Machine Knitting Techniques: Fair Isle E-Book

Nic Corrigan

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Whether you're an experienced hand knitter taking up machine knitting for the first time or an established machine knitter looking for the confidence and knowledge to further your skills, this accessible book offers a step-by-step guide to the practical techniques of Fair Isle knitting on the machine and the considerations that are specific to two-colour knitting. Includes 5 full patterns with colour charts.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Introduction

1 Two-Colour Fair Isle: The Basics

2 Variations on the Same Punchcard

3 Correcting Mistakes and Perfect Finishing

4 How to Combine Fair Isle into any Part of your Knitting

5 Designing Your Own Punchcards

6 Taking Fair Isle Further

Appendix: Punchcards and Colour Charts for Projects

Abbreviations

Bibliography

List of Suppliers

Further Resources

Acknowledgements

Index

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS FAIR ISLE KNITTING?

The knitting term Fair Isle has evolved from a tiny, remote Scottish island in the Shetland Isles called Fair Isle. The island became renowned for a specific type of patterned knitting that used multiple colours in combinations of repetitive traditional motifs to create pleasing symmetrical designs that became very fashionable from the early twentieth century. It was used on everything from jumpers and cardigans to hats, gloves, scarves and more.

It is similar in nature and style to many other traditional vernacular patterned knitting styles, such as Norwegian, but true Fair Isle had certain rules that were always followed, and often certain families would have their own unique designs and combinations that would be handed down through the generations.

Since then ‘Fair Isle’ has become a general term that is used widely in both hand and machine knitting. In its simplest terms it means knitting a pattern with more than one colour in the same row. Traditionally this should mean just two colours in the same row but over time this has deviated and is generally accepted to cover any number of colours knitted together. However, in the context of this book, and machine knitting specifically, Fair Isle definitely means only two colours in the same row. It is not physically possible to use any more colours than this without some hand manipulation or by using a different technique such as intarsia. More specifically, for machine knitting, the term Fair Isle refers to using the Fair Isle function on your machine carriage, and for this only two colours are ever possible.

Fair Isle knitting falls in and out of fashion over time but is currently having a resurgence; popular designers such as Mati Ventrillon and Marie Bruhat both still live and work on the tiny island. The growing popularity of Shetland Wool Week is a testament to the enduring appeal and people travel from all over the world every year to visit and learn from the true experts.

Marie Bruhat designs and knits traditional Fair Isle garments from her studio on Fair Isle.

Machine knitting is mixed in with this history. Domestic knitting machines with punchcards and a Fair Isle function emerged in the late 1960s and this allowed the knitter to thread up two different colours at the same time and knit them in the same row automatically. The punchcard determined which colour was knitted on which needle. Machines were commonly used in the homes of machine knitters in the Shetland Islands to increase the speed of production for time-consuming garments. A system developed of out-workers machine knitting bodies and sleeves that were then passed to hand knitters to complete with hand-knitted patterned yokes. In fact, it is still common today that knitters in the islands will design and knit their samples on a machine before translating the pattern to hand knit so that it is accessible to a wider audience.

Sophie Ochera uses a standard gauge knitting machine to produce the main body of all her knitwear.

But where hand knitting has gone before, machine knitting is following and there is a new and revived interest in being able to speed up the knitting process by using machines to help with the laborious parts. As well as this, there are a growing band of hand knitters who want to add to their repertoire and learn to machine knit too so they can knit both more productively but also techniques or types of yarn and fabric that simply aren’t possible to work easily by hand. More and more knitters are coming round to the benefits of being able to do both, even combining hand and machine knitting in the same garment.

Political sweaters from Lisa Anne Auerbach.

Playful designs from Kandy Diamond at Knit and Destroy.

And not just in traditional ways: even though there is a happy growth of machine knitters designing and selling traditional Fair Isle designs, there is also a growing trend for designers to use their machines and their creativity to design new, exciting and challenging designs. The immediacy of machine knitting gives them a greater opportunity to try out ideas and get them in front of people, keeping pace with fashion trends and political movements.

THIS BOOK

Knitting machines are very robust and long-lasting pieces of equipment and many machine knitters today are happily knitting away with machines that are up to fifty years old. In today’s world of built-in obsolescence these machines are even more relevant as they can still produce just as amazing knitwear as the newest domestic machines. This book is aimed at those using punchcard machines, which will cover the majority of these older models, as well as brand-new punchcard machines that can still be bought today. Technology has advanced some makes and models and there are now many machines that have an electronic patterning component that offers more freedom with pattern designing. Knitters using any of the electronic machines (both vintage and brand new) can still get full benefit from this book in conjunction with the manual for your individual software. It is simply unfeasible for one book to cover all the permutations and advancements in software technology (and it would date very quickly) but all the techniques and patterns that I cover here will work perfectly on an electronic machine as well.

It is also applicable to all makes of Japanese domestic flat-bed machines with a punchcard facility. On the whole, I will talk about Silver Reed and Brother machines and explain any key differences between the two. There are several other smaller brands that are still in common use but generally they will operate in the same way as one of these two. This covers the majority of machines used by machine knitters today. The main thing to start with is the instruction manual that came with your machine.

Silver Reed is the only make of knitting machine that is still widely available to buy as new today. This is the latest brand name for the company which in the past has produced, amongst others, Knitmaster, Empisal, Singer, and Studio. In this book when I refer to Silver Reed machines I am referring to any of the brand names that fall under this banner.

The book is aimed primarily at newer machine knitters who want to learn how to use punchcards to knit Fair Isle for the first time, but it is also appropriate for machine knitters who have mastered the basics but are looking for the knowledge and confidence to develop their machine knitting skills further.

If this has left you feeling fired up to get to grips with Fair Isle knitting on your own punchcard machine, then this is just the book for you.

For the purposes of this book, if you have a Knitmaster machine like this one you should follow instructions for Silver Reed machines.

I use Knitmaster and Silver Reed machines but where relevant the book will show separate instructions for Brother machines like this one.

CHAPTER 1

TWO-COLOUR FAIR ISLE: THE BASICS

When you acquire your very first knitting machine there is a lot to learn. Even though the machine can help with speed, efficiency and productivity, it still needs to be operated by somebody who knows what they are doing, and it can be a steep learning curve to get to that stage. Much time will be spent, with an instruction manual, initially learning how to cast on and off and achieve perfect stitches and tension. Once this is mastered, the next thing that most new machine knitters will want to get to grips with is the punchcard facility, which will help them to create automated patterns far more easily than by hand knitting.

HOW DOES A KNITTING MACHINE WORK?

Before you can understand how the punchcard works in operating the machine, it is important to understand how the needles and needle positions on your machine work in general.

How a latch needle works

The simple but clever latch needle is the foundation for all knitting machines and the stitches and fabric that they produce. Even though different brands and types of knitting machine will have different sizes and types of needle they will all still work on the same principle to construct stitches every time the carriage moves over them.

The latch tool is simply a latch needle with a handle.

When a needle is selected to be in work and has been cast-on it will hold one stitch in the hook of the needle and the latch will close over the top of it to hold it in place. Every time the carriage moves over the needle it will move forward, opening the latch and pushing the original stitch back behind it.

At the same time, the carriage will thread the main yarn into the now empty hook, closing the latch and then it will push the needle back, pulling the new yarn through the original stitch leaving a newly created stitch back in the hook. This process repeats for every single pass of the carriage.

Whenever I am teaching new machine knitters, I start by explaining and demonstrating this process because once you understand it, it will help you to comprehend and rectify one of the most common early mistakes: dropped stitches. But it will also help you to understand exactly what is happening when you start to use your punchcard facility too.

STEP-BY-STEP: HOW A STITCH IS FORMED

1. Original stitch held in hook of the needle.

2. Carriage moves over the needle.

3. Needle moves forward and stitch falls behind the latch.

4. Carriage feeds the yarn into the empty hook.

5. Needle moves back into position, pulling the yarn through the original stitch.

6. A new stitch is formed.

Understanding needle positions

The second thing that every machine knitter needs to understand, particularly to use punchcards successfully, is the different options available for needle positions and what impact they have.

At the end of your needle bed, there will be a set of letters in different positions. The letters will be different depending on the make of your machine but generally Silver Reed will be A–D and Brother machines will have letters A, B, D & E.

Brother needle positions are A, B, D or E.

Needle positions on Silver Reed machines are A, B, C or D.

HOW DOES A PUNCHCARD MACHINE WORK?

All of the previous information on needles and needle positions should help you to understand how knitting is formed on a knitting machine and will allow you to create plain stocking stitch fabric. But the real excitement comes from using a punchcard to manipulate needles and their positions automatically to create fancy patterned stitches, such as tuck and slip or, as is the focus for this book, two-colour patterned Fair Isle knitting.

All punchcard knitting machines are originally sold with a set of pre-punched punchcards that can be used for a variety of patterned stitches. If you have acquired your machine second hand and the punchcards have been lost, they are widely and cheaply available online. In Chapter 5, we will explore how you can design and produce your own punchcards.