Wow! Ten years have passed since the email discussion list MACHKNIT moved to a private server funded in part by donations from the list members. It's hard to remember there was a time when it was nearly impossible to get hosting for hobby lists, such as MACHKNIT. Back then you had to know someone at a university, or you had to pay very high fees for the amount of traffic the MACHKNIT list generated, which was upwards to 150 messages a day.

Now anyone can start a list (or group as they're called other places), but not everyone can keep something going for 10 years with the level of  success that MACHKNIT enjoys. As one of the listowners (and the original listowner), I can't take the credit for MACHKNIT lasting 10 years. MACHKNIT's longevity is due to having the best contributors to the craft of machine knitting active on the list and the members staying true to the charter of the list, which is providing great help and keeping the distracting chatter down to a minimum, which is all I ever wanted. 

In this series of articles, I will be sharing some of the common misconceptions about knitting machines. Since I don't sell knitting machines, I feel that the person who isn't a machine knitter can get some reasonably unbiased information to determine if machine knitting is right for them, because machine knitting is not for everyone, but it could be for you.

Misconception #1: Machine Knitting is Cheating