Knitpickin’s Recommended Order of Learning How to Crank.
The following assumes that the machine is timed and working properly. Please follow the links provided below for more information on specific techniques (more links will be added over time.)
Settings - If your machine is new (don’t make any adjustments). If it is used, place the v-cam in the center of its height range (not too high and not too low).
Cast on/Setup - Practice casting on. It is recommend to use #10 Crochet cotton. It is inexpensive and be ripped out and reused many times.
Make tubes.
Practice fixing mistakes - picking up and latching dropped stitches from the tubes
Give yourself permission to make mistakes - Remember, tears and swear words are an acceptable part of learning how to crank 👍😉
Watch & learn - Make more tubes and study your machine as it knits. Watch how it works. Move the v-cam adjustment screw and see how it affects the knitting/fabric. Remember this regarding the v-cam: UP-TIGHT and HANG (down)-LOOSE.
Set the tension - Once you are happy with making tubes with no dropped stitches, find the optimum tension/gauge for your preferred yarn.
Gauge - Make a gauge tube using your preferred sock yarn. This will help you to understand your machine tension settings and what kind of fabric your machine will produce;
how tight/loose you can knit, how many rows per inch the machine will produce at each setting
how the fabric will change after resting off the machine a minimum of 2 hours
and how it will change again after washing and lightly pressing.
Make a selvage - A great beginner selvage is a hung hem. Practice until you are comfortable.
Heels & Toes - I recommend starting with no-wrap heels and toes. You will drop corner stitches and drop others. Be prepared for more crying and cussing; it is ok and expected. You can do this! Watch a video on heel fork/weight placement.
Graft toes closed - Once you make a sock, you will need to learn to Kitchener stitch the toe closed.
Don’t give up - It is like learning to ride a bicycle, you have to fall before you will forever have amazing CSM skills.
Ribber - Once you have successfully made a stocking stitch sock, you are now ready to make friends with your ribber. Practice making ribbed tubes (no heels yet, just ribbed tubes for now.)
Adjust the timing - You will probably have to make small adjustments to your machine timing when you start ribbing. The timing is more forgiving for plain tubes, but needs to be more precise when adding the ribber. Learn how to make adjustments to both the cylinder yarn guide and your ribber timing.
Watch for dropped stitches - Learn how to recognize dropped stitches on the ribber and how to pick them back up again. Yes, you can park the ribber needles, remove the ribber, fix dropped stitches, and re-install the ribber and it’s needles.
Change the settings - Once you can make ribbed tubes, play with the ribber tension/gauge and the cylinder tension/gauge and see how it affects the tubes. Find out which ribber tension works well with your cylinder tension setting.
Make a sock with a ribbed cuff - Once you are confident with your ribbed tubes, you can then practice making a sock with a ribbed top and a knit/stocking stitch foot. Juana’s selvage is a great place to start for a no-flair selvage.
More heels - Practice making heels with the ribber left on.
Fully ribbed sock - Once you can make socks with ribbed top and knit foot, you can practice making a sock that is ribbed all the way down the top of the foot (instep), for a fully ribbed sock.
Congratulations!! Now you are a novice!
Play! - Try different things: different cast-on’s/selvages, different heel types, toe up socks, colourwork, lace patterns...the sky is the limit 😎
