first mid-gauge knitting machine projects!

I have a new (to me) knitting machine! The Studio LK150 is a mid-gauge machine, and a big step up from my Ultimate Sweater Machine, which is so basic it’s sometimes called a ‘toy’ (although it’s definitely not a toy, and I’ve made several sweaters with it).

My ‘new’ (to me) LK150 knitting machine

This machine had been in storage for about 30 years (it even came with a VHS instruction tape!), so I wasn’t sure how much maintenance it would need, but it was in pretty good condition: it was missing one needle and had a few more with slight rust spots. But the main problem was the sponge bar, which had never been replaced:

Most knitting machines have a sponge bar that runs across the tops of the needles and presses them down while still allowing them some flexibility as the carriage passes by. The sponge is a disposable part that should ideally be replaced every year or so when it loses its elasticity.

Tip: If you have a knitting machine, try tipping the whole machine forward. If the needles stay in place, your sponge bar is still good! If any of the needles slide forward, it’s time to replace your sponge bar.

You can see how flat the 30+ year old sponge bar is compared with its new replacement! The middle of the old sponge completely disintegrated as I pulled it out.

With a brand new strip of sponge installed, all that was left to do was to replace the damaged needles, clean and oil the machine, and see if it worked…

And it did! I’ve made two test projects so far: a new dog sweater with worsted weight yarn, which is pushing the upper yarn weight limit for this machine…

Maggie loves her winter walks!

…and a basic V neck sweater for myself using light #3 (DK) weight yarn – the first time I’ve tried to machine knit a sweater in a finer yarn than worsted weight.

This sweater may look familiar if you have a good memory – I unintentionally recreated this sweater – which was, coincidentally, my first ever attempt at using a knitting machine. But although the colour and styles of the two sweaters are almost identical, the yarn weight isn’t! Compare the stitch size of the new sleeve with the stitches in the old sweater body behind it:

On top: DK-weight sleeve; below: worsted weight sweater body

With the finer yarn, the stitches are much smaller, and I think the new sweater looks really neat as a result.

I prefer to finish all my knitting by hand – knitting the ribbed collar and cuffs on circular needles is almost as fast as converting plain machine-knit rows into ribbing, and knitting is much more enjoyable and relaxing than manipulating stitches.

For this sweater, I also used a centred double decrease to add a vertical bar in the middle of the V neck. I think I prefer it without the bar, but it does make a nice crisp centre line:

A centred double decrease makes a straight line emerging from the tip of the V

‘Machine knitting’ sounds like a fully-automatic process and not real crafting, but using a manual knitting machine is surprisingly hands-on: you’re still counting all the rows, manipulating the needles and yarn to place every increase and decrease, moving weights and checking for dropped stitches. And I find it to be quite exhausting manual work! The key for me is to notice I’m tiring and walk away before I start making mistakes – it can take so long to fix a mistake that sometimes it’s faster to start the piece again from scratch.

I really like my combination of machine and hand-knitting: by knitting all the stockinette parts on the machine, I still get to design the sweater pieces myself and spend enjoyable hours hand-knitting the collars, cuffs, button bands and any fancy stitches, but I get to speed up the overall process.

I’m very happy with my new machine, and now I’m trying to decide what I should make next! Something a little more adventurous next time, I think – although that means I need to do some serious planning and designing before I can start…