I’ve been a hand knitter for over 35 years, and I know that a lot of hand knitters don’t like knitting machines. That is why I need to let everyone know how much and why I love my Ultimate Sweater Machine, sold by Bond America. Here it is, set up out on the carport today. I wanted to knit where I could see my two-year-old playing outside, my husband working in the garden, and the flowers and the lovely spring day.
Anyway, the USM turns out stockinette stitch in a hurry. Any fancy stitch, like cables or stranded knitting or intarsia or lace, has to be hand-manipulated, and therefore takes longer. You can knit many hand-knitting yarns on the USM, directly from the skein. I have even used hand-spun yarns on the USM.
I have often knitted the stockinette stitch part of a sweater on the machine, then taken it off to do the fancy knitting by hand. I find knitting stockinette stitch to be dull, so the USM does that for me whenever possible. My knitting time is so limited that any hand-knitting better be stimulating and fun.
If you have hand pain or suffer from carpal tunnel, a machine like the USM lets you make the most of your hand-knitting time. The machine is also great if you’re designing or teaching, and you need to do a lot of stockinette-based swatches. Have a look at my post of April 3, 2005, where all the Fair Isle swatches are USM-knit.
The USM’s strength is stockinette, so I use it almost exclusively for stockinette-based sts. I find cable knitting on the USM to be a bit of a strain, and since cables are fun to knit anyway, prefer to do those by hand. Lace is possible, but I like knitting lace by hand, too.
I have used the USM since the early 1980’s, when it was called the Bond Knitting Frame. It’s a simple machine, and easy to learn (comes with a video these days), but you do have to spend some time training yourself. So there you have my testimonial for the Ultimate Sweater Machine.
How did it go, knitting outside today? I didn’t get very far. My little Ella didn’t like the machine hogging my attention. She wanted to sit in my chair. After she went to sleep, I took our floor lamp outside and knitted under its light, to the tune of crickets, night birds, and the occasional flapping of sleepy swallows.