Every time I post a video on instagram showing an icord machine in action, at least a few people feel in their hearts a sudden, burning desire to come to own one of their own. Which is fair! I, too, have felt this longing, which is why I own not one but two of the little beasts.

Alas, this burning need to own one does not always translate into, you know, doing things like reading the caption or listening to the audio (which almost always say something like ‘it’s called an icord maker’ or ‘it makes a little tube of fabric’), and instead leave a rather staggering number of comments asking ‘what is that’ and ‘what does it do.’ Which is…disheartening.

So, rather than give in to the snarky thoughts running through my head at those moments, I thought I’d post it here once and then point people to it as needed.

So, in no particular order:

• It’s an icord machine. It makes icord.
• Icord is a teeny tiny tube of circular knitting.
  • You can absolutely make icord by hand with knitting needles.
  • You can also make it with a little tool that looks like a spool with pins on the top (often called french knitters or spool looms or knitting mills), which you may have had as a child and which you can totally make yourself.
• If you want to churn out yards of icord quickly, you might want an icord machine.
• I have two different machines, I like them both.
  • The red and black one is by Addi, it has six plastic needles. It works better with thicker yarn and makes a wider tube. You have to supervise it a bit. You need to watch each stitch as it goes and be prepared to rescue any that stick, but it makes the widest tube of any commercial icord machine I’ve found, and that’s worth it for stuff where I want a wide one.
  • The white and blue one is by Prym, it has four wire needles. It works better with thinner yarn and makes a narrower tube. It runs amazingly smoothly (the way it clamps to the table helps) and feels much more automatic to use.
• Theoretically, one can hook icord machines up to something like a drill or electric screwdriver and crank things faster. I’ve done it with the bigger (hat sized) machines, and in reality, it never seems to go as smoothly as one might hope.
• There are also electric icord machines. I haven’t tried any, so I can’t vouch for them personally, but this is the one I’ve been eyeing (it seems to have a lot over very positive reviews) in case I suddenly find myself needing heretofore inconceivable amounts of icord.

As for what you do with the icord? Well that’s up to you. But I suspect you’ll come up with something if you give yourself some time to play with it!

(Amazon links are, tragically, affiliate links. I strongly strongly strongly encourage you to find your recreational shopping joy somewhere else if that’s feasible for you!! But I know that for weird stuff like this, for a lot of folks, there’s simply not a feasible alternative option. (And damn it all, it’s not our job to stop the horrors of giant corporations through our personal shopping choices, that’s what governments are for.) So if you’re going to use the bad guys, and you use that link when you do it, then they have to give a couple of cents to me instead of to the evil oligarch that runs the place. But really if you can, look elsewhere!)