Knitting interlock on a hand knitting machine (part 2)

Last week's "Knitting interlock on a hand knitting machine" post was prompted by a question in the comments on my Crafting Fashion blog. I was very happy that the reader named It Makes You Smile, who had originally asked the question, understood my instructions. I hope that ...Smile is now happily knitting interlock.

In the comments of that new post, however, I received a comment from Kathe who didn't understand my instructions for interlock. It's true that the instructions I give are often general. This is because I'm trying to give instructions for most  machines (those with pushers and those without) no matter which specific model of machine a knitter is working with. Since I don't know if there was a specific part where Kathe had trouble, I'll give a few more general tips which I hope will be helpful to anyone knitting on a non-Passap machine, who may have had trouble with the first general set of instructions. (Passap users, see previous post.) Please note that you must have a general familiarity with your machine to make sense of these directions. Consult your manual for basic definitions, if necessary.

1. With needles in half pitch position and an even number of needles on the main bed and the same number of needles on the ribber, cast on in full needle rib.  End with carriage on right. 

   

   Front bed and back bed needles in half pitch position a/k/a rib gating

2. Set your carriage to slip stitches on both beds. Depending on your machine, this setting could be “part”, "miss" or "0" or something else.  If you were to bring your carriages across the beds at this point, no stitch would knit and each stitch would remain on its hook. 
3. Now rack the beds to full pitch position (interlock gating). Each main bed needle is now directly across from a ribber needle. If you were to set carriages to knit again and you tried to bring your carriage across the beds, the needles would collide. But we'll keep the carriages set to "slip" for the rest of this tutorial.

   

   Needles in full pitch position a/k/a interlock gating

4. On the main bed starting with the 1st needle closest to the carriage, bring every other needle up into patterning position. This is probably position "C" or "D" on your machine. This selection can also be accomplished by using a 1x1 pattern card.
5. On the ribber starting with the 2nd needle from the carriage, bring up every other needle  up into patterning position. This can be accomplished automatically if you have every other needle selection buttons (a/k/a "lili" buttons) on your ribber carriage.
6. Pass the carriages from right to left.
7. If you've set every thing up properly and have automatic needle selection on each bed, just continue passing the carriage back and forth and you're knitting interlock! If you're working with manual needle selection, you must repeat the needle selections described in steps 4 and 5, always selecting every other needle starting with the first needle closest to the carriage on the main bed and every other needle starting with the 2nd needle closest to the carriage on the ribber. The diagram from last week shows the sequence.

Hope this helps. Happy knitting!