Knit Legwarmers on a Circular Knitting Machine

Circular knitting machines are a lot of fun to use and make it easy to knit tubes. Despite the name, it’s also possible to knit flat panels on a knitting machine, but this is a function a lot of people don’t use because there’s a bit more of a learning curve around the technique.

Once you understand how it works, though, it’s just about as easy to work panels on a knitting machine as it is to crank tubes. (I say almost because you do have to pay more attention to make sure you aren’t dropping stitches on the sides of your panels.)

And once you know how to make panels, you can make them any size, from a couple of stitches for an animal’s ear to using most of the stitches on your machine for a project like these knit legwarmers.

To make legwarmers on my knitting machine I made a swatch using the yarn I was planning to use and measured it and my leg to determine how many stitches I needed. It was just about all the stitches my machine will do flat, so if you need bigger legwarmers you might need to do two smaller panels for each leg and sew them together.

Because I’m a knitter I also knit ribbing on each end of the leg opening (using a smaller needle at the bottom of the leg so it would hung my ankle more). This makes them look like hand knit legwarmers even though they took a fraction of the time knitting by hand would.

I made mine kind of short because of yarn limitations, but you can make yours a lot longer to increase the slouch factor if you like. Or add stripes, stitch on your name or a design in duplicate stitch…there are so many options!

Check out the free pattern for knitting legwarmers on a knitting machine over at Our Daily Craft. And let me know if you’re looking for particular knitting machine patterns and I’ll see what I can find or design for you!

This is a project that kind of stopped me in my tracks when I saw it while scrolling Ravelry. It’s such a fun contrast of a semisolid color worked in stockinette stitch and a more tonal yarn worked in a feather and fan variation.

(See more about feather and fan in this post on my blog; I also have a feather and fan scarf if you want to practice.)

The Nitty Wrap from Renate Dziedataja is worked in fingering weight yarn from a Finnish mill, and the name is the Finnish word for meadow. You of course can use whatever yarn you have handy.

It’s even more interesting because the project is worked from one short end across to make a long rectangle, and the two different sections are joined using intarsia. Generally we think of intarsia as being used for colorwork, so this is a fun different use of it. The lace section is charted in the pattern but it’s pretty easy to follow.

And of course it’s totally optional but to add a little more interest and tie the two colors of yarn together the designer also added some embroidery along the short edges on the stockinette side. A drawing of what she did is included but you can also add different designs if you’d rather.

The shawl has I-cord edgings to give it a nice finished look that doesn’t take away from the organic simplicity of the design.

As shown, the shawl measures about 22.5 inches/57 cm wide and 59 inches/150 cm long. You can of course adjust this according to your preference, the amount of yarn you have and the gauge you are getting. Try a thicker yarn to make a wider shawl if you like.

This pattern is available in English and Latvian for free on Ravelry.

Photo: Renate Dziedataja

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