Industrial revolution?

So over 4 years ago, I pinched my mum's knitting machine. It has been squeezed up in a corner of the spare room all that time. I made it one of my new year's resolutions to crank it up and learn how to use it. This weekend I managed to get it working but I can't say it was an enjoyable expereince - just when I thought things were going well it would drop a load of stitches and make a whooping great hole. I've decided its only really use is for making yarn bombing peices.