Tag Archives: Crafts

Machine Knit Sock Heel – Cat Bordhi Style

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In my quest to knit the perfect sock heel on a knitting machine, I stumbled on Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel. If you aren’t familiar with this type of heel or you’re simply interested in learning how to do this on your knitting machine, I’d suggest watching Cat’s video first.

Even if you don’t know how to hand knit, Cat does an excellent job of explaining what causes the gaps in a short row heel… and that’s the key to learning how to eliminate the gaps.

Intrigued? Here’s how you can knit a modified version of the Sweet Tomato Heel on a knitting machine, regardless of whether you knit your socks cuff-down or toe-up.

These instructions assume the heel will be knit on the main bed.

When knitting circular, the ribber knits right to left and the main bed knits left to right.

If you’re knitting your heel on the ribber or your carriages will knit in the opposite direction, you’ll need to flip these instructions around.

Preparing to knit the first wedge

  1. Begin by knitting up to the point where the heel begins.
  2. Knit on the ribber right to left and stop. Your carriage is on the left. This is where each wedge will begin.
  3. Set your ribber carriage to slip in both directions.
  4. Set your main carriage to knit and hold in both directions. Needles in HP will not knit.
If you’re knitting circular on a double-bed machine or knitting machine with ribber, the last carriage pass before starting your heel will always be on the bed opposite the heel. If the heel is knit on the main bed, the last circular pass must be on the ribber. If the heel is knit on the ribber, the last circular pass must be on the main bed.

If you’re knitting a seamed sock without a ribber, it doesn’t matter which side you start on. Just be sure to start each wedge from the same side.

Knitting the first wedge

  1. Set the ribber carriage to slip in both directions.
  2. Set the main carriage to knit and hold in both directions.
  3. Row 1
    • Pull the edge needle opposite the carriage (right) to hold.
    • Knit 1 row left to right.
    • Manually wrap the held needle.
    • Manually knit the next WP needle, pull it to hold and pull the yarn taut to tighten up the wrap.
  4. Row 2
    • Pull the edge needle opposite the carriage (left) to hold.
    • Knit 1 row right to left.
    • Repeat steps 3 and 4 on the left side — exactly the same way you did it on the right side.
  5. Now repeat rows 1 and 2 until the center 1/3 of your stitches remain in WP and your carriage is on the left.
  6. Push the held needles on the right to UWP.
  7. Knit 1 row left to right. Note that it may be a little harder to knit the needles in UWP because of the snug wraps.
  8. For circular socks with ribber:
    1. Use a transfer tool to carefully move the held stitches on the left to WP. Note that it may be a little harder to manipulate the stitches because of the snug wraps.
    2. Set the main carriage to slip in both directions.
    3. Set the ribber carriage to knit right to left.
    4. Knit 1 row right to left on the ribber.
    5. Pull the main bed needles left of 0 to UWP. Remember that these needles still contain the wraps and may be harder to knit. Pulling these needles back to UWP with the stitches behind the latches will help the stitches knit cleanly.
  9. For flat socks without ribber:
    1. Push the held needles on the left to UWP.
    2. Knit 1 row right to left.

One wedge is complete. Your carriage is on the left where it’s ready to knit another wedge or resume circular knitting.

Usually, you’ll want to knit 3 wedges for a nice round heel. You may find you need more or less to achieve a good fit. You can add or remove a 1/2 wedge by leaving more needles in WP.

You may find that the wedges create a slightly snugger heel. This may make the ankle stitches pull. To make the sock a little looser around the ankle, increase the number of stitches every 2 to 4 rows leading up to the heel and decrease back to the original number of stitches after you complete the heel.

Hacking a Brother Cast-On Comb to fit a Mid-Gauge Knitting Machine

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I used to hate the Brother comb, but now that I’ve gotten used to it I wish they made one for the mid-gauge machines. Since they don’t — and probably never will — I decided to buy a new one for my Brother SK860 standard and hack the old one to fit my Silver Reed SK860 mid-gauge.

The gate pegs on the Silver Reed are stronger than the hooks on the comb, so it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Here’s how:

  1. Knit an inch or so of waste yarn across the entire needle bed.
  2. Mark the two center hooks on the comb with a bit of yarn.
  3. Position the comb with the two center hooks on either size of 0.
  4. Working from the center of the comb toward the ends, gently — but firmly press the wires of the comb between the gate pegs until the comb is hanging on the scrap knitting.
  5. Use needle nose pliers to bend any stubborn hooks out of the way of the gate pegs. Most of them should bend to one side or the other without any help.
Brother 4.5mm Cast-On Comb hanging on a Silver Reed 6.5mm

Brother 4.5mm Cast-On Comb hanging on a Silver Reed 6.5mm

Once the comb has been secured all the way across, use the needle nose pliers to bend all of the hooks that are pressing against a gate peg. In this photo, you’ll see 5 hooks bent back out of the way. All of the others are hanging between the 6.5mm gate pegs pretty as you please.

Brother 4.5mm Cast-On Comb hanging on a Silver Reed 6.5mm

Brother 4.5mm Cast-On Comb hanging on a Silver Reed 6.5mm

Grab the bent hooks with your needle nose pliers and bend the wire back and forth until they snap. Most of them will snap off inside the case. If you have a few that don’t, you might have to use a Dremel to grind them down so you don’t have any sharp edges.

It’s important to note that this method won’t get you a comb that hangs on every stitch, but if you like using the 9mm triangle weights on your standard gauge machine, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Also, the comb is 4-5 needles shy of covering the whole bed… so if you’re using the entire width, you might still have to use edge weights.

How Much Yarn Do I Need?

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One of the questions that comes up a lot on Ravelry is “I have a cone of yarn that weighs this much… is it enough to make a sweater?”

The general rule of thumb is that a sweater takes about 1500 yards, but the fact of the matter is there’s no way to give any reasonable answer without having a lot more information. Not only does the yards per gram differs among fibers, the number of yards in a 1-pound cone depends on the size of the strand and in some cases, the spinning system used to manufacturer the yarn.

However, there is something you can do to get a pretty good estimate.

First, you must knit a swatch. That shouldn’t be a problem because you always knit a swatch anyway, right?

So knit a swatch thats big enough to get accurate measurements — about 80 stitches by 100 rows for finer yarns and 50 stitches by 60 rows for bulky yarns.

After washing and blocking the swatch the same way you’ll finish the completed garment, measure the length and width. You’ll also need to weigh the swatch to determine how much yarn it consumed.

Now you have all the information you need to determine the amount of fabric you can knit with the amount of yarn you have.

It’ll be easier to explain with an example, so grab your favorite calculator and follow along.

I have a cone of lovely but unidentified yarn that weights 600g. Most paper and plastic cones weight about 25 grams, so I really have about 575 grams of yarn.

My swatch is 8 inches wide, 4.5 inches long, and weighs 13g.

My sweater is roughly 38 inches around the body and 22 inches long. We don’t have to be exact here… rough measurements are ok. When in doubt, add an inch or so in both dimensions.

My sleeve is about 13 inches wide at the widest point and 23 inches long. Again, rough measurements are ok.

Let’s calculate the yardage for the body first. To make things easier, we’re going to work in one dimension at a time — first width, then length. I also want to err on the side of caution, so I’m going to round up to the nearest third or quarter (.25, .33, .50, .66, .75).

  • The body is 4.75 times the width of my swatch (38 / 8 = 4.75), so a 38 x 4.5 rectangle needs 62g (4.75 x 13g).
  • The body of my sweater is almost 5 times the length of my swatch (22 / 4.5 = 4.88), so a 38 x 22 rectangle needs 310g (5 x 62g).

Now let’s calculate the yardage for the sleeves using the same technique.

  • The sleeve is about 1 2/3 times the width of my swatch (13 / 8 = 1.625), so a 13 x 4.5 rectangle needs 22g (1.66 x 13g).
  • My sleeve is more than 5 times the length of my swatch (23 / 4.5 = 5.11), so a 13 x 23 rectangle needs 116g (5.25 * 22g).
  • A sweater isn’t of much use with only one sleeve, so we need to double that to 232g (2 x 116g).

Now, we just add up the numbers to get the total yardage requirement: 310g + 232g = 542g.

Here’s a little cheat sheet you can print and keep with your yarn so you’ll have it handy the next time you need it:

Knitting Yardage Worksheet

A = Swatch Width:
B = Swatch Length:
C = Swatch Weight:
D = Desired Width:
E = Desired Length:
F = (D / A) * C:
G = (E / B) * F = Total Yardage Required:

Machine Knitting: Increasing Evenly Across the Row

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First, you need to figure out where the increases go. Suppose you have 98 needles in work and the pattern says increase 13 stitches evenly across the row.

Compute the approximate placement of the decreases using the following formula:


(current # stitches - # to increase) / # to increase
(98 - 13) / 13
85 / 13
6.53 rounded down = 6

This tells us we need to space our increases approximately 6 stitches apart.

Determine where to start based on whether you’re increasing by an even or odd number of stitches. If the number of increases is even, position the two center-most increases on either side of center. E.g., if the distance between increases is 6 stitches, the two center-most increases would be on needles 4L and 4R, leaving 6 stitches (3L to 3R) in between.

If the number of increases is odd, position the center increase on either side of center (1L or 1R).

Determine the placement of the other increases by counting off needles working from the center towards the edges. For this example, you would leave 6 stitches between each increase. Temporarily mark the location of each increases by pulling those needles to hold.

Use a garter bar or decker comb to move stitches right or left starting at the edge. You may have to make several passes if your decker comb is not wide enough to transfer all of the stitches at once.