Well, to start off with, it is old! We think we got the machine in around 1984/85, so probably around 29 years old. It has travelled all over the place with us, from South Africa to England and now to Scotland. It is big! It is heavy! It is an Elna Passap Duomatic 80, and you can tell from the picture on the front of the instruction booklet that it is from that era:
Even the script used in the logo is very '80's in style:
When I first got the machine I made quite a few jumpers/sweaters on it, but I have never warmed to it for that purpose. I think I love the feel of yarn and needles in my hands too much to turn to a machine for churning out sweater after sweater in such a mechanical way. Once the machine is set up you barely touch the yarn itself, and the whole process is just that - mechanical. It is a manual machine, i.e. the carriers have to be moved back and forth manually, whereas you get electric machines which do all the hard work for you.
Obviously there are similarities to hand knitting - you still have to have the correct tension which you achieve by using dials rather than changing needles:
And like hand knitting there are various forms of casting on and casting off, depending on what you're making:
Mine is a double bed machine, which means it has a front and a back bed enabling you to knit in the round, and also create some fancy stitches, which are created using pushers which push the correct needles into the correct position at the correct time, meaning you can make fabric ranging from lacy open work (top left picture) to cables (middle right picture).:
Even back then the designers for this machine were ahead of the game by offering a good range of sizes for the patterns compared to other knitwear designers. Right into the Naughties big knitwear companies considered extra large to be a 38! Sadly some still do.
The instructions look a little different to hand knitting pattern instructions, but you get used to them once you start to understand the shorthand - a little like learning to read knitting charts:
Would I buy a knitting machine today - probably not. Am I pleased I have my old one - absolutely! One of these days I'll get back into producing more from it. Sadly it languishes in a corner for most of the year and then gets bought out and it is expected to perform perfectly whenever I want a quick pair of socks. It is greatly in need of a good service, but knitting machine engineers are a little thin on the ground up here. I would love to be able to produce knitwear such as Kristen Orme makes with her machine, but it needs time, and dedication, to get things running smoothly, and I'd be in trouble if I gave up the dyeing to focus on machine knitting.
5 reactions
1 From Sheena - 01/04/2013, 17:48
The machine was a bit different from yours but the pictures have brought back so many memories.
2 From Pam - 01/04/2013, 19:28
Wouldn't it be great if someone invented a knitting machine that would do the tedious/boring bits of our projects, e.g. swathes of monotonous stocking stitch, or the second sleeve (I have a thing about second sleeves) - then we could concentrate on the 'interesting' bits!
3 From Dorothy - 01/04/2013, 20:12
You are right, no time to focus on the knitting machine (nor a loom !!) you have to keep dyeing or there will be trouble !
Dx
4 From Hibiscus - 02/04/2013, 02:08
5 From Freyalynf - 06/04/2013, 15:11