Textiles & fibre · Crafts & making
Machine knitting
A knitting machine turns an evening into a garment and a Saturday into a wardrobe, and almost nobody starts one successfully without help. The machines were mass-market forty years ago and are barely made now, so the hobby runs on second-hand equipment, out-of-print manuals and user groups organised around specific models. This page covers what the machine types are, what to check before buying one, and why the tension swatch is the whole craft.
Also known as knitting machine, domestic knitting machine, hand-flat knitting.
A domestic knitting machine is a flat bed of latch needles with a carriage that slides across it. Each pass of the carriage knits an entire row, which is the whole point: fabric that would take an evening by hand takes a couple of minutes. What it does not do is knit by itself — every pass is pushed by hand, and every setting is yours.
The trade against hand knitting is not simple. The machine is faster by an enormous margin and it produces very even fabric, which matters for garments. It is also far less portable, considerably less forgiving, and it front-loads the effort: setting up, swatching and calculating happen before any of the fast part starts. People who love it tend to love making garments; people who love knitting as something to do with their hands generally do not move across.
The defining practical fact about the hobby is that the equipment is orphaned. Domestic machines were a mass-market product in the 1970s and 80s and very few are made now, so almost every machine in use is second-hand, manuals are out of print or scanned, and the expertise sits in groups organised around particular models. This is what the fragmentation looks like in practice, and it shapes everything about starting.
- A row takes
- One pass of the carriage
- Where the market is
- Entirely second-hand
- The part that decides everything
- The tension swatch
- The perishable part
- The sponge bar
- Still deciding — A knitting machine vs hand knitting
Step 1: Find the user group for the model before you buy it
This hobby runs on model-specific knowledge and it is not centralised. Before buying anything, find where the people who use that machine talk to each other — that group is your manual, your spare-parts source and your diagnostic service, and its existence is a genuine reason to prefer one model over another.
You will know it worked when: You know where to ask questions about the specific machine.
Step 2: Buy complete, in person, and see it knit
Ask for the sponge bar, weights, clamps, tools, manual and punchcards, and ask the seller to knit a few rows in front of you. A machine bought sight-unseen from a house clearance is a lottery, and the missing accessories are frequently harder to replace than the machine is.
You will know it worked when: You watched the machine produce fabric before paying.
Step 3: Replace the sponge bar before diagnosing anything
It has perished. It has perished even if the machine appears to work. This is the first thing to do with any second-hand machine and it resolves an extraordinary proportion of apparent faults.
You will know it worked when: The machine has a new sponge bar and knits without dropping stitches.
Step 4: Clean it, and learn to while you do
Old oil, dust and fibre in the needle bed cause exactly the intermittent faults that make beginners give up. Learning to strip and clean it is the maintenance skill of the hobby, and there are fewer people offering servicing every year.
You will know it worked when: You have had the needle bed apart once and put it back.
Step 5: Knit flat rectangles until they are boring
Scarves, dishcloths, swatches. The aim is a carriage pass that does not drop stitches, which is a rhythm rather than a technique, and it comes with repetition rather than instruction.
You will know it worked when: You can knit a metre of fabric without a dropped stitch.
Step 6: Swatch properly, then make one simple garment
Wash and treat the swatch as you will treat the garment, measure over many stitches, and calculate the shaping from your own numbers. A drop-shoulder jumper is the traditional first garment because the shaping is minimal and the arithmetic is forgiving.
You will know it worked when: A finished garment that fits, made from your own measurements.
Hand knitters are told to swatch and frequently do not, and get away with it. Machine knitters cannot. The reason is that a machine has no fixed relationship between a stitch dial setting and a resulting stitch size — it varies with the yarn, the machine, the ribber, how the fabric is weighted and the day. The dial is a reference, not a measurement.
So the working method is that every project starts with a swatch knitted on the actual machine with the actual yarn at the intended setting, washed and treated exactly as the garment will be, then measured over a large number of stitches and rows rather than a small one. That figure — stitches and rows per unit — is what all the shaping arithmetic is built on. Skipping it does not produce a slightly wrong garment; it produces one that is a size out, because a small per-stitch error multiplied across two hundred stitches is enormous.
The second half of the craft is that machine patterns are usually calculated rather than followed. Instead of a written pattern telling you to decrease on given rows, you take your swatch numbers and a set of body measurements and work out the shaping yourself — historically with a knit radar or charting device, now often with software or a spreadsheet. This is why the hobby feels mathematical in a way hand knitting does not, and it is also why a machine knitter can make a garment to any measurements at all.
What is genuinely quick, once those two things are done, is the knitting. This is the inversion people find hardest coming from hand knitting: the thinking is front-loaded and the making is fast, rather than the other way round.
- Standard gauge — Roughly 4.5mm needle spacing, made for fine yarns of about 4-ply weight. The most common domestic type, the most versatile for garments, and the one most patterns assume. If somebody says "a knitting machine" without qualifying, this is usually it.
- Chunky and mid-gauge — Wider needle spacing for thicker yarn, up to double-knit and aran weights. Often cheaper second-hand because demand is lower, and genuinely easier for a beginner because the yarn is easier to see and handle. A good first machine for somebody with a stash of ordinary hand-knitting yarn.
- Punchcard versus electronic — How the machine selects needles for patterning. Punchcard machines are mechanical, limited in pattern width and repeat, and almost indestructible. Electronic machines do far more and are the ones whose failures are hardest to fix, because the electronics are the part nobody makes parts for.
- The ribber, which is half the capability — A second bed mounted below the main one, allowing ribbing and double-bed fabrics. Expensive, fiddly to set up, and the difference between making flat panels and making garments that look finished. Not a first-week purchase and a strong argument for buying a machine whose ribber exists.
- The sponge bar, which will be dead — A foam strip that holds the needles against the bed. It perishes, every machine older than a few years needs a new one, and a flat sponge bar is the single commonest cause of a machine that "does not work". Replace it before diagnosing anything else. £15–£30 and it is the first thing to buy.
- Weights, clamps, tools and the manual — Claw weights, the cast-on comb, the transfer tools, the table clamps and the original manual. Individually minor and collectively the difference between a usable machine and a puzzle — these are what go missing from a second-hand purchase and what is hardest to replace.
- Yarn on cones — Machine yarn is finer than hand-knitting yarn and is sold on cones, often coated in spinning oil that washes out. Ordinary hand-knitting yarn can be used on the right gauge of machine, but anything hairy or textured will jam a standard-gauge bed.
- Work it out — Crochet & knitting gauge calculator
- Stitches dropping constantly — The sponge bar, until proven otherwise. A perished bar lets needles sit proud of the bed and the carriage misses them. Replace it before investigating anything else.
- The carriage jams mid-row — Usually weighting — too little weight, or weights not moved up as the fabric grows — or a bent needle. Never force it: back off, find the needle, and check it against its neighbours.
- The garment came out a size wrong — The swatch, essentially always. Either it was not washed and treated like the garment, or it was measured over too few stitches so a small error multiplied.
- Fabric curling and distorting at the edges — Stocking stitch does this by nature and it is not a fault. It is what ribbing exists for, which is what the ribber attachment is for, which is why finished-looking garments generally need one.
- The pattern does not match the punchcard — Card inserted at the wrong row, locked at the wrong point, or the needle selection not set. Punchcard mechanisms are simple and unforgiving of sequence.
- Yarn breaking or snagging repeatedly — Usually the wrong yarn for the gauge — anything hairy or textured will fight a standard-gauge bed — or tension mast setup, which is the part beginners thread wrongly most often.
- A part has broken and nobody makes it — The structural risk of the hobby. Model-specific user groups, breakers selling parts from dead machines, and increasingly 3D-printed replacements are how people solve it, which is another reason to check the group exists before buying.
- Gauge
- The needle spacing of the machine, which determines what yarn weights it can knit. Standard is roughly 4.5mm; chunky and mid-gauge machines are wider and take thicker yarn.
- Carriagealso: cam box
- The unit pushed across the needle bed, knitting a whole row per pass. Where the settings live and where the rhythm of the hobby is.
- Sponge baralso: needle retainer bar
- A foam strip holding the needles against the bed. Perishable, dead in nearly every second-hand machine, and the commonest cause of a machine that appears broken.
- Ribber
- A second needle bed below the main one, enabling ribbing and double-bed fabrics. Expensive and fiddly, and the difference between panels and finished-looking garments.
- Tension swatch
- A test piece knitted on the actual machine with the actual yarn, washed and measured to give stitches and rows per unit. Not optional here, because the dial setting is a reference rather than a measurement.
- Punchcard
- A perforated card that selects needles to produce a pattern. Mechanical, limited in repeat width, and effectively indestructible.
- Tension mast
- The upright assembly feeding yarn to the carriage under controlled tension. The part beginners thread incorrectly most often.
- Weights
- Claw weights and combs hung on the fabric to keep it pulled down. Insufficient or unmoved weights are the second commonest cause of a jammed carriage.
- Knit radar
- A charting device that scales a pattern to your own tension and measurements. Largely replaced by software, and the reason machine knitters calculate rather than follow.
- Buying a machine without the accessories — The weights, clamps, tools and manual are harder to replace than the machine. A cheap incomplete machine is usually not cheap.
- Not replacing the sponge bar first — People spend weeks diagnosing a machine with a perished sponge bar. Replace it on day one, always.
- Skipping the tension swatch — The habit hand knitters bring across and the one that does not survive here. A small per-stitch error multiplied over two hundred stitches is a garment two sizes out.
- Using hairy or textured yarn on a standard gauge — It will snag, break and jam. Machine yarn is finer and smoother for a reason.
- Buying an electronic machine as a first machine — More capable and much harder to repair, because the electronics are exactly the part nobody makes spares for. A punchcard machine is the forgiving start.
- Forcing a jammed carriage — The way bent needles become bent needle beds. Back off and find out what it caught on.
- Working without finding the model group first — The manuals are out of print and the knowledge is model-specific. Working alone here is much harder than it needs to be.
Knitting frames are old — the stocking frame dates from the late sixteenth century and mechanised knitting was one of the earlier textile industries to be transformed. The domestic machine is a much later and more specific thing: a compact flat-bed machine sold to households, which reached its peak as a mass-market consumer product in the middle decades of the twentieth century.
Its commercial life was surprisingly short. Home machine knitting was widespread through the 1970s and into the 1980s, supported by magazines, pattern services, dealers and evening classes, and then declined sharply as cheap ready-made knitwear made home production uneconomic. Most major manufacturers stopped making domestic machines, and the supporting infrastructure of dealers and servicing went with them.
What survived is unusual and is why the hobby looks the way it does today: a large installed base of durable machines, a body of out-of-print documentation, and communities organised model by model rather than around the craft as a whole. The recent revival is driven partly by interest in making clothes rather than buying them, and partly by the machines themselves having become interesting objects — mechanical, repairable, and no longer made.
- Which machine should I buy first?
- A punchcard machine rather than an electronic one, complete with its accessories, and bought in person from somebody who will knit a few rows in front of you. Standard gauge is the most versatile and what most patterns assume; a chunky or mid-gauge machine is often cheaper and genuinely easier to learn on, especially if you already have ordinary hand-knitting yarn. Before buying any model, find the user group for it — the manuals are out of print and that group is your documentation and your spare-parts source.
- My machine keeps dropping stitches. What is wrong?
- The sponge bar, until proven otherwise. It is a foam strip that holds the needles against the bed, it perishes with age, and it is flat in nearly every second-hand machine regardless of how the machine looks. Replace it before investigating anything else — it costs £15–£30 and it resolves an extraordinary proportion of apparent faults. After that, look at weighting and at bent needles.
- Do I really need to do a tension swatch every time?
- Yes, and this is the habit hand knitters find hardest to adopt. There is no fixed relationship between the stitch dial and the resulting stitch size — it varies with yarn, machine, weighting and setup, so the dial is a reference rather than a measurement. Knit the swatch on the actual machine with the actual yarn, wash and treat it exactly as the garment will be treated, and measure over many stitches. A small per-stitch error multiplied across a garment is a size, not a rounding.
- Is it faster than hand knitting?
- Enormously, at the knitting, and that is only half the picture. A row is one pass of the carriage, so fabric appears at a rate that startles hand knitters. But the effort is front-loaded — setting up, swatching and calculating the shaping all happen before the fast part starts. The overall saving on a garment is still large; the experience is the inverse of hand knitting, where the thinking is light and the making is long.
- Can I use my hand-knitting yarn?
- Some of it, on the right machine. A standard-gauge machine wants fine, smooth yarn of roughly 4-ply weight, and anything hairy, textured or thick will snag and jam it. A chunky or mid-gauge machine will happily take double-knit and aran weights, which is a good reason to consider one if you already have a stash. Machine yarn proper is sold on cones, is finer, and works out considerably cheaper per garment.
- What happens when a part breaks?
- This is the real risk of the hobby and worth knowing before buying. Very few domestic machines are still made, so spares come from breakers selling parts from dead machines, from model-specific user groups, and increasingly from 3D-printed replacements. Punchcard machines fare much better than electronic ones, because the electronics are the part nobody can remake. It is also why learning to clean and adjust the machine yourself is worth the effort — servicing specialists are fewer every year.
Guides
Longer answers to questions this page can only summarise.
- Keeping a forty-year-old knitting machine workingCleaning, inspection and the parts that perish — written for machines that stopped being manufactured decades ago, where the service network is thinner every year and knowing what you can do yourself is the whole game.
- From swatch to garment: getting better at machine knittingThe machine is easy and the garment is hard, and the gap between them is shaping — which is where nearly everybody stalls and where the whole craft actually is.
If you like this
Each of these is here for a stated reason, not because it is also a hobby.
Easier way in
- Knitting — The hand version of the same fabric, far cheaper to start, portable, and forgiving of skipping the swatch — which the machine emphatically is not.
Similar to
- Bicycle maintenance — An odd pairing that holds: both are hobbies where an orphaned mechanical object has to be kept alive by its owner, and where the maintenance skill is inseparable from the craft.
Goes well with
- Dressmaking — The machine makes fabric and panels; assembling them into a garment that fits is dressmaking, and machine knitters end up doing both.
- Pattern drafting — Machine knitting calculates its shaping from a tension swatch and a set of measurements rather than following a written pattern, which is drafting by another name.
Substantial
Last reviewed 2026-08-16. Cost, time and difficulty figures on this page are HobbyHQ estimates — see how we work. Something here wrong or out of date? Tell us.