Category: knitting

‘Wool’, a lovely yarn shop in Bath

On By vikkihaffendenIn craft, fibre, hand knitting, Knitted textiles, knitting, Textiles, UncategorizedLeave a comment

A couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in Bath in the Somerset with some friends.

On our first day we did the touristy things like visiting the Circle and the beautiful Royal Crescent and had tea in one of the numerous teas shops. Quite by chance, the one we picked happened to have been featured in Bridgerton as the Modiste shop.

Food featured heavily in our weekend, cake being a particular favorite, so the next day we visited the historic Pulteney bridge and the tea shop which is situated on top of this bridge.

We are all knitters, so were pleased to discover there was a yarn shop close to where we were staying in the city centre. So, before leaving on our last day we paid a visit to ‘Wool’. There we found a wide selection of yarns to please all price points, that catered for all types of knitting or crochet work. Yarns included individual spun, Rowan Kid Silk and some very good value Tweedy Superwash Merino wool by King Cole. I am a bit of a sock yarn addict and bought a 100g ball of Lang sock yarn, which I have not tried before, and some 100% wool double knit in pretty pastel colours.

Someone else chose a DK pattern for a simple sweater shape which she intends to knit up in a wool and Alpaca blend yarn. The yarn is being reclaimed from a partially-knitted garment that her mother never completed, I think this is a lovely way to maintain a thread with the memory of her Mother, but to end up with a garment that she will want to wear.

The staff in the shop were particularly helpful over this explaining to my friend how to substitute a yarn in the pattern and helping her decide if she would have enough of the existing yarn. Although I could have helped her with this it would have felt a little like a busman’s holiday to do so ‘on the fly’. However I did of course tell her she could ask me later if she ran into problems.

I will certainly go back to ‘Wool’ next time I’m in Bath.

Seeing up at Craft 4 Crafter’s show

On By vikkihaffendenIn book, books, craft, Creative machine knitting, Devon, Knitted textiles, knitting, knitting books, knitting machine, Machine knitting, Machine knitting; knitmaster;silver reed; knitting, Textiles, the knitting bookLeave a comment

It’s been a busy day today setting up the Taunton Machine Knitting Club stand at Craft 4 Crafter’s exhibition in Exeter. The Club is pleased to have recently become a branch of The Knitting and Crochet Guild, making us part of the wider UK knitting community.

The display features work by most club members including lace, intarsia, knitweave and double jacquard. Throughout the three day exhibition members will be demonstrating different techniques such as cables, bobbles,  shaping and short row knitting.

The display is finally ready, and I am not  climbing a stepladder again today!

I will be giving a talk on Friday about my books, ‘The Knitting Book’, ‘Translating Between Hand and Machine Knitting’ and ‘Single and Double Bed Machine Knitting; the Designer’s Guide’.

The table will have to be large enough to fit four copies once my latest book, ‘The Machine Knitter’s Guide to Partial Knitting’ is published later this year.

three knitting machine punchcards

Holes and blanks: reading a knitting machine punchcard

On By vikkihaffendenIn craft, Creative machine knitting, Knitted textiles, knitting, knitting patterns, knitwear, Machine knitting, Machine knitting; knitmaster;silver reed; knitting, UncategorizedLeave a comment

This is something I used to struggle with when first starting to machine knit, and to be honest, it still sometimes needs a bit of thinking before I get it right.

So I put some information together which I hope will be useful to others who find the holes and blanks a bit confusing. It also has some helpful ways to read what is actually being read by the card-reader, rather than what is visible above it.

Lets start with the fundamentals:

Knitmaster/Silver Reed (KM/SR) machines only knit pattern from the punchcard when the side levers are at the triangle and the pattern cam dial is set to the relevant stitch type; F, S, T etc.

Brother machines only knit pattern from the punchcard when the KC dial is set to KC, KCI or KCII, as appropriate to the machine, and when the relevant pattern cam buttons are pressed, MC, tuck, part etc…

However, on both makes the needle positions are the same

Pattern cam settingPunched holesNeedle positionBlanksNeedle position
2-col-in-a-rowknit with 2nd colourUWPknit with MCWP
tuckknitUWPtuckWP
slip/partknitUWPslipWP

On both Brother and KM/SR machines, the punchard line being selected is hidden inside the machine. Seven lines below on a Brother, and five below on a KM/SR.

Brother machines, both punchcard and electronic, pre-select needles before knitting the row. Therefore, the pattern can be interrogated by looking at the needle selection in conjunction with the needle positions listed above.

KM/SR punchcard machines have a card reader with feelers. These are selected according to the punchcard pattern but the actual feeler action is hidden behind the carriage. The pattern line can be manually interrogated by locking the punchcard.

KM/SR feelerspunched move up and inblanks stay down and out

Download a printable version here.

To read more about how a punchcards, read my post ‘Knitting Machine Punchcards, How do They Work?’

image of fruit with colour chips extracted from image

Talking to Techknitters Machine Knitting Club

On By vikkihaffendenIn book, books, knitting, knitting books, Machine knitting3 Comments

On Monday I had the pleasure of talking to Techknitters Machine Knitting Club in Chicago about my book ‘Single and Double Bed Machine Knitting; the Designer’s Guide’. Although this was published in 2024 the UK, it was not published in the USA until 2025 and I was due to talk to the group in December of that year. Moving house and having a lot of building work in progress meant that I couldn’t manage an online talk at that time, so we rescheduled. The new date came around quickly, doesn’t time fly?

Although several members indicated that they already have the book, I decided to discuss the overall content of book for those who do not yet have a copy. During this I explained my thinking behind the plan of the book and the main intention behind my writing. Following on to this, I concentrated on snippets from each chapter.

One of the reviews of the book mentioned that it is unusual to find design development and process included in a knitting book, so I took this comment as the focus of the rest of my talk working with material from the chapters, ‘Designing with Colour’ and ‘Finding Inspiration and Designing Pattern’.

This section of the talk started by looking at extracting colour inspiration from one of the images used in the book, and then reviewing a sample from the book that had been designed using these colours to work stripes. The practical part of the talk was about selecting yarns, designing another stripe, and revising and developing the design. Each step was shown and design rationales discussed. The sample was knitted and a finished and steamed version was reviewed to which the group gave feedback on how it might be improved/adapted. All in all it was an enjoyable experience.

I will be talking to the group again in August about my latest book, ‘The Machine Knitter’s Guide to Partial Knitting; Seamless Patter, Shape and Form’ which is due to be published in Spring 2026 by Crowood Press.

Final sample for my latest book about machine knitting

On By vikkihaffendenIn clothing, craft, Creative machine knitting, creativity, Flechage, Knitted textiles, knitting books, knitting machine, knitting patterns, knitwear, Machine knitting, Machine knitting; knitmaster;silver reed; knitting, making, Short-row shaping, Short-rows, TextilesLeave a comment

I think this might be the final sample for my latest book. The manuscript went into the publishers a week or so ago and I’m just working in a few outstanding samples and photos.

Of course machine knitters, well knitters in general, will know that ‘sorting out a sample’ is a shorthand for:

knitting several design swatches

knitting a tension swatch (or three)

working out the garment pattern

knitting it

finding you’ve made a mistake

knitting it again

steaming it

sewing it together

washing it

blocking it

etcetera, etcetera….

So I am just at the first steaming stage and getting ready to assemble the garment. And of course I’ve had to re-knit one piece because the dratted yarn got caught by the brushes irrevocably and it was easier to restart than try and sort that out. More haste, less speed is so very true in machine knitting. Nice and steady is always the best way.

I’m hoping this garment will be nice enough to go on the cover, but we will see.

Meanwhile let me tell you a little bit about the book. The title is still to be finalised, but it is all about short rows and partial knitting on a machine.  There is a lot in there for beginners, for example the first chapter is all about the principles of short rows and how you knit them and there is a whole basic techniques appendix at the back for additional support. Chapters 2 to 5 offer loads of information, samples, examples and exercises for more experienced knitters to really come to grips for short rows, and to understand how and when to use them for different results.

Chapter 6 has patterns that use short rows as they’ve been described in the earlier chapters, but applied to an item. So from these patterns you actually get to use short rows purposefully to create shape and form combined with colour and surface pattern.

So once it’s published I will obviously be shouting about it,  but keep an eye out and do pop back here for updates.

Sock mending this evening

On By vikkihaffendenIn craft, creativity, darning, fibre, hand spinning, hand spun, Knitted textiles, knitting, mending, WoolLeave a comment

It’s a howling gale outside tonight, so the place to be is by the fire doing a bit of mending. The subject is a pair of socks machine knitted from my hand spun yarn. These sticks are like , ‘Trigger’s broom’ from Only Fools and Horses.

I plied the yarn from singles of Alpaca and Texel fibre, but did not include any nylon. Consequently, but after a reasonable amount of wear they have begun to thin and finally the stitches have burst. First of all the big toes went, and now the heels.

I had a little of the yarn left, but now it’s onto improvised and colourful mending…

The toes that were mended a while ago
Todays heel mending

I used one of those little mending looms for the toe repair, but the heels have been done ‘freehand’ using a technique from a 1970s mending book. I bought this useful book secondhand when a penniless student in the 80s, well before ‘slow textiles’ and ‘visible mending’ became a thing. Since then, useful book has helped me extend the life of many items for reasons of economy and necessity rather than fashion. Now my mending is on trend and it’s good to see the skill encouraged by a plethora of modern books on the subject.

Back in action

On By vikkihaffendenIn book, craft, knitting books, UncategorizedLeave a comment

After a year of false starts, partial-packing and living in limbo, we finally had a sale agreed so that we could move house. Of course this meant we had to move in a real rush and had only three weeks to get fully packed and moved. Consequently, today is my first serious effort at getting back to knitting work and writing my new book on machine knitting.

My new study has a glorious view of the garden which inspires me! 

Reforming ribs on a knitting machine

On By vikkihaffendenIn craft, Creative machine knitting, creativity, Knitted textiles, knitting, knitting machine, knitwear, Machine knitting, Machine knitting; knitmaster;silver reed; knitting, making, Textiles, Translating between hand and machine knitting, WorkshopLeave a comment

Reformin, or ‘latching-up’ single bed stitches into a rib structure is sometimes seen as far too time-consuming for a ‘fast’ activity like machine knitting. However, I quite enjoy the process and have written about it and made a ‘workshop’ video of working a 2×2 reformed rib here. I hope you find it of interest and useful.