Plating, Weaving, Crochet up or latch-up dropped stitches for color play on an LK150 knitting machine

Plating, Weaving, Crochet up or latch-up dropped stitches for color play on an LK150 knitting machine

We can play with different colors on a simple knitting machine such as an LK150 without a punchcard device. With a combination of horizontal and vertical color stripes, you can create a plaid, checkered, or tartan pattern. It can be used in a throw pillow, scarf, blanket, or other garments.

Plating

For the LK150 machine, plating is simply placing 2 separate yarns in the number 1 and 2 slots of the carriage. The number one yarn will show up on the front of the knitting, and number 2 yarn will show up on the backside of the knitting. It is just basic plain knitting but can look dramatic with 2 contrasting color yarns.

Since the 2 yarns are knitted together, the tension number should be doubled too. With 2 sports weight yarn, you might need to set the tension to the maximum number 9. So there is a limit on how thick of yarn can be used for Plating, but you can always use one thicker and one very thin yarn (lace?) to give a subtle effect.

Weaving

Another simple way to add an extra color is to use the Weaving technique. On an LK150 knitting machine, you can select needles by hand and simply place the new yarn on top of every other needle selected, starting from the carriage side. It is like weaving up and down through selected needles. See the video below for more details. This ball of yarn will not be threaded through the mast. Just hold it in front of you or drop it on the floor (between the machine and you).

Since this new color yarn is not threaded through the machine, there is no issue of the maximum tension. So you can use decorative yarn such as fluffy yarn, sparkling yarn, or thinker yarn.

The pattern from weaving will only show up on the backside of the knitting. So that is one thing to consider when designing your pattern. Depending on the needle selected, you can create horizontal or vertical color blocks with weaving.

Crochet another color through the dropped stitch

You can intentionally drop stitches in certain invervals. It can be one stitch or more stitches dropped next to each other. The more stitches dropped together, the wider the ladder bar, and you can manipulate the ladder line by latch up every 2 rows to create bigger knit stich for texture. You can introduce a different color yarn to create a veritcal color line.

An easy way is just crochet up the ladder with a contrasting color yarn. You can do this after the knitting is off the machine.

That is a few ideas for adding colors to your knitting on LK150. The possibilities are endless with these easy techniques.

Watch the video for plating, weaving, and crochet up dropped stitches

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