Knit a Shrug on a Circular Knitting Machine

I’ve been having a lot of fun making projects on my circular knitting machine (which could also easily be done with hand knitting, of course!) and when I shared a collection of sweater scarf knitting patterns recently I wondered how I could make a similar project on my Sentro.

I didn’t have enough of the yarn I was working with to make a full-on sweater scarf that wraps around the body, but there was enough to make a shrug, and I think it’s really cute and I will wear it a lot this spring and summer over tank tops and summer dresses.

For those who do have circular knitting machines, you just knit tubes for the sleeves as long as you want them, and a flat panel for the back. For the shrug it’s basically the same length as my back from shoulder to shoulder, but if you wanted to make a sweater scarf (which I am still going to do at some point) you’d just keep knitting as long as you want until you can wrap it around your body.

The concept would be the same knitting it by hand, but you could more easily do it in one piece: work a sleeve in the round, bind off half the stitches when you have the length you need, then cast on stitches to the desired length of the back and work flat to the desired width, then bind off the bottom part of the back panel and cast on again to work in the round for the remaining sleeve.

If you want to check out more detailed instructions for how I made my circular knit shrug, you can find the pattern at Our Daily Craft.

Do you have a circular knitting machine? If you do and there are patterns you would like to see, let me know. It’s a fun challenge to work with knitting in a different way.

Circular Knitting Machine FAQs

There are two schools of thought when it comes to instructional books about knitting. Either focus in one particular technique or kind of knitting (stranded knitting, say, or brioche) or try to cover a little bit of everything in a reference book that knitters will use throughout their careers.

The Knitting Book by Frederica Patmore and Dr. Vikki Haffenden aims to be the second kind. The subtitle is: a step-by-step guide to creating imaginative projects for the home and to wear. I’m not sure it does that, exactly, but it does include a quick look at a lot of different techniques and stitch patterns you might use in your projects.

A “guide to creating imaginative projects” sounds to me like it’s about design, but this book is not. There’s 1/3 of a page about altering patterns that only talks about how to add length to a sleeve and adjust where the increases go.

There’s nothing about measuring your body (the section on choosing a size in a pattern only suggests measuring a garment you already own), general garment construction, ease or stitch pattern multiples. The section on gauge (which is the last third of the page with choosing a garment size and altering patterns, discussed above) just says to knit a swatch, block and measure it to compare to a pattern, with no discussion on how you might use your swatch to design your own project or alter a pattern to meet your gauge.

If you ignore the subtitle, what you will find is a lot of information about different kinds of knitting and various techniques you might want to try on your projects. There are 20 cast ons and 15 bind off options, for instance, all discussed before you learn how to knit or purl. (Another quibble I have with this book is the order in which things are presented, but that’s relatively minor.)

You’ll find quick hits on increases and decreases, twists and cables, lace, colorwork, textured effects like fisherman’s rib and brioche, loops, mosaic knitting, double knitting, decorative stitches, shadow knitting, bias knitting, mitered squares, entrelac and more. There are tips for selvedge stitches, knitting with beads, adding buttonholes, picking up stitches and more.

A few patterns at the back give knitters a taste of some of the techniques included, but they’re not rated by skill level and the first one is a bias knit gradient scarf worked in six different colors of mohair, which isn’t a thing I’d wish on any beginner.

And I guess that’s maybe what my issue with the book is. I don’t know if it’s meant for beginners and it doesn’t seem to, either. I feel like this book would be overwhelming to new knitters and doesn’t really give you a place to start or all the information you might need to do projects well.

The variety of techniques included is fun, and there are also stitch patterns in the back you can use on your own projects, but again it doesn’t really provide any guidance for how to design your own projects so I don’t know how helpful all of that is.

I want to like books like this because having one reference that helps you with a lot of different things is great, I’m just not sure this is the one. If you can find it at your library or local book store and flip through it before buying, I think that would be a great idea to see if it’s a book that would be helpful for you.

And if you have this book and love it please let me know! I’m sure it’s good for someone I’m just not sure who.

About the book: 336 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by DK. Suggested retail price $40.

Have you read?