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!

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?