So, I finally got my hands on one of those sweater knitting machines. I’ve been seeing these things all over the internet, and, well, I got curious. It’s like, I know how to knit, but it takes forever, you know? So I thought, why not give this machine a try?
I went with the Sentro Knitting Machine 48 Needles. Seemed like a popular choice, and the reviews were pretty good. I got it online, and it arrived pretty quickly. First thing I did was, like, just stare at it for a bit. It’s bigger than I thought it would be! It has this crank, and a bunch of needles, and a row counter, all kinds of stuff. I’m not gonna lie, I felt a bit intimidated.
I watched a bunch of videos to figure out how to set it up. It wasn’t too bad, once I got the hang of it. You gotta, like, thread the yarn through these guides and then cast on, which is just looping the yarn around the needles. After that, it’s all about turning the crank. The machine starts knitting in a circle, which is pretty cool. You can make tubes, basically. I made a few practice tubes to get used to it.
Once I got comfortable with the tubes, I decided to try making a panel, to make a flat piece instead of a tube. You just knit back and forth instead of in a full circle. It was going pretty well, but then I messed up and dropped a stitch. Ugh, fixing that was a pain. I had to un-knit a whole bunch of rows and then try to pick up the stitch. But I managed to fix it, thank goodness.
After that little hiccup, I kept going and finished my first panel. It was so much faster than hand knitting! Seriously, this thing is like magic. It took maybe like a couple hours to make a panel that would’ve taken me days to knit by hand.
- First, I practiced knitting tubes to get used to the machine.
- Then, I started on a flat panel, to use for a sweater.
- I made a mistake and had to fix it, but I did it!
- Finally, I finished the panel!
I’m still learning, and I’ve got a lot more to figure out. Like, I wanna try different stitch patterns and maybe even try to make a whole sweater, but I need to practice more. It does the job super-fast, much faster than I ever could by hand!
My next project
I think I’m gonna try making a hat next. Should be a good way to practice shaping and decreasing stitches. Maybe a scarf after that. We’ll see. I’m pretty excited about all the possibilities, though! This knitting machine was a little intimidating at first, but it’s actually pretty fun to use. I have a feeling I am going to be doing a lot more knitting now.
