Round Looms & Rakes
One of the most common round looms in use is the
Knifty Knitters. Both the looms that look "round" and
the ones that are "long" can be used as round looms.
While the terminology for the loom is "round" it can be
a circle, triangle, oval, square, heart, etc. The
actual shape isn't important, what is important is that
all of the pegs be continuous with no starting or
stopping point. The gauge of a round loom is determined
by the distance between the pegs so that the further
apart the pegs are, the larger the gauge. The nice
thing about round looms is that you can use it for
circular knitting and you can use it as a rake for flat
panel knitting. The way you do the stitches is the same
for both, the difference in knitting is that with
circular, you continue to knit in the same direction
for the entire piece and with flat panel, you knit back
and forth.
Rakes are also available from many manufacturers. The
difference between the two is that a rake is a single
line and the pegs do have a starting and stopping
point. You can only knit flat panel with a rake. Like a
round loom, the gauge is determined by the distance
between the pegs. If you have a knitting board, you can
use half of it as a rake.
Video tutorials for each coming soon!
To determine where you are in a pattern, you need to understand how pegs are numbered on the loom. Peg 1 is the first peg to the left of the anchor peg. You can find the anchor peg on the rim of your circular loom and sometimes on each end of the rake. The anchor peg on the right of the rake is the only one that has a peg to the left so peg 1 is the first peg to the very right on the top of the rake. The number for subsequent pegs for both round looms and rakes continues to the left so that peg 2 is to the left of peg 1, peg 3 is to the left of peg 2, and so on.
Circular Knitting
Using a round loom is one of the easiest ways to do
circular knitting. This site assumes that you knit on the
loom from right to left (clockwise). When you do, the
pattern stays the same as a needle knitting pattern. While
it's possible to knit from left to right
(counterclockwise), it's not recommended because this will
cause issues with the way your slants lean and different
stitches may need to be substituted. Provocraft teaches
this way in their books but as you advance in your
knitting, you will find it to cause problems.
Different size looms are available for different sizes of
hats, bags, scarves, socks, etc. In addition, different
gauges of looms are available from large to extra fine.
Adjustable-type looms are available from a couple of
different manufacturers so that you can easily increase and
decrease the size of the fabric as you knit.
Flat Knitting
Flat knitting can be done on both the round loom and the
rake. As with circular knitting, knitting for the first row
(and all odd rows) should be worked from right to left.
When you turn for the next row (all even rows), you will
work from left to right. Unlike circular knitting, the
pattern does not stay the same as a needle knitting
pattern. When you knit on a loom, the right side (RS) of
the fabric is always facing you, unlike needle knitting. So
you must convert the wrong side (WS) stitches which is
usually the even rows. See converting
patterns for more information. Again, different size
looms are available as well as different gauges.
