I decided to see what would happen if I knit the full length of my “Incredible Sweater Machine”, and since I can’t seem to only change one thing, would it be lace-like if I left every third stitch unhooked?

I was thinking that there were needles missing on my machine because there are blank slots at each end, but the blank places are parking for the knitting cartridge. The cartridge needs to be completely clear of the needles in order to be ready to knit the next row. The loops on the very end are a little squirrely as the fabric lengthens because they angle inward and it takes extra attention to make sure they don’t pop off. Other than that, knitting the full row of needles isn’t much different than making a smaller panel.

Skipping stitches is just a matter of placing a needle in a non-working position. The shuttle puts yarn over the area, but doesn’t pull it in and make a loop. However, when I removed the fabric from the machine, the knit stitches happily expanded into the space and just became loose, not lace-like at all.

I decided to put a rib in where I left a blank, which is what is recommended for making a rib stitch on the machine. It was definitely awkward using a crochet hook and linking the loops after the fabric was off the machine, but I can firmly say that I am no longer apprehensive about runs in my knitting!

The yarn I used was from the scrap bin and turned out to be self striping, which was a surprise as I knit. I rather like the bold horizontal rows of color with the vertical texture stripes of the rib, and there is the bonus that at least the top and bottom of the fabric doesn’t curl. It turns out the ribbing at the bottom of a sweater isn’t to give it an elastic band, but to keep the bottom from curling up. Hm.