Caydo Electric i-Cord Knitting Tricotin Machine i1 Pro — Too Good to Be True?

Hey all, thanks for joining today. So today I'm trying out something that I've been very curious about ever since I found out it existed. And it's this Kadoo automatic i-cord machine. And Kadoo sent this over so I can give my honest opinion and feedback. Now I'm not a huge fan of making i-cords manually. I can do it. I have done it. I just don't want to do it. I've even looked at those little hand crank i-cord machines before but I always felt like if I was still sitting there cranking the whole time. Am I really saving that much effort? So the moment I saw a fully automatic hands-free i-cord machine existed, I was immediately like, okay, I need to try this. And actually, I have a very specific mission for today. You all remember that Temu shell purse crochet kit that I made recently? I'll link to this if you missed it. Well, the purse itself turned out cute, but I'm still not digging the strap and I still don't know what these buttons are for, so my goal is to see if I can make a cute replacement This is an i-cord strap. With the leftover yarn I have. So I plan to start with some regular yarn first to get the feel for the machine and then once I get the hang of it I'll see how it handles this like stretchy nylon cord style yarn. We can hope. So let's open it up and see what we've got. But first if you're into tools that save your hands and your time make sure to hit the like, subscribe, and notification bell so you never miss out on a review. Okay so this is what Kadoo claims this machine can do. The big selling point is that it's supposed to be truly hands-free. No manual cranking, no hanging extra weights off the bottom to keep the cord feeding, and no having to constantly sit there and monitor it. Basically, start it, let it run, and go work on something else. Which, for someone like me who does not enjoy making i-cord by hand, sounds amazing. They also designed this for long continuous cords, which I know there are crafters out there that use I-cords with wire and make tons of cool stuff like personalized names or designs, so having this would definitely increase their productivity. You can see here the parts that are meant to keep everything consistent, the auto guiding wheels that help the cord form evenly, And the tension system that's supposed to reduce vibration so you get a smoother result. And I really like that there's a clear cover because if you're anything like me, you want to see what's happening inside your machine at all times without having to open it up and mess with your setup. Speed wise, there are three different levels and the highest speed can produce about 60 centimeters or 23 inches per minute. Per minute. Which, compared to making I-cord manually, is kind of wild. They say it works best with the yarn most of us already have, sport, DK, light worsted, Aran, as long as it's smooth and fairly even in thickness. So we will see if that nylon yarn is going to work or not. And I will say one thing I always look for with tools like this is the learning curve. It comes with a full manual and step-by-step tutorials which hopefully will make it a lot less intimidating since this is the first time I've ever used one of these. So let's put it to work and see how well it works. So once I set it up, I got the yarn that comes with it to try it out. You stick your yarn through this little tension guide arm that just connected with the screw, and then guide it through the little hole on the outside of the clear plastic cover. Then you get the hook that's included with it that you put through the machine, and I realized I was trying to figure- I had a brain fart, I couldn't figure out how to get the I had to get the yarn off the hook when I first did it. And then had to take a second to think about it and then realized I just need to push it through and pull the yarn from the hook before actually removing it. And then you're going to guide the yarn through the wheels in the back and that's going to help pull it so that you don't have to put a weight on it or have tension on it constantly. You can see my instructions below, tons of pictures to help you through all of this. So once you do that, then you need to guide it through the latch hooks. This is the most difficult part and it's not that difficult. You have to do every other hook. So you'll see me adjusting as I turn the wheel to get it onto the correct hooks before beginning the machine or starting the machine. So once that's done you can go for it. Now I'm showing you what I did the first time which was a mistake. You can see it just bunching up. I did not do what I was supposed to do so I had to stop the machine and untangle and restart but that was the only problem that I had so you'll see I'm much faster at setting it up the second time and what actually happened was I did not pull on the tail as I started the machine and that's the major thing that you have to remember to do to feed it. It needs to be pulled on until the I-cord comes out that back wheel so once you do that Then it's hands-free. So not totally hands-free, but it will be hands-free. So you'll see on my second attempt, it's much quicker. And I decided to start timing it because it said it can make 24 inches in a minute and I decided to go ahead and do the entire ball of yarn that came with it to see how quickly it was going to make this I-cord. Sorry for the book getting in the way a little bit but you'll see the end of it coming out in just a second and then I just let it go and you'll see it's feeding through and it is Very quickly working, then I'm going to pop it up to get it a little bit higher and see how quick it goes under 2 and 3 and I'll be quiet for a second so you can hear what it sounds like. So it is not really loud at all. It was super easy to use once I figured out after that very first time, and you'll see how quickly it's making it. It's been a minute and I've probably got about two feet, so I'm going to speed up the rest of this to show you how quickly it made this entire ball of yarn, and then we'll check out what we have at the end. Okay, I'm slowing it down here near the end of the ball just so that I make sure I don't mess up the very end. You're going to let it feed until you are done with your I-cord, so in my case I'm just finishing the whole ball, but if you were just doing a certain length, you're going to stop the machine and then pull it through, so I'm just kind of slowing it down so that I can make sure that I stop it at the right point. But I'm amazed at how quickly this works, probably the biggest trouble you'll have is just to make sure your yarn is untangled because if you do get a tangle you don't want to shut it off and fix that before you keep going. But this worked so well. And I'll talk about that some more but I want you to see how the end really kind of happens once you finish with your yarn. You will pull it through the machine and you will have just like a normal I-cord where you have the four loops from where you were working that you will need to run through with your yarn needle to finish off to close it completely. So the first End of it, no problem. It's already, you know, that's how you start it. There's no problem. You don't have to close that off. But the finishing edge, you do need to take the yarn needle and weave it through the four loops. It's great. The machine company, Kadoo, they give you a yarn needle and that crochet hook to help you put the yarn through the machine as well as kind of loaded onto the hooks so everything is included with the package and you can see me pulling out the thing i was very worried here i felt like maybe it would unravel but there was no problem i could see maybe if you have a different kind of yarn that's slick you might lose a couple loops so just keep that in mind when you're pulling it out you might want to do a little bit extra in case you do lose those loops But now, as I promised, let's try my nylon yarn. I don't know, I don't think it's nylon, but it's very similar to nylon. So I'm just kind of poking through the hole because it's pretty thick. I don't have high hopes, but, you know, I said I would try it. I think the yarn's going to be too big for the hooks, but I'm a pro at setting this thing up now. It's super simple the first time, after the first time you understand what to do. So I'm just trying to thread it onto the latch hooks at this point. It is. Very thick so it seems too big for the latch hooks and it's also not the same kind of thickness because it kind of rolls up on itself and as you can see it's not going to work. I started it and I had kind of that same problem as the last one but there's not going to be able to Salvage, it's too thick. I tried doing it manually just to see if it would work and I have a little touch light on the left that keeps going off. But yeah, that yarn is not made for this machine, which I kind of figured, but I thought I would give it the old college try to see if I could make it work and it's just not gonna work. And I'll talk about that a little bit more in a second on my final thoughts. Okay, that thing worked fast, and look at how long this is, so like, what is it, three feet, so three, six, nine, twelve feet in a couple of minutes, so I think this would This would be fabulous if you are doing those I-cord art. Kind of. projects and I'll link, I found a really cool website where they sell templates so that you can make tons of different things, words, designs, all kinds of stuff 3D, like look how cute these are. Super creative. I think they are so cute. I want to get some wire to try some of this stuff. I think it'll be really fun. But I am super impressed with how consistent and even All of the stitches are, like, they're... Every single round looks the same, which I think would be a total deal breaker if this thing was, you know, putting out crazy stitches or getting stuck. Like, this thing works so smoothly. Now, unfortunately, it didn't work for larger yarn, but I can understand why when looking at the actual little latch hooks that are here. If, I think if it was a bigger latch hook so that it could accommodate bigger yarn, I think it would not be consistent with smaller yarn. I think like the the hook size matters to keep it consistent. There's like this little brush that kind of brushes around and I think that's part of what keeps the stitches consistent. So maybe one day they'll do like a bigger hook for For a bigger yarn. But like. I think a lot of like especially if you're using this for that kind of wire art you're not going to get super thick wire because that's gonna not be fun to mold or use so I think this this size makes sense for what you're using it for. Now unfortunately you can't like have a project going that requires an i-cord kind of built in. There's not a lot like that thankfully but just in case you cannot like throw your project in it's got to be an external i-cord so if you're making like a purse and I was even thinking for my purse because I couldn't use that bigger yarn if I get three strands I can then braid it. And then I can do that kind of thicker. So if you still need something thicker, make a few of them and braid them or twist them or whatever. And then you can have an actual thicker I-cord thing for your project. So the setup was so simple. Getting it set up for the yarn, feeding it through, like there was no learning curve. It was just simple throughout. This thing is so well made and it comes with a lot of extra it comes with extra grease to make sure that you know It's running smoothly. It comes with extra hooks. So that way if they I don't even know why you need extra hooks Maybe they get damaged or bent or something so you'd have to replace them But there they give you all of the stuff you need to make this thing continue to work. So I really saw no downsides except for the big yarn but that makes sense so I'm not gonna fault them for that but this thing I think is a must-have especially if you're doing wire art type I-cord things because like if you're working in a craft fair and you have somebody come up that has like a special name and you want to make it for them right there on the spot You're busting out, you know, what did I say, 12 feet in how many minutes? Like, you could easily make custom things on the spot at the fair as long as you have power. But that's something that I think this would be so valuable for people doing that. So I'm sure there's tons of other things that people can think of that they could do with the i-cords. I would love to hear if you use i-cords, what do you use them for? Do you have other things that you can think of that this could be used for? Leave it in the comments, tell me what you think of the machine, if you thought it was pretty cool too. But I will link to the page where they also have some other models of the i-cord machine as well as Automatic yarn spinners, which I want to get to and try because my last automatic yarn winder did not do well, I'll link that video if you want to go have a good laugh about that one, but I think the automatic yarn winder might might be a good one if the I-cord maker works this well, so I think I might have to give that one a try. But, I am Deja with Knit and Crochet Ever After, and thank you for watching.