[KarlaHW]

I am trying to learn. First (right) shoulder and same side neck edge goes well, I take off on waste yarn.
Then I put the left needles from hold in working position and continue with main yarn. The first few stitches always fall off. I managed to pick up by hand, but what do I do wrong? I always seem to loose from a few to many stitches.

 

[clogden21]

Are the latches open?

I am trying to learn. First (right) shoulder and same side neck edge goes well, I take off on waste yarn.
Then I put the left needles from hold in working position and continue with main yarn. The first few stitches always fall off. I managed to pick up by hand, but what do I do wrong? I always seem to loose from a few to many stitches.

 

[KarlaHW]

Don't know. My machine has positions A, B, D and E.
One time I moved the needles from E to D, then moved the carriage over and lost lots of stitches. Next time I moved all the needles back to B and put the stitches by hand in the latches, then moved carriage. I still lost the first 2 stitches.

Are the latches open?

 

[ksojerio]

What model is your machine?

 

[KarlaHW]

Brother 940

What model is your machine?

 

[Elis]

Try putting the needles to hold position and set the carriage to knit them back on that first row.

 

[lottyman]

Hello if you are new and having trouble when you return your needles from the hold position return them with the apprpriate tool so that the stitches are in the hooks and the latches are all open and not caught on any of the stitches
Happy Knitting
Lottyman

 

[HudsonNana]

try using weights, weights seem to correct a lot of problems when machine knitting. Hope that helps

 

[susieknitter]

If I am doing plain knitting on my Brother machines I leave the needles in hold position, put on claw weights, take the hold off on the carriage and let the machine knit the needles back for me.

 

[dunottargirl]

Weights was my answer too. I am lucky in that I have several left from old machines. Have you taken the shoulder and neck off in two sections with waste yarn?

 

[KarlaHW]

I first took the right shoulder off with waste yarn, middle (neck) needles were in hold position, and left shoulder needles also in hold. I then moved the left shoulder needles to knitting and had the dropped stitches. Luckily I could catch them all. Yhen I finished the left shoulder, took on waste yarn, lastly took the neck on waste yarn.
This was for the back of my sweater. I now do the front. Before starting with the front I practiced this on short pieces and it worked fine. So it probably was not enough weight on the nearly finished piece.
Next I have to figure out how to connect the shoulder seams and do the ribbing at the neck.

Weights was my answer too. I am lucky in that I have several left from old machines. Have you taken the shoulder and neck off in two sections with waste yarn?

 

[Digistitch]

I am trying to learn. First (right) shoulder and same side neck edge goes well, I take off on waste yarn.
Then I put the left needles from hold in working position and continue with main yarn. The first few stitches always fall off. I managed to pick up by hand, but what do I do wrong? I always seem to loose from a few to many stitches.

Sorry, this is a bit long but might help.....

Weights are always critical on short row knitting. Keep moving them up every few rows as you progress up the shoulder. I always used one side weight at each side of work in progress and another slightly lower in the centre of each shoulder as I progressed up, and dont be afraid to use your hand to pull down a little and to help keep the tension even.
I normally ran the first shoulder when finished, on to waste yarn and left it hanging with the weights on until I had finished both shoulders, then run them both off the machine together. Unless you need them to remain live it is often a good idea to cast off the centre kneck stitches ( or run a length of waste yarn through them and remove from the needles, just leave waste long enough so you can tie the ends together so the cant fall off it) before knitting up the shoulders, that way as you knit up the second shoulder your lower weight will hang more evenly as it grows.
Also keep even weight on the out of work stitches if you can, it will be less likely to jump off the needles if you do.

 

[Rosalind]

When I machine-knitted (I must get the machines out of the loft!) I used the 'cut n sew' method for round necks. I.e. I didn't shape the necks, just the shoulders. The neck shaping was ironed and cut out. The raw edge was enveloped in the neckband.