Casting on on a single-bed knitting machine – 2
A description of the bed, and how the carriage and needles form the stitches.
Category: Absolute Beginners
The latch needle
The majority of domestic knitting machines use latch needles, which have a hook and a hinged latch.
Closed latch
Opening latch
Fully open latch
They make stitches as follows:
- The needles are moved forwards by the carriage as it moves laterally across the bed.
- The latch is opened during this movement as it slides forwards through the stitch below that is still on the needle. (There are brushes on the carriage that also open the latches).
- The yarn feeder lays fresh yarn into the open hook.
- As the carriage moves further along the bed it retracts the needles.
- The latch is closed as it slides backwards through the stitch below that is still on the needle.
- As the fresh yarn is pulled through the loop of the stitch below it creates a new stitch and allows the ‘stitch below’ to slide competely off the needle.
Casting on on a single-bed knitting machine – 1
This video explains the parts of the knitting machine and how to set the carriage for plain knitting prior to casting-on.
Casting on single-bed machine knitting with the ‘e’-wrap method.
- Carriage at right of bed.
- Pull selected needles (40 is a good number), right out towards you as far as they will go (upper working position or UWP).
- Make a slip knot with the end of the yarn and slip it over the end LH needle.
- Hold tail of yarn in your left hand, the main thread in your right hand and take your right hand underneath the needles.
- Bring the yarn up between the next two empty needles, then back over the first one of these two.
- Repeat this movement to the end of the bed, always working with the next two empty needles.
- At the end, wind the yarn around the last needle and thread the yarn through the carriage feeder by opening the ‘gate’ and sliding it to the rear of the feeder. Close the feeder gate.
- Make sure that the yarn from the needles runs in a straight line through feeder and top tension to cone. To achieve this pull any slack back towards the cone.
- Pinching the yarn loosely between your LH index finger and thumb and pulling gently upwards, use your RH to slowly slide the carriage across the needles, allowing the yarn to run through your LH fingers without applying any resistance.
- Stop when the RH side of the carriage is clear of the LH end stitch.
- Holding the stitches against the ‘gate pegs’ with your left hand, use your right hand to pull small groups (4-5 needles at a time) through the stitches and fully out towards you to UWP.
- Repeat step 9 to knit the next row.
- Repeat steps 10-11 until you have enough rows of knitting to hang a weight at each end of the knitting. Now you can knit without bringing the needles to UWP.
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