I’ve acquired a new toy: a Simpleframe. I had heard about it before from someone in my machine knitting club, and now found one on eBay for £30. Having played with it a bit I’m really chuffed with this small manual V-bed knitting machine that you hold in your lap and operate by manually pushing the latch-hook needles down and up.
The Simpleframe was invented in the early 1980s by Patrick Reilly. It had some popularity at the time, and allegedly even feature on the BBC programme Tomorrow’s World after being selected as a finalist in the “Prince of Wales Award Scheme for Industrial Innovation and Production”. But it seems to have been discontinued a few years later.
The contraption is easy to operate, works well with chunky and uneven wool, and allows you to quickly produce straight lengths of knitting. The simplest – default – stich is the Fisherman’s rib, a double faced 1-by-1 rib. It takes 48 stitches (on each bed) and I was able to knit 40cm in one hour with a chunky yarn.
My first project was an infinity scarf, made with home spun wool. The whole family has now had a go, including my husband. With very little instruction he managed to knit a decent length of even stitches!
With some further effort you can do anything with the Simpleframe that you can do with a V-bed: stockinette stitch, two-colour work like Fair Isle, ribs of other sizes, circular knitting, cables, lace etc.