BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Knitting Vintage knitting machine

I found this at a friend's resale store. It's from the mid 70's and has a hand crank. It works great, but only makes 1 size tube, about 2" wide. I was thinking of making 3 or 4 tubes and joining them in stripes for a scarf. Or maybe braiding the tubes and securing both ends and along the braid so that it stays together. I haven't made a headband with it yet, but that would certainly be quick and easy, not to mention much faster than knitting in the round, and would only take two tubes.

I have the original instruction book, which concentrates on patterns using the small circular puffs. The only tube patterns are for an afghan and some stuffed animals.

If anyone has ever used one of these, or has some ideas on how to make scarves or hats, I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions.

I've no idea, hopefully someone else will have some ideas, I have seen some great scarves by braid three small tubes though.

Thanks Marge. Now that I know a braided scarf can be done, I'm a little more confident giving it a try.

As for joining the tubes, I was thinking I could use a decorative stitch to join the tubes in stripes, perhaps in a contrasting yarn.

For the braided tubes, do you think the mattress stitch might work? They come out knitted in the round, so I'm not sure which joining stitch would work best. Thanks for any suggestions.

Thanks Marge. Now that I know a braided scarf can be done, I'm a little more confident giving it a try.

As for joining the tubes, I was thinking I could use a decorative stitch to join the tubes in stripes, perhaps in a contrasting yarn.

For the braided tubes, do you think the mattress stitch might work? They come out knitted in the round, so I'm not sure which joining stitch would work best. Thanks for any suggestions.

For the braided scarves they were aligned on the ends and sew together, just on the ends, then braided and sewn together flat on the opposite ends. I'll try to find a picture. They were left open throughout, but it worked. I don't think I'm explaining this well, but...

Hmmmm.....if you cast on with waste yarn, then couldn't the ends be grafted together? If the ends can be grafted, then the scarf could be given that half-twist and grafted so it would be a Moebius.

Moebius - Yikes! I saw that on Knitty Gritty. It was WAY over my head and I didn't even duck!

The grafting idea is a good one I had not thought of! When the tube is removed from the machine, the stitches at that end are just like they "fell" off circular needles. I could lay the tubes flat, pick up all the stitches on straight needles and make a short bar/border to secure the tubes together.

The stitches at the beginning of the tube are VERY loose and I could easily pick up the same number to repeat the process. I've been thinking about this for several days. Sometime this week, I'm going to give it a try!

There are 2 ways to do a Moebius.
One is to use a ling circular knitting needle and a special cast on. With this method, you knit it in the round and the half twist is created when you set up the cast on.

The other way is easy but requires putting the half twist in after knitting a straight piece and then grafting the stitches.

Let's see if I can explain this:

A____________________________________B
C...........................................D

Please ignore the dotted line, I had to do that to make the C and D show up in the approximately correct places.

The line represents a long rectangular piece of knitting.
A,B,C, and D are the four corners of the rectangle.
Cut a long rectangular strip of paper, mark the four corners the same way on both sides of the strip (a back to back with a, etc) as shown and follow along

With the A C side to the left, fold the left end in about halfway towards the center. Then pick up the right b-d end like you're going to fold it in BUT give it a half of a twist so that the upside down D meets the right side up A and the upside down B meets the right side up C. Tape the paper at the join.

Now, Run your fingers around the edge of the paper, starting at the upside down D. You'll see that you can run your fingers all around the edge and come back to the same point without taking your fingers off the paper. The strip has one edge. That is a Moebius strip Putting that twist into your flat knitted scarf before grafting the first row to the last row will make a Moebius scarf.

Thanks so much for the explanation. I've read through it a few times. I do understand the concept, just can't translate it for my fingers. But then learning even a simple stitch takes me a while.

I'm hoping your details will help others, but for now, I probably should stick with the flat scarves and simple hats, as I have a deadline to meet.

Thanks again!

Sounds like you found a Barbie or a mattel knitter. I have both kinds plus a few more larger ones.

When you cast on the end is not all that great and you are right about the end stitches being loopy. So you can use waste yarn to cast on and to bind off. Then it is easier to pick up the stitches to finish the work on needles or with crochet.

I make little tiny sort of necktie scarves with these small machines. It is always cold in my office in winter regardless of what the boss tries to do to keep it warm. That little necktie scarf doesn't get in the way and keeps me much warmer.

The small knitters are also great for doing those cute little fun fur scarves. Last year I gave a bunch of those away.

You can also make lots of other things with small tubes. Try making a tube to fit around the head, then one a bit smaller flatten them to be sewn together. Then you just keep doing this till you have a hat after seaming at the back, or seam the tubes before putting them together.

Make a bunch and use them for braided rugs, or placemats. There is an on line site that shows how to make granny circles or granny squares from little pieces that can be used to make bunches of things. BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

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Thanks so much for the information. I have the Mattel version from 1974. I had considered the hat idea, joining several tubes of decreasing sizes. For me, attaching the tubes would add a lot of time to each piece, and I'm on a deadline.

I don't particularly care for the Granny circle or "puff" patterns in the book, but do think these would be adorable embellishments on my scarves and hats. Once I get the basic knitting done on the 100 sets, I'm hoping I'll have time to decorate a few further using scrap yarn and the small circles, maybe including buttons, beads, etc. in the center of the circles. I think the small circles would be a cute substitute for pom-poms on the top of a hat.

I picked up 35 skeins of baby yarn at Goodwill the other day, with a quantity of matching dye lots. The yarn is thin and I think it would work well for making tubes and circles.

I have the instructions for making the circles. Do you have any helpful hints I need to know before starting? Any tidbit most graciously appreciated!

Well, the small machines work just like the bigger innovations machine. So check youtube for some videos. There are ones showing how to use waste yarn, which I highly advice, to cast on and off, others to show how to fix mistakes, and do various other things (like doing ribbing).

I don't know much about youtube, but I'm assuming I can do a search for these videos. I'll try to check those out in the next few days. The prospect of doing ribbing on the machine has me intrigued.

Thanks for the info!

You can search and I've found some great tips and "show me how to..." there. I highly recommend it.

these machines are so much fun
i have a small one from michaels and i make scarf and hand warmers
later ones are real good with eyelash yarn
seeing asyou have one already experiment with it
just need a little playing with
i own a inovations on this one i knit scarfs hats and neck warmers
i bought it at mary maxums and it cost me 75.00
if you are from the states you will find it cheaper
joannes has them cheaper a store we dont have in ontario
and definetly try walmart again our walmarts dont have half the stuff you americans have
rifka