I dont know a thing about knitting.
Anything.
At all.
But while on an excursion to a neighborhood thrift store, I came across this Brother Knitting Machine in its box! The plus was the manager of the store said that it was from the estate of an avid sewer, who took great care of her things. The bad news was there was no instruction booklet.
In the store thanks to my iPhone, I furiously googled the heck out of this thing. I found some model number relatives listed on eBay and around the web, but something told me not to let this go. I chatted with the manager again, and was able to get the marked price of $100 down to $30. He said that he didn't think he'd see anyone as excited about this device as I was. How nice! Now I owe him a sweater.
This model is the first of its line, and is from the mid 70s. Apparently accessories are hard to get for it, but we will see...
Now the quest to find the instruction booklet was just as lovely. I found a free copy online via a painful popup window forrest, but it was a bad scan, and half the pages were cut off. Then I found the manual for sale in the UK, but it didn't sell. I contacted the seller and asked if they would list the manual as a BIN. Sure enough they did and its on it way to me as I type!Im excited about this device I know nothing about, and doing a craft I know nothing about. Even found someone who used it on their blog. So much mystery...But its a toy! Yay! I just hope I can put it to use.
Oh goodie! What a great find! I hope you will post your learnings--I would love to learn more about knitting and knitting machines!
ReplyDeleteWow... from $100 to $30 is exciting! Good luck- hope you can figure out how to use it.
ReplyDeleteI have a modern Bond knitting machine, which is similar. I use it occasionally - it's good for worsted weight yarns, but since I like lighter sweaters it isn't the best. It is fun though, once you get it set up - very satisfying to run the shuttle down and get a whole row on knitting finished! What a great find - machine knitting was very big in the 70s and early 80s, all the magazines from then have machine knitting patterns included.
ReplyDeleteNice! What a great new toy.
ReplyDeleteI just followed your link from SewRetro... Love it all!! Your work is fantastic... Looking forward to spending more time looking at your past pieces.
ReplyDeleteMsM