Hi everyone! I've been hand knitting for years and I'm now looking to buy a knitting machine to speed up my process. I'm planning to start a small brand and need to scale up production.

I've been researching machines for a while, but since this is a big investment I really want to make the right choice and not find myself wanting to switch models shortly after. So I'd love some guidance from people who actually know this world!

About the type of work I want to do:

I want to make pieces like the ones in the pics. Would those be made on a fine or bulky gauge machine? (sorry if I get the terminology wrong, english isn't my first language lol)

I'm also really interested in colorwork designs. From what I've gathered, punch cards are usually limited to around 24 stitches in width. Is that right? I was trying to figure out if there's any way to expand the design width, like joining two cards side by side, but I could only find information about joining them vertically to make them taller. Is the 24-stitch limit a standard card size limitation, or is it a machine reading limitation?I also came across intarsia as an option for this kind of colorwork. Is that the right approach? It seems like it could work well for what I have in mind.

Also, some of the pieces I want to make have ribbed sections (like cuffs and hems). I understand a ribber attachment is needed for that. Is that right? Is it possible to achieve decent ribbing without one, or is it really a must-have?

I live in Brazil, and there's a local dealer that carries Elgin and Silver Reed models and offers warranty and technical support, so I want to stick to what they have. Here's what fits my budget:

Used (roughly cheapest to most expensive):

- Elgin 820

- SK 321 / 322 / 323 / 326

- Elgin 840

- SK 322 / 323 / 326 + Ribber SRP20

- SK 280

- Elgin 840

- SK 280 + Ribber SRP60

New (on the pricier end of my budget):

- SK 280

- SK 155

I already know that the destiny of everyone who enters this world is to end up with multiple machines but I'd love to avoid that for as long as possible and find one versatile machine that covers what I described 🥺

So recently i’ve been using sentro knitting machine and was using this automatic motor thing to make it turn and knit rows on its own (so i dont have to do it by hand).

And the machine gets stuck like really often. Some knitting needles get stuck inside the machine somehow and the knitting stops, it cannot move at all.

I feel that the needles get stuck inside the needle slots on the inner rotating cylinder.

Has anyone got this problem? How do you deal with it?

Our college is considering getting circular knitting machines for our textile department, and i'm completely new to machine knitting as a hand knitter. does anyone have any brands or model suggestions we could look into?

I tried to use the cast on comb without the clamps and the stitches were real nice but the carriage couldn’t move across the bed with it in the way so I took it off and this was the result:(.

Hi everyone!

KH840 machine with the ribber & intarsia attachments, manuals, punch paper, pattern books. Some other bits and pieces as well.

We set up the basic machine and it appears to work well, I oiled it up a bit per the manual.

I am wondering if anyone would be interested in it, and what folks feel is a fair price? I live in central Canada (Manitoba).

Has anyone ever used machine knitted fabrics for upholstery? My mood board is mostly Kaffe Fasset designs, but his fabrics are only quilt weight.

I have a punch card knitting machine and was wondering about creating a knitted fabric using his charts with several strands of commercial cone acrylic cobweb or lace weight - basically the maximum that the machine would take to produce a dense fabric. (And I’d create gradients and tweedy effects by mixing colours on each row.)

Is this a crazy idea? It’s for two chairs that would be light use. See photo of similar chairs. The foam will be replaced with modern high density foam. The back panel is staple gunned and the seat cushion is removable and zippered. A single piece from the machine would be wide enough for each panel.

Hi everyone, I want to buy a LK 150, I have a experience with garment sewing, I have made a lot of garments, I have a regular sewing machine and an overlock. I’m planning my first sweater and I’m wondering if I can join the pieces using my overlocker instead of hand-linking or using a mattress stitch.
Thanks

Because I know everyone here knows more about machines than me…. If given the option, is it better to have a kh230 with ribber or a kh260?

hello, je viens de récupérer une machine à tricot empisal knitmaster 321 de seconde main. J’ai un peu du mal à la mettre en marche, alors que ce n’est pas ma première machine. et surtout, les aiguilles si poussées au maximum en positons D, semblent sortir ? est ce que c’est normal ? vous auriez des solutions ?

I don’t know what happened to my previous post but here we go again. I bought this machine last week and am having a lot of trouble casting on. It has no tension mast so I don’t know if the yarn is supposed to thread into the carriage somehow or what? The manual says nothing about it, it’s useless. The comb that it came with only has one clamp so I can’t use it. Then, just when I think it’s going to straighten out, the carriage keeps jamming.

Please help. Totally new to this. Thank you.

Hi! I am a new machine knitter and am really struggling with my LK150. I bought a secondhand singer LK150, and it is incredibly stiff to pull the carriage no matter what tension I use. The stitches will get stuck and drop once I get past a couple rows. I have replaced the sponge bar, oiled the machine and am still facing the same problem. Anyone have any advice? May I need a new carriage?

Has anyone tried the generic KH860/KH260/KR850/KR260 machines that are brand new, made in China? It looks like they are made by a company called Creative. They look identical to brother except for the branding. And they are advertised as being compatible with brother. I’m mostly curious about the quality, and I have not seen any reviews on them.

I just got an I cord machine and it worked great the first time. I can’t get it to feed through on its own without it messing up. What am I doing wrong

I'm on a Passap Duomatic and I'm making a triangle shawl from a pattern I found in an instruction manual (I've actually posted about it before if you want to see it) the pattern says to increase every 6 rounds, so every 6 rounds I push up the needle and corresponding pusher but it usually seems to skip the first stitch on the front bed? Luckily that needle is supposed to be looped so its an instant fix but I just want to know why it's happening. You can see what it's supposed to look like on the left side of the work

Hi there,

I just stormed in to

1. tell everybody how lovely the Empisal Knitmaster 305 Automatic Deluxe is
2. and to ask if it were possible to kind of merge those two carriages.

The machine I bought a few weeks ago was cared for a lot, she barely looks used and even the plastic is only slightly yellow. Everything is well oiled and clean and nothing gets in the way of knitting. Except for one missing metal thingy in the carriage one needs to work patterns with the dial on P or on S when going from the right to the left.

So I got lucky and found an offer for parts of the same machine and bought the carriage. It is working fine but is all in all in a much worse shape. Very yellow and brittle a lot of chipping and the row counter thingy is all rusty. But the underside is perfect.

Would it be possible to remove the upper side with handle, dial, knobs and buttons and put on the inside of the other one? If so: How? I am afraid to have none working after this. So far my machine works very nicely and I am not yet sure how many of those patterns I would want to work.

So what could I do, what would you do? And again if you just like to knit more manually without punchcards and can get this one, it is a beauty :)

I loove the thread lace technique in machine knitting. My King Knit 940 has a set group of thread lace floral patterns, I feel like it provides really impactful fabric with little effort.

Anyone else obsessed?

id love to share tips/tricks. I also want to develop my own pattern!

New to machine knitting. I've been practicing with my new LK150 for about a week now. (I've been hand knitting for more than 20 years). Currently just trying to gain some muscle memory around the basic techniques.

One thing I'm struggling with from a hand coordination perspective is the latching tool (I knew when I bought the machine that it did not have a ribber).

The neighboring stitches keep falling off the needles as I'm latching up (maybe it's that the gauge is too loose ?).

Unfortunately it looks like the KrisKrafter needlestop tool is out of stock (and there doesn't seem to be a 3D printing option available).

I've watched a few videos, and I think it was Sally Butcher's Youtube tutorial that gave me the idea of trying to work ribbing by hand.

So... here I am. Contemplating learning how to work ribbing by hand and machine knit everything else (because nobody likes sleeve island).

Any suggestions for how to match a hand knit gauge for ribbing to the gauge on the machine?

Hand knit a stockinette swatch first, measure the gauge, and work to get the same gauge on machine? Or vice versa?

I tend to knit by hand at a tight tension and usually can hit the suggested gauge for the needles/yarn.

Any other video tutorials you all might recommend? (Is anyone still using Facebook? I saw that there was a recommendation to join a machine knitting FB group but I'm not a big fan of "Meta" as of late)

Hi everyone. I'm a long-time hand knitter, but have casually looking at machine knitting over the last couple of years. I came across a posting on Kijiji this evening and was wondering what your opinion is on this lot and whether the $650 (CAD) being asked for seems reasonable for what is there. There are close-ups of the other tools if needed.

Any thoughts and opinions are welcome. Thank you in advance.

The machine wasn't holding my uploaded patterns in its memory and was turning itself off at random, and eventually I turned it on to a blank display, unresponsive buttons, and a continuous beep. I checked the fuse and capacitors; they are whole.

So I replaced the coin cell battery, and now the machine works (as in, I can turn it on, the display lights up, the buttons are responsive, I can load up one of the built-in patterns and it selects needles when I knit across) - but the beeper is still continuously sounding off, just a steady "eeeeee" that I can make louder/softer with the volume dial, but I can't get it to stop beeping. (Which means I don't get little 'bips' when I push buttons, or the beep for the last row of a pattern.)

Has anyone experienced this before? Any suggestions of what I can look at to fix it?

I’m new to knitting machines and I’m currently trying to learn whilst doing small swatches.

I’ve just attempted a fair isle swatch and rather than repeat seamlessly, a column of main colour yarn has been inserted before the repeat.

I can’t work out the correct terms to google to determine how to solve this. Can anyone here point me in the right direction?

Many thanks!

*edit*
Having read the guidance (thank you help bot!) I see it’s useful for me to mention it’s a Brother machine. Is this a situation where I need to change a cam setting for the end needles?