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!

I love the look of mesh tops for summer, but I don’t know that I would ever actually wear one that’s full of giant holes, even though I admit they look cool (in both senses of the word) on other people.

What I would wear, though, is something that’s still lacy but maybe a little bit more subdued, like this chevron lace knit top from Yarnspirations.

This easy to knit T-shirt style top is worked flat in two pieces from the bottom up, using and easy lace pattern that’s a repeat of 10 stitches and four rows (though the wrong side rows are just purled, so there’s only two rows you need to learn the pattern on).

It has little cap sleeves that are worked as part of the top by casting on stitches where you need them.

If you’re new to lace knitting this is a good one to try because the pattern includes both written and charted instructions, and the only skills you need are yarn over, knit two together, slip slip knit and slip 1 knit 2 together pass the slipped stitch over (which makes a centered decrease).

There are four size options available (which they claim is enough to cover XS to 5XL), with finished chest measurements ranging from 38.5 inches (that’s 98 cm) to 59 inches, or 150 cm. The amount of ease would vary widely depending on your size and the size garment you choose. For example the largest size is said to fit a chest measurement from 5258 inches/132-147.4 cm, which gives you a range of ease from 1-7 inches, or 2.5 to 17.78 cm, depending on your size. Just something to be aware of when you think about how you want it to fit.

The project calls for Red Heart Cotton Breeze yarn, which isn’t a yarn I’ve tried yet, but it’s a DK weight acrylic and cotton blend, which should make a lightweight top that’s great for summer.

Grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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