No, using a machine is NOT ‘cheating’
There was a question posed in one of the Facebook Knitting groups regarding the use of a knitting machine. Most of the comments tended toward the negative, since most of the people in that particular group are hand-knitters. A few people commented that using a machine turned the task of knitting from a pleasurable hobby into a chore. One person suggested that using a knitting machine made the project no longer hand-made. Another person said that the plastic ones are more like a toy than a tool.
Bollocks!! Such notions are erroneous, false, misleading, wrong, ignorant, and just plain offensive. In a word, it is bullshit and insults those who use knitting machines.
Using a knitting machine to create a project (blanket, scarf, hat, whatever) makes it no less ‘hand-made’ than clickety-clacking through 10,000 stitches on two hand-held needles. In my opinion, those who have a negative idea about machine knitting simply don’t understand what it is, what it does, or why it is sometimes good to use one.
Now, first, there are people who simply prefer to hand-knit with two needles (or circulars or DPNs), one stitch at a time. That is their preference and they are entitled to it. They are, however, not entitled to denigrate machine knitting.
Every knitting machine is basically a bed of ‘needles’ (literally, they are latch-hooks, not pointy needles), and the yarn is drawn over the needles by a carriage to set the yarn in place, move the latch hook backward and draw the yarn into the loop already there and forming a new stitch. On my widest machine (a Bond double-bed basic machine), I can form 200 stitches in about 10 seconds, rows and rows of plain stockinette stitch in a few minutes.
It is, of course, a different skillset from hand-knitting. Depending on the machine, the user needs to know how to set the tension, how to use the various buttons and levers to form different types of stitches. The fancier electronic machines can do patterning and textures automatically, while the more basic machines require stitches to be manipulated manually.
No matter what type of knitting machine is used, you do NOT just drop a cone of yarn onto it and walk away. And you don’t make a dozen or a hundred identical items simultaneously, like a factory operation would do. Each article is made individually, with whatever texture, shaping, and details are required.
Using a home knitting machine is not at all like what is done in factories, where the entire process is automated. The user still has to manually move the carriage side to side, forming each stitch and row. I have done light lace work on a basic machine, as well as intarsia and other types of colorwork. There are certain lacework stitches that I suspect would be nearly impossible on a machine — I’m thinking of things like nupps, clusters, and popcorns, because they add and decrease stitches which would require moving all the other stitches away, at least temporarily. But slip stitches, tucks, and most other texturing can be done on a machine.
The knitting machine is a tool for hand-knitting. It requires learning and practice. It is no more ‘cheating’ than someone using a sewing machine to create a quilt; the quilter still has to cut each piece, sew all the pieces into their proper position, align the finished top to the batting and backing, etc. It is very much a hands-on project, whether 100% hand-stitched or with the aid of a machine.
Using a knitting machine saves time and forms more uniform stitches, but it is just as ‘hand-made’ as clickety-clacking the long way.
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Bravo, Ray. I agree wholeheartedly. You left out one other aspest of the craft: people who use knitting machines to crank out yards of plain stocking or garter stitch for felting. In that case machine knitting is only the first step in a handmade process, and yes, if the felter uses a sewing machine to craft the felted item, it is still “hand made.” I’ve done this many times with felted items. Likewise, when a baby shower was rushing up on me, I have, on more than a few occasions, machine-kit a plain stocking stitch center panel and then picked up and knit a deep openwork edge for a blanket.
I understand the need to distinguish between hand-knitting and machine knitting as crafts, because different skills are involved. But both are still handcrafts.
I am a hand-knitter who simply does not enjoy machine knitting as a pastime, because I can’t pick it up and put it down, I can’t carry it with me, and it makes too much noise for me to enjoy a movie while I watch it. For my own uses, I see a knitting machine as a tool to save time on large, plain areas of knitting. But I would never dare to dictate how others should use or enjoy such a useful knitting tool.
Critics often forget that a knitting machine is also a valuable tool for knitters with arthritis who once enjoyed hand-knitting but who now must be kinder to their hands. I know a couple of arthritic knitters who now use a machine for all or part of their projects. One friend, who lives in the upper midwest and enjoys making traditional yoked sweaters for her grandkids, makes the plain stockinette body parts and sleeves on a basic knitting macine, then joins the body parts, assembles them onto a circular needle, and hand-knits the patterned yoke.
I have seen the same ignorance in the spinning community with regard to electric spinners. Silly, really. The spinner must still draft and control the fiber. One’s feet are simply divorced from the process. And, not unlike a drop spindle, it is highly portable. All the spinner needs is access to an electric socket. One friend who uses an electric spinner lives in a studio apartment, where every square foot of floorplan counts.