A Story of Machine Knitting

 This is where I make those newborn hats.  

This is the operation center!

The yarn is being held in the golden bucket in the middle of the table

 and is fed through the tensioning rods before it is fed through the carriage ready to go!

First I have to pull the needles I use for the ribbing ;  

one on the front bed and the next on the back-every other needle across 94 needles.

 After the first pass of the carriage, a zig-zag row of yarn happens.

I place the comb (held in front of the machine bed here-

 and place it up between the two beds among the yarn meanders.

 This wire goes through the top of the combe teeth to lock the stitches onto the comb.

 Next is the time for weighting the comb-

 -there are holes on the bottom of the comb to hang these from. 

 This adds 2lbs to the comb-it is very heavy!

 Now the dials are adjusted and the knitting begins!

 I zip from one side to the other

 (well, it uses more muscle than I had thought so I am building up some good biceps!) 

 keeping track of the number of rows with the row counter which is tripped with each pass. 

 In this case, I knit 22 passes of ribbing which makes 11 rows of rib 

because one pass knits the back bed and the returning pass knits the front.  

After this I transfer all the front stitches onto the back bed, 

filling those unused needles between the ones back. 

 Now that the front bed is empty, it can drop out of the way to place little weights 

on the edge stitches so they stay anchored well. 

 I reset the row counter and knit 40 rows of stockinette stitching, 

the purl side faces me here. 

                                      

 On the 40th row, I remove one stitch and place it on the needle next to it to make a k2tog across, 

then I knit one final row. 

 Once the yarn tail is cut, I thread a darning needle and remove all the stitches from the needles.

  I remove the knitting from the machine, 

remove the wire from the comb which releases the stitches and then seam up the hat!

After I make a pom pom and sew it to the top, I add the hat to the pile. 

 One hour completes the hat,

I used a Cascade yarn , a blend of cotton and acrylic which made this a soft and cheerful hat!