centuries later when this was no longer necessary because of improvements in the design of the machine.Īs fashions changed, the need for longer mens’ stockings became bigger and knitting machines were soon adapted until tubes of knitted fabric could be produced using a round setup. William Lee saw an opportunity and created the first knitting machine in 1589, consisting of a frame with adapted, barbed needles. For that, we have to travel several centuries back in time.īy the end of the 16th century, England alone needed some 10 million pairs of stockings and, at the time, only hand knitting was possible.
Machine knitting, therefore, may be faster when knitting certain patterns but it’s not “cheating” at knitting.īut where did knitting machines come from in the first place? you may ask yourself. need manipulation of some kind from the person working the knitting machine (see also the article by Olgalyn Jolly on Modern Daily Knitting for more details).
#Loom knitting manual#
Many of the stitches and patterns need active manual manipulation of stitches to create an item.įor example, knitting machines are well set up to knit stockinette (jersey) and rib fabrics, garter stitches, cables, etc.
The end result of hand knitting and this type of machine knitting is often indistinguishable from one another.Īlthough “machine knitting” may sound like you push a button or two and a machine knits the item you want without further input from you, this is not true. Rather, we’re only looking at knitting machines made for home use – the so-called domestic knitting machines. Most knitwear these days are made by machines, but in this article we’re not talking about the vast industry of clothing manufacturing. The knitted fabric or knitted item is then made using this knitting machine. Machine knitting is a type of knitting that is done, not with two to five needles (depending on whether you work in the round or not), but by many needles that make up part of a machine. In this article we’ll look specifically at machine knitting and loom knitting, how they differ, what tools and yarn you need to do machine or loom knitting, and we’ll also give you some patterns for these methods of knitting. Although hand knitting is usually what is referred to when we talk about knitting, machine knitting and loom knitting are also hand crafts that use similar techniques to produce a knitted garment.
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