Whole Garment Knitting on 2 Beds
Starting a discussion on whole garment knitting on 2 Beds following the successful migration of the old kCode beanie to the new kCode format and the a successful knit.
He is the knit of the beanie.
We notice that,
- due to the amount of transfer stitches that occur, and the speed that this happens that this is SLOW
- The knit is 'thin' , and not really suitable for a beanie as it needs to be much thicker
Anyone any comments if
- The speed of the transfer is normal for a 2 v-bed knitting machine
- Thicker knits (with nice ribbing) would be possible
- If it would be possible to produce a nice thick, ribbed beanie using whole garment knitting on the knitterate..
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- As with every knit, speed could probably be increased with time and mastery.
- To get a thicker beanie, it could be interesting to try with some kind of wool that shrinks considerably, so you'd knit it oversized and get it to the target size after steaming.
Nice picture! :)
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Sometimes you just need to serve fashion, and throw function to the wind. Following the knit hat trend as I do oh so closely, even bucket hats with flow thru ventilation are happening with today youths. Trust me on this I was outside my house as recently as 11 months ago.
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A more serious response, than the one still pending. What I often do, on hand machines, is make a reversible beanie, kniting one top down and the other bottom up. Could you copy the kCodeOld file, reverse the order of the rows and then append the the first. Not binding off at the end of the first copy, but instead merging into the the second copy. Probably changing the yarn color or pattern to emphasize ther reversiblity. Even the cut and sewn ones that I buy are often double layered so it is jersey on both inside and out.
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Those cats, though....
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Party on! :)
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Is anyone able to share a visualization of casting on in the round on the machine?
A few thoughts as a hand knitter:
Some wools 'bloom' when you wash them. Fine merinos but also most woolen spun yarn.
I wonder if color work would increase the thickness? Stranded color work is much warmer than plain stockinette.
Folks with the Addi circular machine make long tubes for hats, fold them to double the thickness and draw in the tops.
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Cats just love the Kniterate Machine (And nibbling the yarn).... Cant keep them away!!!
Will try that reverable beanie sometime, and the alternative wool types... :
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did you use a 2 ply yarn (2/20's or 2/14s) to knit the beanie? It would be interesting to know as a starting point
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A kniterate machine uses nm 6-8 so 2/14 would work but 2/20 would potentially be an issue.
We use 2/16 on our machine with no issues
Tim
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Hi Robert,
Many thanks. I mosgly knit on my silver reed fine gauge machine with 2/14's and 2/20's work well. I'm so confused with what yarn /gauge is suitable for the kniterate. A steep learning curve's ahead of me.....
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Hi @...,
As Robert Ingemarsson points out, nm 6-8 is recommended for the Kniterate....However, I did a little experimenting on my Kniterate to test how it worked with finer yarn. My motivation was to knit with multiple colored yarns - the fabric can get quite thick as you add more colors, when you are using nm 6-8, so I bought some nm 2/28 merino to try. I don't have any examples of knitting single jersey with the 2/28, but it makes a very nice drapey 2-color jacquard, pictured below. Each row of knitting has 2 colors (the colors mirror on the back side). The dots are 12 stitches and about 1.9 cm across.
Because the Kniterate allows for adjusting stitch size and takedown, one can make adjustments to accommodate a range of yarn weights.
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Hey Plasmatopia,
that swatch looks so nice I can see that as a scarf or panels knitted for a cut and sew sweater. I think one stand of 2/24's may be too fragile for the machine. I'll just stick to tried and tested yarns that you and the others on the forum have suggested. I think if the fabric is drapey then that's fine by me.
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@... To maintain a good drape with 3 colors per row, I used an equivalent of NM11 for this wool swatch. This was early on with the machine and I knitted it at 400 mm/sec, faster than I'd do it today. You can't see it, but the brown yarn did break on one edge. I'm pretty sure I could knit this at a slower 250 to 300, however, without issue.
(Also the brown yarn is at least 35 years old, which may have had something to do with the breakage!)
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Hey Olgalyn,
Many thanks for your response. I've been eyeing the wonderful fabrics you've created on Kinterate. I hope when I get my machine I can at least produce some good DBJ and basic single bed patterns to start with. I'm building my knowlege of speed and stitch sizes. I'm meant to be catching up with you on a zooms demo on Wednesday though. So NM11 will be the same as a 2/30 or 2/28 yarn I guess?
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Hi
2/30 would be NM 15
2/28 would be NM 14
To run on a kniterate you need nm 6-8
so
2 x 2/28 into one feeder = NM 7 (Should work)
2 x 2/30 into one feeder = NM 7.5 (Should work)
Hope this makes sense.
More than happy to jump on zoom and show you are setup as well if you wish
Tim & Robert (info @ EcoKnitware dot com)1 -
Hello Robert,
Now that makes perfect sense . I have loads of 2/30s and 2/28 which I occasionally use on my fine gauge silver reed (3.6 gauge similar to Kniterate). It will be nice to see your set up via Zoom so I have some idea what I'm getting into. When is it convenient for you to arrange a meeting? I've checked out your website and its so awesome, at the moment I can only dream of making scarves like the one's you've displayed....
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@... Thank you! That weird NM equivalent is due to the fact that in the US yarns are rarely sold using the NM system. My yarns at 5600 ypp (yards per pound) convert to approximately NM 11.3. (I keep a yarn conversion chart handy!) Ninety percent of the time I knit using the recommended yarn weight between NM 6 and 8. See you Wednesday!
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Hi Olgalyn,
Many thanks and I'm looking forward to the zoom meeting tomorrow.7
Kind regards
Antony
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