System in Machine Knitting

by Gudde Fog

This book is now on Wikibooks

Preface

This text is not about ready patterns, but a guide as to how you can produce your own patterns. It is my hope that it will be a useful reference for many years to come, regardless of changing fashions.

The assumption running throughout the text is that ordinary hand knitting yarn will be used. This means that there is a limit as to how thick the yarn can be. The thickest needles used should be no bigger than 3 or 3 1/2, but preferably thinner. In shops that sell knitting machines, it is of course possible to find the machine yarn that is used in factories. However, this is very thin, and when knitting, 2 or more strands of yarn can be used, but the more strands used, the harder it is to actually knit.

I have organized the text with the easiest things first. This is so in the first chapter on correct knitting tension, and in the following text about knitting from specific measurements, which I have divided into two chapters. The first of these is for those who just want to concentrate on knitting straightforward jumpers in the easiest way possible, whilst in the later chapter, I have written about fitting methods and how to create a basic pattern from that, firstly, showing the easiest method of doing this, and later telling how from the basic pattern, you can make alterations and adjustments. In this way, it is my hope that there is something for everyone. You may then use whatever part of it you want to use, but a condition for understanding the text is that you have read about knitting samples in chapter 1, because it is a basic idea behind the whole text that you use your own knitting sample for all measurements.

But of course, there are many ways of making things, and the methods described should be conceived just as suggestions

I hope that with this book, I can spare someone for making all the same blunders as I have made myself during the 40 years that I have been machine-knitting.

Many thanks to my son Agner who has helped me incredibly with illustrations and advice and set up this homepage, and to my son Kåre who has made an admirable effort to help with the translation.

The English translation has been carried out partially by myself, and partially by a number of persons who have helped with translation and linguistic corrections. However, it has been difficult to find correct translations for many technical expressions, and I apologize for any misleading translations. I would be happy to receive comments that may improve the English version of the text.

Preface

Introduction

1. Knitting samples
1.1 Making knitting samples
1.2 Knitleader
1.3 Expanded samples
1.4 How to calculate the consumption of yarn
1.5 Knitting samples with KNITTAX
1.6 The ratio between stitches and rows
1.7 Angle diagram

2. Knitting to measure
2.1 Taking measurements
2.2 Drawing the knitting sloper
2.3 Knitting a sweater in the simplest way

3. Edges
3.1 Casting on edges on a single bed apparatus
3.2 Casting on with the ribber
3.3 Neckband for single beds
3.4 Neckband with the ribber
3.5 Tapering neck
3.6 Armholes
3.7 Selvedges
3.8 Rib knitted collars