I have a bond and they’re a good little starting machine…
Anyways I think there is a book that comes with the machine that has some basic patterns. I have found a few older Bond books at Hobby Lobby…more like pamphlets really though. And you could go to your library to see if they have any book on Machine Knitting. They’ll give you alot of basics on Machine knitting in general and they usually have patterns in the book to.
I’ve even done patterns from regular knitting books on it.
You can’t do punch card knitting with this machine, Singer and Passt are names of other brands of knitting machines.
I was actually looking at knitting machines yesterday at a new store in my area and got interested in one that used fingering weight or sock yarn for it and she called that a standard guage machine.
Took me awhile to learn the machine…I found I love hand knitting a bit more. But it’s still fun to sit down and crank something out on the machine every once in awhile.
Hope you enjoy your machine…If I can help with anything let me know.
I have the bond and a Incredible sweater machine.
They are fun and I liked them alot better then my standard guage which always seemed fidley and I couldn’t quit dropping stitches and bending needles.
If you go to google and search for free bond/incredible sweater machine patterns, you should see some.
Here’s some to get you started-these are all geared to a bulky approx 7 sts / inch machine.
Have any of you tried the USM with the extension plate in it??? I got one, and I LOVED it, but I found that I had to put the extension plate in for garments for my size… I was so dissapointed with how it performed with the EP in that I took the whole thing back. :mad: The yarn would catch or the hooks wouldn’t pull all the way through.
I do have to say that the help line WADS helpful; the people were nice, but none of their trouble shooting ideas worked for me :shrug:
BTW, I still have a row counter for the USM, if anyone is interested in it. PM me!!
I have 2 machines combined into one, I used to do alot of donation afghans on my machine, it the extensions are even a fraction of an inch off they act up. I got a piece of flat straight plywood just a tad bigger than my machine and I mount my machine with that under it. Another tip which maybe hard to understand.
But take a string and anchor it at one end of the machine, run it across the bed of the machine just beside the the needle bar (that little plastic track that holds the needles in where you put the labels on to mark the needles). and achor the string at the opposite end, the string should stay along the bed of the machine, if you notice any spots where the machine is lower than the string, you need to put a shim ( I used some cardboard) until the string is even all the away across.
I know by vision a table top may look straight but the machine finds any flaw.
Also, when using the key plates, don’t use anything liquid on them, I use just a bar of soap, to provide enough slide on the plates.
Incase your machine didn’t come with it…
The keyplates are normally, 1/2/3/4 sometimes you get the odd .5 plate.
Keyplate 1 is for baby/sport weight yarn (It can be fiddley)
2 is sport and light worsted (I wouldn’t go past anything the weight of Bernat Satin.
3 is worsted, all your common yarns, up to something like a Bernat Demin.
4 bulky weight
If you have a ball winder unwind any skeins on your ball winder first before using on the machine, if there is any resistance on the yarn, it shows on the knitting as it tugs a little uneven.
Also row counters are the best ever, esp for sweaters. So if you don’t have one, talk to Hilde
If you ever get into it more, and intarsia plate is wonderful for picture knitting.
The punch cards won’t work on the bond unfortunatly.
I had a punch card reader on my singer machine, The bond I guess was considered an economical machine.
I honestly love my bond- its quick to set up, if something goes a little funky theres only a few things that it could be and it loves worsted weight yarn.
My standard was a pain, it was so heavy, it had this huge metal box with latches, you can’t extend them, and there was no way make it smaller to put it out of the way. I used to have what they called a ribbing attachment, so you could do ribbing on it. Pretty much it was 2 machines facing each other on a slight angle. Bond also had one too but it never went over well.
I personally, do the big boring stuff on the bond and handknit my ribbings and embelishments while watching tv.
With my standard machine I had to devote a 6’ x 4’ table to it, and it took up alot of space (at the time I didn’t have a craft room or anything).
So when a friend introduced me to the bond I was in love.
I also didn’t like the standard as it is fussy on yarn. It likes thoes giant cones, and in my area they were so costly. and you couldn’t mail order because they weighted so much.
They also have about 7 tension guages, and if any of these are off the knitting looks horrible, it took me forever to get the tension right (even if I follow the book) and you had to redo it everytime you did a new yarn.
With the bond you pull one of those little keyplates out and slap a new one in…lol
I like being able to slap my little machine on a card table grab a ball of encore and knit away.
Like anything it can take a little dodgy, esp when learning.
Big rule of thumb, if the latch is closed there better be yarn in it, or you’ll loose the stitch. If there is yarn in the latch it doesn’t matter if the latch is open or closed.
Best of luck, just holler if something goes strange.
There is no way to get a punch card to work, they never made a reader for it, and honestly when I had one for my singer machine, it was a pain.
When getting patterns just make sure you look at the instructions, if it gives guage in KP, or keyplate. Its for the bond. If it says tension and a set of numbers, its for the standard machines.
You will have fun, once it gets worn in a bit it works even better, as all the little "burrs, or slight imperfections wear away. Its like a good pair of shoes. I had the original blue bond and It was wonder ful, but after almost 25 years of working the main frame started to crack and wear. I got a new one with the grey frame, and it took a few projects for it to really feel right. I have also seen a scaled down verison at wal mart with a red frame, and very colourful key plates it looks like it might be for kids.
I taught my daughter on mine when she was about 8 and shes 11 now and can knit sweaters. Once you get going and understand the terminology, I’ll forward you the cutest earflap hat, that can work for babies to adults by adjusting the type of yarn, I make tons for donations as you can knit one in about an hour. It takes longer to sew the seem and put ties on then it does to make it.
Sorry about the mis-interpretation.
The puch cards cannot be incorperated or adjusted.
What my punch cards did was feed into a little attached to my singer, then when you knit the machine would knit the corresponding (hole on the punch card with the alternate colour). My machine could knit up to 4 colours per row.
I would look for bond, ism,usm or bulky when searching ebay. There is also a few online stores to buy books. There was never alot made for it, and most was made in the 80’s. I usually search the internet for it. I know there is somewhere that generates sweaters by putting in the keyplate # and guage.
I’ll have to see if I can find it.
EmeraldCutie, you have so many good tips for the Bond machine. I just got mine last week and have spent most of my time looking for help and patterns for “The Beast” :] Your tip about how to tell if a pattern was for a Bond or not (KP vs Tension) was very helpful. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I’ve been looking for a baby hat pattern with earflaps, like you mentioned. Any chance you or anyone else point me to it?
Cheers, Morgan_
This is a link to some patterns for the Bond including perhaps the kind of baby hat you’re interested in. Since this is such an old thread, it’s not so likely that you’ll get a response from the original posters but you might try a pm or a machine knitting group of Ravelry.