Card Lock Lever - Design possibilities

Often you will see machine knitting patterns with the instruction: "Lock the card at row 5".

The pattern is referring to Knitmaster Card No 1. Most machines have a stitch pattern similar to this

Here's the logic for punchcard machines. If you have an electronic machine, keep reading. It will be helpful for you to understand the concept first.   Locked: (Circle) Punchcard will advance with the pass of the carriage Unlocked: (Triangle) Punchcard will not advance Check your manual for details about your machine.

In our sample, the pattern is telling you to instruct your machine (with the punchcard) to select every other needle and continue to select the same needles EVERY row until you tell it to stop.

For this sample we used this card for 20 rows. Notice how the light and dark color stitches correspond to the punchcard design. We then "locked" the card and knit another 20 rows. In other words, we stopped the punchcard from advancing. Notice how repeating the current row creates vertical stripes. We then advanced the card 1 row, locked again and knit stripes on the opposite needles. We finished by unlocking the card and continued knitting in the card pattern.

This technique opens a lot of possibilities. You aren't limited to fairisle. Put on your creative thinking cap and try it yourself!