To keep track of my progress in the machine knitting challenge I set for myself, here’s a chart of the standard set of punchcards for a Brother KH-860 and their capabilities:
| Type of pattern: | Punchcard number | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1J | 2J | 3J | 4J | 5J | 6J | 7J | 8J | 9J | 10J | 11J | 12J | 13J | 14J | 15J | 16J | 17J | 18J | 19J | 20J | |
| tuck stitch | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||||||||||
| two-color tuck stitch | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||||||||||||
| slip stitch | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||||||||||
| two-color slip stitch | x | x | x | x | x | |||||||||||||||
| Fair Isle | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||||
| weaving | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||||||||||
| plating | x | x | x | |||||||||||||||||
| lace | x | x | x | x | x | |||||||||||||||
| fine lace | x | x | x | x | x | |||||||||||||||
This chart should apply to most Brother punchcard machines as far as I know. An x indicates that that particular card number can be used with the pattern type in that row, and a red x marks combinations I’ve tried so far.
Caveat: this is based on my machine’s manual, but my manual is just a photocopy. Some of the circles are solid and some are just outlines, but I can’t be sure if it’s important. There’s no key, and it could just be poor copy quality.
dancingbarefoot 
Hello! The circles have colours in mu manual. Horizontally: tuck is red, two colour tuck is purple, skip st dark blue, 2 colour sk s blue, fair isle bluegreen, weaving green, plating lime green, lace yellow and fine lace orange. I quess that is why in your copy some circles seem filled and some outlined…There does not seem to ne a reason for the particular colours. Marcella in Holland
Oh, that makes perfect sense now. Thank you, Marcella! :)
Hi, I have a brand new manual for the KH 860, if you are interested? Perhaps we can make a swap deal.
Kathe Lewis, Denmark
Hi Kathe,
Yes, it would be nice to have a real manual and not just a poor quality photocopy! What would you like to swap the manual for?
Hi I am thinking about getting one of these machine what do you think of it?
Thanks
Hi Marcella. I highly recommend the Brother KH-860. It’s reliable and capable of a vast number of techniques.
can you tell me what you paid for your KH 860? There is one for sale for $1,000, that sounds like a lot of bling! thanks~
Mine was $100 (US), but it was at a garage sale so I got a very good deal. $1000 seems pretty steep to me, but it depends what’s included with it.
Hi, I am searching for Punchcard set J for my KH891 with no luck. Is there anyway you could scan your cards and email them or post them up online so I could re-create them on blank cards?
Really frustrating having a manual and no corresponding cards to learn from.
Best wishes, Abi, London