Singer Freestyle Electronic Knitting Machine

Maggi Bloice
6 hours ago
4 min read

Its been a while since I tested this machine, its a lightweight bed made of alumimium and I must say this machine impresses me, as especially here in France it can be bought for very little money. It is absolutely a brain teaser of a machine that offers so many options. Like all Singer Superba electronic machines it has an odd patterning system unlike the normal electronic machines we are used to. I believe this was the secomd release, the first being the pegboard patterning system. This one has a limit of 12 by 16 or 16 by 12 but there are various options that allow manouvres.

Once setup, the easiest option is to play around with the various double bed ribs and stitch patterns, it produces a wonderful fabric and thanks to the bed spacing facility you can use a thicker than normal yarn for this 5 mm bed. It is has a cursor patterning system and is a weight driven machine but casting on is a breeze and the single bed cast on which I must confess puzzled me for a while many years ago, is very very easy, all you have to do is place the comb with the wire in over your selected needles then when running the carriage to the left you simply lift the comb slightly, ok this is an open cast on but fine for just testing the capabilities that this machine offers.

Example of the Freestyle paper pattern and selector

Next on the list was to tackle the patterning system and the garter carriage. This carriage can be used for lace. The initial test on the garter carriage for me was just siimple garter stitch, and the cast can be of your choice but the needles must be transferred to the front bed to begin so carriage at the left transfer the stitches to the front bed, then knit a row – very easy as long as you remember its a transfer and knit a row going to the left or right. It would take a book to go into all the possibilities offered here, but suffice to say, once you play around with it, the easier it gets.

The lace on the superba is knitted from the front bed as all stitch patterns are sent to the back bed, hence you choose your pattern, transfer the stitches to the front bed and work from there. The stitch patterns only take a few minutes to enter but miss a step and it becomes tedious and believe me I did miss steps continously initially.

One of many patterns offered for the Singer Freestyle

You must slip the pattern then you press function and enter the amount of stitches, you then press the function button again and enter the amount of row, press function again then you use a sharp pencil or the tool they used to provide to enter the pattern row by row. First row done push to row up button to the second row and enter the second row – eventually you come to the top of the pattern and press function again to then enter the various option that the pattern requires at the top of the sheet. You get a bleep at each selection. Once this has been done you then press the function button again, then comes the important part, setting the cursor – the norm is setting the cursor just to the left of zero, push the cursor setting button and push the cursor right up against the cursor stop – you should have your first row ready to knit after of course setting the carriage and the various settings panel highlighted next to the off and on switch.

It would take a book to write about the various features offered on this machine but my advice is just play around with it, buy a cone of yarn just for that purpose. The fairisle and jacquard that this machine produces are pretty fantastic and you do not need a special colour changer to produce – to be perfectly honest the colour changer for this machine is not my cup of tea but I suppose if it was my only machine, I would be more inclined – I have not tested for instance the jacquard claw, the weaving possibilites,the intarsia carriage, but there is plenty out there on youtube that allow you to actually see all the various possibilites and although most use the latest hardware, software releases to pattern, its still a curor driven patterning and weight driven machine and there are more than enough wonderful little patterns available on this particular model to keep you amused.

However the good news if you want more, then Superbaknit can offer the ultimated upgrade to full bed computer driven patterning. The price at the moment is on special offer right now and I am in the process of buying it as I have a couple of Singer 9000 machines, one of which the mouse on the consul has given up the ghost. The other I will keep for I hope posterity as its a seriously unusual machine which at the moment works well. So again watch this space as I progress toward setting up this software.