Sweater knit (mostly) on a circular knitting machine

Date:
What I did:

Generally, my knitting projects have always been small and quick. That's because, at any given moment, I always have 20+ of my own mending/making projects on my "to-do" list, and there's usually a client project or two (which always take priority) in the mix, too, so it's hard to justify taking on a large knitting project — like a sweater — that would take a long time to complete.

When I heard about knitting machines, I thought that I may have found a way to knit a sweater fast enough that I wouldn't a) get too far behind on everything else or b)end up abandoning the sweater and never finish it. I eventually took the plunge and purchased a circular knitting machine (Sentro brand).

The sweater pictured below is the first garment that I have made (mostly) with this knitting machine. I knit the front and back on the knitting machine. I hand knit to finish the neck and bottom of sweater, and I hand knit the sleeves.

All in all, it probably took as long as it would have to knit the sweater entirely by hand! But, with a bit more practice and learning, I believe it would — eventually — end up being a lot faster to use the knitting machine to knit a sweater than to knit it by hand.*

To see a larger image and enter slideshow view, click on any of the images below.

Woman wearing a sweater with black front and green and black striped sleeves (only torso and arms are visible, both hands on hips)
Black sweater with black and green striped sleeves and green trim at neck, shown lying flat on linoleum floor
circular knitted machine and knitting needles on top of a sweater

Here's the circular knitting machine, the additional knitting needles I used, and the sweater.

woman's torso, one hand is one her hip, and she's wearing a black sweater with black and green striped sleeves and green trim around the neck

*The limitations of a circular knitting machine (as I, a novice, see them) are:

  • that you are, for the most part, limited to stockinette stitch.
  • It's very easy to knit in the round, but the resulting tube can generally only have as many stitches as your machine has needles.
  • It's harder to knit a flat panel than it is to use the tube setting, but being able to knit in a flat panel vastly expands the type and sizes of projects you can make.
  • It's also harder to knit any color work, though color blocking and stripes are doable with some practice.

There are many "how-to" knitting machine videos on YouTube. I watched only the bare minimum of these to make this sweater; before I do another project I am going to practice more in hopes of being able to learn and employ more advanced knitting techniques.