Sweater knit (mostly) on a circular knitting machine

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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.

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

*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.