A new prototype knitting machine creates solid, knitted shapes by adding stitches in any direction—forward, backward, and diagonal—allowing users to construct a wide variety of shapes and add rigidity to different parts of the object.

Unlike traditional knitting, which produces a two-dimensional sheet of stitches, this proof-of-concept machine—developed by researchers at Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University—works more like a 3D printer, building solid shapes with horizontal layers of stitches.

Guimbretière and co-author Victor Guimbretière, a student at Cornell’s College of Engineering, recently presented their work, titled “Using a Needle Array to Create Knitted Solid Shapes,” at the ACM Symposium on Software and User Interface Technology in Busan, South Korea.

So far, the team has managed to knit C-shaped and pyramid-shaped objects, demonstrating the machine’s ability to create complex shapes and protrusions.

Currently, the prototype is still slow, prone to slipping loops, and sometimes catches the yarn on the wrong needles, but Guimbretière plans to make the machine more robust. In addition, he stated that it should be easy to expand the design simply by adding a larger needle base.

The article explains that with further improvements, this type of instrument could be useful for medical applications, such as making knitted structures that support the growth of artificial ligaments or veins, Guimbretière said. Solid knitting allows the user to create different levels of thickness and rigidity in the final product, which could be useful for accurately mimicking biological structures.

Written by: Eduardo Quive