Sara and Stacia working on their garments

At last….I have got to the place where I can start publishing my patterns. I designed them, knit them, wrote the patterns, had help from dear friends proof-reading them and photographing them.  So far only available through Ravelry, but hopefully at some point, through this site too.

Today I uploaded these two spring (or summer in Seattle) styles. One for the standard machine, and one for the bulky.

I have been working on some patterns for machine knit garments which I hope to publish later in the year. Last week I scored on some vintage machine knit pattern books on ebay. They are from the early 1930′s. The illustrations and photos are adorable. There are a couple of problems however – they are for Dubied machines and the patterns are written in French. But wait – I have a Dubied machine, two in fact, and I kinda sorta know french. I impressed myself by how much of the instructions I could understand.  The instructions seem a bit scanty – were people just smarter back then? Stay tuned for more…

I can get lost in cabling – the more complicated, the better as far as I am concerned. Bring it on!

I am offering two cable workshops in September and October.  If you want to expand your cabling skills give me a call.

We will start off simple and get as complex as you like. You control the speed you want to learn at and I will be there to give you tips and instructions and generally to cheer you on. Maybe you can even design your own cables.

Previous machine knitting experience necessary (main bed and ribber).

See schedule for details.

I have spent the last hour hanging out at the ITunes store and have come up with some new tunes.

I am calling the collection “Where’s the Effing Sun” because, well, that is what I have been wondering a lot of the time.

Bon Iver – holocene

Cass McCombs – county line

Destroyer – chinatown

Great Lake Swimmers – everything is moving so fast

Merz – moi et mon camion

Great Lake Swimmers – palmistry

Andrew Bird – oh no

Sean Hayes – calling all cars

JayMay – sea green see blue

Brett Dennen – ain’t no reason

Brandi Carlile – turpentine

Brett Dennen – she’s mine

Clem Snide – our time will come

A A Bondy – mightiest of guns

Zee Avi – monte

Vanessa Carlton – paradise

….getting some new yarn and a mix tape from my friend Wren to make me get knitting…..

my studio looked this organized. from here

teaching today with the doors open to my yellow deck.  I’ve been looking forward to being able to do this for a few months now.

Got the postcards for my technology class today. They are off to New York this weekend and will be making an appearance at the Pat Nugent Textiles booth at Printsource. Thanks Pat for taking them with you. Thanks Tom for designing them. Sorry for the crappy photo.

I was contacted by Kate in Australia last week. We have since exchanged many emails and are now new friends! She recently acquired three old knitting machines. The oldest dating from 1914. They are a big heap of rust and I have been giving her advice on how to get them up and running and the kind of stitches she might expect to get from them.

She has a Dubied, a Clemency and a Diamant. I have two Dubieds in my studio and l0ve them dearly.

She has made amazing progress and with some advice scrougned from my friend Monika, who in turn scrounged it from a friend of hers, who keeps the knitting machines at St Martin’s School of Art in London, up and running – we have quite detailed instructions on how to fully clean these machines. I am inspired to clean mine too. More on that later…

I was fascinated by the history of these machines and she has a fair amount of information about that. Here are a couple of excerpts from her emails;
“Knitting machines from Italy were brought out to supplement women’s income in a cottage industry. Some Italian women who migrated to Australia had arrived with knitting machine in tow. These women had taken the trouble to bring such a cumbersome piece of equipment such a long way, because the knitting machine represented a traditional source of income. In Italy, home machine knitting was a career rather than a hobby, possibly more in the north than the south. By the quality of Erice’s work, the standard of workmanship was extremely professional. Erice Zilliotto (nee Barrato) was born in Cavaso, Treviso Province, Italy in 1913. Her mother, born in 1893, was a home machine knitter, and Erice, the eldest daughter, had learned the craft from her mother Elvira Baratto and aunty Lina Codemo, by the time she was 11. Her sister Bianca, as the youngest daughter, also learned, but at the local convent, and was more enthusiastic about music than knitting. As an adult, Erice moved to Rome, where she had her own home based machine knitting business, employing 2 to 3 girls. Her clients included the nuns of the Vatican, and there was also reference to biretta for the priests. In 1962 while on a holiday with her sister in Wollongong, Erice met her future husband, also on holiday, from Griffith. Her sister Iva and brother in law Guiseppe Zanotto helped her migrate to Australia in 1961. She shipped her machines and started a knitting business in Balgownie (Wollongong) in the small two bedroom cottage she shared with her sister’s family. Her customers were mainly Italian migrants, some of them already knowing her work since living in Italy.”

…”Story is her brother now 76, seller of the machine last surviving family member  remembers when the machine was purchased 1941  a birthday gift for his sisters 15th birthday  There was all sort of excitement on it arrival, his  mother although Italian by birth,  had been raised by another family in Germany and was familiar with these machines, she went back to Italy in 1922  shortly daughter knitted jumpers for the whole village, mother soon purchased a 2nd machine and she also started knitting. They lived in the North of Italy bordering Switzerland. The family migrated to Australia in 1950′s both woman continuing to knit and sew, seems they had their own little label    “knitting studio model Australia.”