Lesson 4: Getting Started
Your Turn
The goal:
Get started knitting and explore how tension changes affect your fabric.
Set up the machine
- Practice threading your machine, securing the yarn tail in the yarn clip on the mast.
- Confirm the carriage levers are set to plain knitting.
- Set the carriage and mast tension to 5.
Select needles and prepare to knit
- Put 50 needles in work, 25 left and 25 right, in B-C or D position.
- Pass the carriage back and forth with no yarn.
- Notice that the needles are all now in B working position.
- Push all the needles to A, out of work position.
- Using your 1x1 needle pusher, pull every other needle into work, B-C or D position, about 25 needles.
Cast on and knit
- Thread the carriage, number 1 front slot.
- Position the carriage on the right.
-
Hold the yarn tail with one hand and pass the carriage from right to left.
Only the needles that were in work will knit. - Secure the yarn tail with a clip or clothespin.
- Hang the cast-on comb in the loops. Catch every one.
- Put the out-of-work A needles into working position.
- Knit back.
Change the tension
- Knit 10 rows at the current tension.
- Loosen the carriage tension by 1 number.
- Knit 10 rows.
- Repeat until the carriage tension is at 9.
- Knit a few more rows.
Finish and compare
- Remove the yarn from the carriage yarn feeder. Pass the carriage across the knitting and drop the work from the machine.
- Compare the different tensions. Which tension do you prefer for your yarn?
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