This season has been super busy with lots of knitting and making for the past few weeks. I noticed I have gone through a lot of yarn as evidenced by a pile of more than 60 empty cardboard cones in my studio. Aside from filling orders I have a craft show I am really looking forward to. The show is called City of Craft and its held over the weekend of 8th and 9th of December in Toronto. I know a lot of you have probably already heard about it, but I'll tell you about it anyway. Its full of fantastic vendors from both sides of the border and the ladies that curate the show seem to do it just right. There's a real warmth to the atmosphere and a great mix of affordable versus fantastic. Another piece of news is I've found a solid supplier of yarns for my business. It took a while to work out the quirks of putting new yarn through my finicky industrial machines but with a bit of help (from my mum) we worked out that careful tensioning and gauge makes the diffrence. As a small company it can be really hard to find places that want to do business with you, so the search for the right supplier can take alot of time... but as the months go by I've found I'm not THAT small. It means next year I can offer alpaca and silk/ wool blends in addition to the merino and cashmere and it also means developing a small line of cardigans and sweaters. I'm pretty excited about that! As the months unfold and I develop a Lookbook, I will post here with latest news......
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In my previous post I talked about how production is "not a random" act. The physical representation of an idea is subject to technical and knowledge frameworks as well as the mode of production. Well, here are some examples of production limitations! I am trying to make my own version of Edwardian lace banding and fagotting through knitting. As you can see there are areas of success and areas where the machine was unhappy. I think this is a great example of the way production funnels your ideas based on the process. These bands are essentially 1X1 rib in very fine yarn guages. The fagotting effect was created by taking those needles out of working position to create floats. I'm really happy with the effect and feel a whole skirt in open banding would be really effective, or perhaps just as belting which is more subtle. My main direction at this point is a mash-up of wovens and knits which references early 20th century dressmaking techniques. In writing about process and also experimenting on my industrial knitting machines, I have been forced to engage in a sort of dual with them. I coax them into behaving and they reward me with beautiful original work. Bamboo and rayon bands in 2/48 and 2/60 nm. I am trying to make really narrow, really fine bands to run along seams and along the length of a persons body. Silk and merino yarns in 2/70nm on the left which are slightly terrifying (in terms of fineness) to work with. There is an old world quality to these bands because of the intersection of quality yarn and classic knit structure that I absolutely love. Lace veiling and silk banding with floats that imitate fagotting..... Here are some simple examples of silk fabrics on the bias coupled with belting ideas. If you squint can you envision a dresses? I can:)....
This last three weeks has been a curious mix of theory at school contrasted by knitting colourplay and sewing at home. My mittlets continue to be a success and I feel fairly confident in mentioning my intention to expand upon the concept embedded in the mittlet (the handmade object resurrecting older techniques) by offering a women's knitwear line next year. In addition I have found the most beautiful Peruvian yarns to supply my production work so I can provide more consistent colours.
I recently completed some orders for Bookhou, Bespoke Truckee and Tulani Rose. I am currently working on a second batch for Bespoke Truckee as well as for Workshop and Flock boutiques. It's interesting how all of these stores are owned by women entrepreneurs. They are all such nice people...who curate, make and sell through their amazing boutiques. Hope you have been having a great weekend! Its been an intense couple weeks in terms of knitting but I absolutely love it! Here are some mittlets in colourways I've made for stores. I get my yarns from a place which buys out stock from larger factories in Italy and Scotland so the nature of my colour development is predicated upon available yarn and how I am feeling that day. Its a bit like mixing paints....
I feel like interest in my work has increased and I just want to say thank you to those that have been keeping up with my projects and ideas. Here are some better pictures of my machine which is in operation. The yarn is 2/30 nm cashmere from Colourmart in England. Once the machine oils are washed away this knitted yardage lofts up into something fantastic. Below are some pieces I've been working on from stripes.
I came across this chart (below) in one of my old Dubied manuals. I find it extremely useful as a ballpark guide to appropriate yarn weights for machines of different gauges. The columns in english translate as: knit gauge, machine guage, wool nm gauge, wool bradford gauge, cotton gauge and lastly, silk gauge. The formats of yarn measure are still quite diverse depending on whether you hand knit, machine knit (using yarn for hand knits) or machine knit using industrial yarn. This chart eschews the common sport, dk and fingering weight measure for something more precise: the nm measure. Nm (the abbreviation for the metric system) is the number of meters in 1 gram of yarn. 3/11 = Sport Weight 4/8 = Worsted Weight 2/11and 3/15 = Fingering Weight 2/20 and 2/24 = Fine weight 2 strands of 2/24 together = Fingering Weight. Nm comes with the caveat that it can be rather confusing, thus the usefulness of this chart. Referring to the "machine gauge" column this chart tells me that (under wool nm gauge) my machine will happily knit 10 different nm gauges of wool yarn. Simple really. Another nice feature is cross referencing appropriate yarns for 10 gauge machines with 8 gauge. I favour 2/24 and 2/28 nm laceweight yarn and both machines love it! Listed are a few suppliers I love all using nm yarn measure: http://www.colourmart.com http://knollyarns.com/ http://www.craftingfashion.com/ http://www.theyarnstore.co.uk Also within the same book were these fantastic patterns. I'm afraid its also in Italian just like the chart but you can tell a lot from the pictures and the corresponding pattern notations. Enjoy.
Here are some photos of my 8 Gauge Dubied model MM from the 1930's. The pictures don't really do it justice. Somehow they impart a worn quality, whereas in person it has a charming patina and character to it. Notice the wooden handles. I picked up this machine through a newspaper ad a little over 2 years ago hardly knowing what it was. I brought it home and appealed to my father to help me bath it in gasoline, eliminate rust and oil it back to a happy serviced state.
Once we had it serviced, I began to muddle through the disintegrating Italian manual. Its home knitting machine cousin might be the Passap Duomatic or perhaps the Superba. Both share the V-bed and dual carriage. This machine however knits a very fine gauge and because of the high grade tooling of all the parts it sort of glides back and forth in a very satisfying way. You can use quite a wide range of yarns from a sport weight all the way down to a very fine lace weight. You can make tubes, you can make socks, patterns and just...all sorts of wonderful, fantastic knitting. I am using my machine to develop knit yardage for winter in bold stripes. The fineness of the stitch imparts a retro 40/50's feel to the knitted goods. Soon another machine in a finer gauge called a "Santagostino" will be coming from England so I can continue my explorations. For now I will work on my Dubied. Here is a great resource for understanding the history of semi-industrial hand flat and industrial knitting machines: http://www.german-hosiery-museum.de/technik/technik.htm It really helps you understand just how varied and complex knitting machines are and how long they have been around for. Whole economies and industries have been built around the drive to develop something as simple as a woolen sock. Enjoy. Last year I bought an industrial Dubied knitting machine. I was way over my head but really intrigued by the possibilities that a v-bed or double bed machine might yield. To make sense of it I went out and bought a modern Passap Duomatic which is also a double bed, but which is geared towards the domestic market....so more user friendly. Then, like any back boiler obsession, I picked up some back issues from 1933 of a magazine called "Lavori Di Maglieria." This magazine informs the knitting technician about current trends in shapes and stitches. The designs are quite modern..or perhaps my eye loves retro? Whichever it is I wanted to share these gems with you all. |
Anna is a Hamilton based knitwear and textile practitioner blogging about her collection development as well as pre-1950's knitwear technology.
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