Pingouin
Test for the Pingouin Garter Stitch Machine
Decided to try this machine again as I was lucky enough to buy some extra needles whilst I was in Australia. This time it was so much easier to set up as I had an idea of how it worked. Plain stocking stitch is very easy once you cast on via the comb and elastic (the worst part of the process) this machine requires copious amounts of waxing, to allow the carriage to run smoothly. The bed of the machine is a white plastic or Bakelite type plastic and the needles have to be set up across the 2 beds to knit. You have to push the needles through the comb and under the elastic then attach the special weights and then with a bit of luck you should have an open cast on.
Needle Selection
As you can see from the picture on the left - the needles have to be pushed up to the first ridge and this is the selection method. Once you get the hang of the knitter it is a smooth operator – no needle cams with this one you simply push your needles with a ruler to one side or the other to knit plain and purl and if you wish to do garter stitch you have to simply push the needles up to the line and it knits – to pattern just move the needles one way or the other.
No special table required
The picture on the right highlights the clever mechanism to tilt the bed to examine your work.
The carriage is very heavy and you do have to be careful as the yarn is threaded an unusual way and hangs down the front of the machine – unfortunately there is no way of using a tension arm as there is no access (yet) to pull the yarn through the top of the carriage, however this is such an easy knitter I may be tempted to find a way to drill a hole in the yarn feeder top to accommodate this.
Soft handle knitwear
The knitting comes out as though knitted by hand and I tested it using a cone of Bramwell 4 ply acrylic well waxed. I bought 2 sets of needles in Australia and I note the initial set I bought were the wrong needles ie they were a slightly different shape to mine and the heads were larger, and they were possibly for a later model.
