The manuscript for my latest book on machine knitting has gone to the publishers, (printers)

The Machine Knitter’s Guide to Partial Knitting; Seamless Pattern, Shape and Form

I wrote this post last July, and thought I would share it with you in retrospect, as the book has now gone to  print.

July 2025

Finally, after a long and fraught 18 months it is done!

I signed the book contract only a few weeks before we moved house. After several false starts with the sale of the house we thought we would be staying for a while and would lose the property we wanted to purchase. However, the way it happened in the end meant that we had to rush into moving in a 3 week window.

Which meant of course that we had to pack what we hadn’t already packed in a hurry, and organize everything else and then move and organize this end when we arrived. Settling in took far longer than anticipated due to unanticipated building work through last summer. It wasn’t until late autumn that I was able to safely unpack a machine and start to knit and write in earnest. Then the arrival of our first grandchild interrupted my flow for a while, the sun shone and the garden needed work done. All in all, let’s say life got in the way!

The last month has been full-on working on the book, so it was wonderful to finally send it off. Of course they will be editorial suggestions and corrections to do, and then a final check once it is laid out for printing, so it’s not finished yet.

May 2026

If you have persevered and read to this point, you might like to know what the book is about. This book, my third about machine knitting focuses on short rows, or partial knitting. It is suitable for any machine with holding position, single bed, double bed, plastic or metal bed, and any gauge. I particularly wanted to include the popular plastic bed, mid-gauge machines like the LK150. Rather than struggle to emulate the punchcard machines with repeating patterns, short row pattern and shaping can be as easily done on either type of machine.

Sock mending this evening

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.

Seamless machine knit socks

Slow and steady is best when demonstrating live!

This was taken at Traditions in the Making, a Heritage Craft event at Stanmer Park, Brighton. With lots of volunteers from local community textile group Woolly Umbrella, alongside the CSM there were demonstrations of flax processing, lace making, weaving, inkle looms, wool fibre preparation (hand and drum carding), embroidery and wool and flax spinning.

The CSM is an Imperia with an 84 slot cylinder and gm here I am knitting a sock in traditional 3ply sock wool; no nylon. This was the nearest we could get that was most like the wool probably used originally on the machine. Although I have knitted on it with hand spun I felt that demonstrating required enough concentration without the worry of irregular yarn!

Two types of socks in the 3 ply yarn, fake rib and true rib.

In a brave, but foolish, moment I decided to try a toe-up sock at one point. It wasn’t too bad at all, and I am quite pleased with the result.

Toe up sock, still waiting to be hand finished