The art of lace on a knitting machine

I was asked to give a talk on lace in a machine knitting context at short notice last week, and had to think of something to talk about that hadn't been done before, as they are all old hands at machine knitting and I'm actually the new kid on the block. So I thought I'd talk about some of the different kinds of lace that can be created on a knitting machine. These are my notes - I'm sure there are further variations (today's Knit it Now has "lifted lace"). Just shows you that these machines are far more versatile than people think. 

• Two types of automated lace – two carriage or one carriage systems ie Brother/Toyota versus Silver/Knitmaster 
• Some machines can't do lace at all so do not have a lace carriage. This is due to inflexible needles (eg older machines, mid-gauge and bulky machines), or plastic bed machines (e.g. passap) – but there are other ways to achieve a lacy look e.g.
• Needles OOW (aka NOOW (new) lace, with thanks to Tony Bennett!)
• Hand manipulation on one or both beds
• Use of thick and thin yarns (punch/thread lace)
• Creating “sacrificial” stitches and then dropping them
• Holding position with NOOW
• Also, a combination of two techniques is possible on the two carriage systems, e.g. lace + knitweave etc.
• Think about using lifelines if you've done a lot of work (double this if you're using the ribber bed). Far less hassle to add in a lifeline than to try and fix a dropped stitch. 
• Think about yarn choice - automatic lace is better with a slightly stretchy yarn so linen and cotton aren't an easy choice for the beginner
• Think about weights - lace sometimes needs lots of weight, and if you have "woolly weights" (magnetic) lace is perfect for that, no pesky claws pulling on your knitting.
• 90 deg rule - according to some manuals you're best to have the work hanging at 90 degrees from the main bed, so draped over the out of work ribber (cover it with a pillowcase or something similar). Some machines work just fine with the knitting hanging straight down, though - so don't forget to sample and check your machine's preference. 

I came up with a chart (see below) about what's possible on what machines, I'm not quite sure it's 100% correct though, so feel free to comment. 

I've added some pictures at the bottom of some samples I have. I don't have all of them sampled as yet. The shadow lace ones were actually done in college. I do have a sample of biasing lace but it's too small to show the actual effect. Ellen Turner made lots of zigzag strips of it and then sewed one of them into a circle, and then more around it, and made a lovely tablecloth with them. Alas, I don't seem to have a picture of it - must have been before I had a digital camera. 

Lace types

Hand-manipulated lace

• Needle out lace - decreases and needles taken out of work and put back in again - creates long floats, so do not use where floats will be an issue. Thanks to Bill King for this one!
• “Twisted bar” lace - adding an empty needle in twists the bars between out of work needles - this was something Iris Bishop figured out. 
• Cables and lace - as above, with cabling added
• “Squiggle” lace - use holding position over groups of needles in work, and knit back and forth over two groups, gradually working across the bed and back again. 

Lace without a lace carriage

• Tuck lace - needles out of work and tucking on the main bed - cancel end needle selection if your machine has it. 
• Thread lace - this is a variation on fairisle, ie a thick and thin yarn are used. The thin yarn knits alone in some areas, and both yarns knit together in the other areas. Only certain machines have this capability.

Lace with a lace carriage

• Plain lace
• Lace motifs - using cams or programming to isolate parts of the pattern
• Fashion lace - moving stitches over in several passes so that the columns of stitches appear to bend
• “Fine” lace (Brother only) - transfers the selected stitch so as to share it between its original needle and its neighbour; produces a textured effect
• “Biasing” lace - continually transferring in the same direction over every other needle forces the material to bias
• Lace and knitweave - you can mix rows of knitweave and lace
• Lace and tuck
• Lace and fair-isle
• “Two needle out” lace - a variation on plain lace, you can actually have two needles out of work for a while to create a mesh effect - with thanks to Beryl Jarvis who discovered this. 
• Thread lace aka punch lace - a variation on fairisle, this is achieved with thick and thin yarns instead. Some areas both yarns are knitted, and some areas only the thin yarn is used.

Double-bed “lace”

• Drive lace (all needles knit every row on RB, patterning Ns on MB released to form holes - hand-knit equivalent of double-wrapping certain stitches and dropping them on the next row
• Mesh knitting – as above, but this time the holes / bigger stitches dominate
• Shadow lace using jaws or transfer carriage - transferring stitches between beds to make holes
• Double-bed hand manipulated lace - using the ribber to create ribbed sections mixed with lace
• “Summer fair-isle” - stitches are created and dropped at the end of knitting the piece (a Passap technique). 
• Double bed tuck lace - needles out of work, both beds tucking in opposite directions. 
• Double bed tuck lace with racking - as above, with racking added.

Click on this to embiggen - I gave up trying to make Blogger post a sensible table...


Needle-out lace


Twisted bar lace


Cables and lace


Squiggle lace



Tuck lace examples


Plain lace


Lace motifs


Fashion lace


Fine lace


Lace and knitweave - the weaving yarn very kindly fills in the holes for an interesting two-colour effect. I need to knit a bigger sample of this I think! 


"Two needle out" lace


Thread lace


Drive lace


Mesh knitting



Shadow lace



Double-bed hand-manipulated lace in progress


Double-bed tuck lace

Lace workshop with Beryl Jarvis

Spent a lovely day messing about with lace in Crick, under the expert tuition of Beryl Jarvis.



My machine (serviced last year) performed beautifully, nary a dropped stitch in sight...



If you've ever wondered what those orange/pink things are for, they are lace cams for erasing parts of the punchcard, and this is where they go.



Lace created with two needles out of work - you wouldn't think it would work, but it does!

FO: More gloves, and matters in progress

Firstly, some gloves - I think there STILL might be more Socka hanging around, but not enough to make a whole item with. Talk about value for money - mind you, I never had 12 100g balls of sock yarn in one go before...



These were interrupted by a trip to head office in Holland for training, otherwise they would have been finished a lot faster. The insomnia kicked in again big-style, so last week I was only really good for handknitting and sitting doe-eyed in front of the television. That, and trying to catch up on four weeks of housework!

I finally got around to starting on this:



Which now looks like this:



and I'm now onto the "icicles" at the top, complete with lifeline:



This is Foldi's Panna Frost Flowers - all hand-manipulated. Foldi did it on a Passap - he/she must have the patience of a saint, because it's very hard to see what you've done on a Passap. It's fashion lace with some purl stitches too, hence the ribber weight. I'm doing it in two ends of acrylic, so there are some pulls where it gateposted. Not for the faint of heart, and not a project to tackle when you don't have time to concentrate!

Saturday, himself had his first ever gig, so was pretty nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I was getting nervous too, so I made a start on this:



Last night, I got it onto the back beam:



...and I actually got as far as getting it onto the front beam at 10pm last night, but I'm not happy with one of the warps so I'm going to have another go when I've more time. This is possibly going to be placemats, but it's just a mess around warp really. I'm demonstrating weaving in October and I want the loom to be warped and ready in time. I've never warped front-to-back before so hoping I get it right!

Oh, and I won this yarn, on one of the CSM groups on Ravelry (apologies for the rotten pic):



Everyone posts pictures of the CSM socks they've made each month and there's a prize draw. Last month I only managed one pair so it was a very nice surprise! Many thanks to lotsofyarn for her kind donation. 

I see tinking...

Yes, I finished the orange shawl, but I'm not very happy with it.



I should have browsed other versions on Ravelry, because it's not really big enough, being only a shawlette or kerchief (in this picture it's propped on my office chair). So I suspect I need to tink back the 10 row border and add a few more repeats. Also I think I may have blocked it wrong - this is the shape I got, but I think the edge I made pointed (the cast on) is supposed to be the straight one? In which case, I can't see how it'll stretch enough.

Saturday T and I popped to Metropolitan to pick up a few things. Boy was it cold up there! I picked up a copy of Wendy Philip's Alphabets, a J Nelson book of celtic knot patterns and a book about fairisles suitable for suiting. T is a relation who is just starting to machine knit, so we needed to pick up some side racks for her machine, a Knitmaster 360. Also I picked up a few things for C, a friend from Manor House club, although couldn't get everything she wanted as they were sold out. Anyway, when we came back I'd said I'd give T a lesson on her machine, but that wasn't possible as daughter had taken over the dining room, so we came back to mine and made this hat on the SK860, it being the only Knitmaster machine I have up at the moment. There's actually a small cable on it because I thought it might be fun to demonstrate it.



I ordered three cones of Jura (a wool/nylon mix) from Texere for a secret project. It arrived yesterday - not quite the colours I thought, my monitor must be rather bright. Have started a test knit to see how it goes (there is a deadline). Think I might request a shade card if all goes well, as this is a very reasonable sock yarn in a nice range of colours.

Second sock syndrome...

...is easy to catch. Especially when you've made your first ever, toe-up sock, on the CSM. I made some soft weights before Christmas - a 3lb and an approximately 2lb weight. Bought 2kg of lead shot online, so the 2lb weight is just the leftovers. The instructions for the soft weights were on an American blog I think, hence imperial. Anyway, the 3lb worked quite well.



However, picking up the cast on row was quite a struggle (it was quite a stretch). I got the pattern from notes I made from a Youtube video, and I think I might need to revisit it because I suspect they may have done a base row before making the toe. I might have started with the heel spring too, force of habit. Pretty sure I was supposed to hand feed the first 6 rows. Somehow I ended up cranking the foot backwards - which works, but felt really odd. The mechanical rev counter went backwards too, of course! I added an extra row to the heel so I could crank clockwise. It just needs the ends sewing in, and, of course, a mate. Finished it with the super-stretchy bind off.

Just to prove it's not all machine knitting chez steelbreeze:



The Crow Prints shawl, 2nd pattern repeat almost complete, Babylonglegs semi-precious. Hoping it will look a lot less like a dishrag when it's blocked.

Both pics taken with new mobile - the top one used flash I think so isn't great, the bottom one came out really well though!

Lace oops

DSCN0633
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Since frogged, but this is what my Brother KH950i thinks about doing lace.... not much, apparently.... :/

One more gadget, have reached overflow!

Popped down to a small village near Milton Keynes today to pick up a 4 shaft loom, courtesy of the Loom Exchange. I've been stalking this website for some time, but all the looms were too far away to go pick up in a day, and these babies are big! Certainly glad we didn't take the Ka to go pick it up. The owner was also an engineer so we had an interesting discussion over proper coffee (which made up for the hasty breakfast I'd slung together).

Bought two lengths of material on the market, to make two summer skirts. Didn't read the pattern correctly and didn't cut enough pieces out - I wondered why I couldn't make the notches match up on the frill. Duh! Ripped some small holes trying to get the pieces apart, might have to start again, hoping there's enough material left!

Knitted in public in Coventry on Saturday, and apart from the Cog (not a knitter!) nobody joined me! Sulk! Oh well, I "did my bit".

Friday I went with a friend to the Lace Guild's museum, we got to see lots of lovely examples of torchon lace. Can't post pictures here for copyright reasons. Popped to the Red Cone Glass factory too, but it was empty because they were gearing up for a big open day. Bought a nice heart-shaped paperweight.

Row 80 of second sleeve (cast on on Friday). I think I might be speeding up! Determined to finish a few things before I go careering off onto new pastures. She sez!

Photos of loom etc tomorrow, it's too late to start unloading cameras...


Current mood: happy