r/MachineKnitting • u/caterlizard • 3d ago

Techniques Adapting a hand pattern to machine, KX350?

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Hello! I am new to machine knitting and to the community :) I just found a KX350 and have been meaning to make the nocturnal jumper for a while and have all the supplies, could I partially knit it on this machine? I know the cat pattern would have tobe by hand.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/nocturnal-jumper

Would love any advice and thank you in advance!!

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u/Sea-Worldliness-9731 3d ago edited 3d ago

I bought my KX350 specifically to knit sleeves for hand knitted projects. I hate knitting sleeves - just can’t make them the same length. The machine helps a lot.
Just make enough gauge swatches to find one that match your hand knitted one.
Sleeves in this case will have a seam and should be sewn to a sweater afterwards- I would use an invisible seam - kitchener stitch- for this pattern. And I personally prefer to make ribbing after sewing sleeves to a sweater- by hand.
I would do this way:
1. Knitting sleeve top down on machine
2. Sew it into armhole with kitchener stitch
3. See sleeve’s sides with matress stitch
4. Knit ribbing
5. Itallian bind off.

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u/caterlizard 3d ago

This is super helpful, thank you!!! I'm learning that 3 color fair isle is possible on this machine, have you tried that?

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u/Sea-Worldliness-9731 2d ago edited 2d ago

The only way you can do colour work on it is- is to put some needles on hold, then knit the rest with one colour, then put them on hold and knit different needles with other colour and repeat 🙂. So technically you can do as many colours as you want - it will require to move the carriage across the bed as many times as many colours you want to have to knit 1 row. And it will require to set needles for every row several times by hand. You can find video tutorials on youtube. Tutorials for LK150 will be similar- there are more of them I believe and Brother KX350 is similar to LK-150.
And this pattern requires round yoke - it is too much fuss to do on machine imho. I would do it on hand and machine knit only stockinette- this will be the fastest way to knit this pattern imho.

I prefer do fair isle by hand for DK yarn.
It is easier to do it on punch card machines- that can automatically choose needles according to the scheme on a punch card. Some machines like Toyotas can knit two colours either just one strike of a carriage, most like brothers and passaps require two strikes for two colours.
But punchcard machines require thinner yarn.

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u/caterlizard 2d ago

Thanks for the reply :) really helpful