Knitting Machines - What is the best knitting machine to buy?

I've just bought a brand new knitting machine!  and it's has a punch card!   I felt bad that I had to say good buy to my Ultimate Sweater Knitting machine I had for many years (but more that half of those years it had been sitting in a box).  

I'm so glad I bought it.  I was tempted to buy an old one from eBay but my husband persisted on me getting a brand new one.    I bought a Taitexma brand from allbrands.com.  from what I found out, Taitexma now has a license to produce a replica of Brother knitting machine.  They make several models with different gauge range, e.g. fine, standard and bulky.  Then it breaks down into the fancy stuff like punch card and add on ribbing and electronic parts.   Allbrands is a good place to buy new machines.  

If you're looking for a home knitting machine, you must be very confusing as I was.  They're must be gazillion things that are going through your mind like;

should I get a used machine or a new machine?

what brand is good?

what gauge do I want? 

Do I want a punch card machine or should I go for electric one?

These are some examples of questions that you probably have in mind.

I'm not going to tell you what you should buy but I'll tell you that a punch card machine is an amazing thing for me.   A really hot knitting machine for machine knitting newbie is now silver reed Lk 150 bulky machine.  I've heard a lot of good thing about it.  The newest one now has convertible needles to change it to mid gauge and bulky gauge.   I really like this Lk 150 but I didn't buy it because of it lacks of punch card.   You can google silver Reed knitting machine and you'll likely find them.

Another good place to look for is eBay.  Many people found very great deal there and a few had bad turnouts.  You have to really think hard before bidding on them because these machine are 30 or more years old.  A lot of time you'll need to take them apart for cleaning, check for broken and rusty needles, oil them and maybe the sponge bar need to be changed as well.   Just keep that in mind.

What types of Knitting Machines are best for home use?

It's hard to say which machine is best for you. To answer the above question you have to ask yourself these;

1. Why do you need knitting machine?

2. What gauge machine are you looking for?

3. How much are you willing to pay for it?

The preferred knitting machine for newbie is a mid gauge (6mm) or bulky (9mm) machines.  They are easier to manage than the fine and standard machine.  If you've never hand knit at all then don't expect to find it easy to knit on the machine or expect the machine to make a whole sweater for you.  There are many thing to learn and it takes time.

Your first machine should be fun to work with.  Many machine knitters fine that bond machine is a good place to start.  I heard that bond is not in production anymore and if you need parts you will have to look for it from eBay.  I used bond USM before and I enjoy it a lot.  The only problem with my USM was that it didn't have sponge bar for needles.  So, they were loose all the time.  I would encourage you to check out all those YouTube videos on bond to see what you think.

Another good place to learn about knitting machine is on face book group.  There are many knitting groups related to knitting machines such as selling buying machine and sharing machine knitting pictures and patterns.  You just have to have Facebook account and join in the groups.

Before deciding which machine you want to buy, you should do some researches. Don’t make a decision right away. Read reviews, ask questions, or joint the machine knitting discussion groups. This will help you what knitting machine is the right one for you.

I enjoy knitting on the machine as well as knitting by hand.  Now that I have my new machine, I will be very busy making things.  I hope you'll find the right machine for you.

Good luck with your finding.

Very Helpful Knitting Machine Website Links

I will add more links when I find more.

https://yarn-store.com/machine-knitting/about-knitting-machines/selecting-your-knitting-machine/  The chance that you were probably visited this site already if you're looking for machine info.  It has a very good insight.

www.mkdesigner.com Full of informative knitting machine and hand knitting sites.

https://www.theanswerlady.com Very knowledgable with knitting machine.  She has YouTube channel that show how to work different types of machine and how to fix sponge bar, clean needles and many other things.  I love that she often work together with her husband on videos.

http://diananatters.blogspot.com I have watched several of her video and they're very helpful

Knitting machine patterns

Take a look at the Open Box Moment of Taitexma Knitting Machine that I bought.

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