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About Knitting Machines - Did you know that there have been knitting machine in use in one form or another for HUNDREDS of years?
It's true! the first device that could be termed a knitting machine was put into use in Britain about 350 years ago. It was called a knitting frame and was enormous (compared with the knitting machines we have today), standing about 5 or 6 feet tall. The operator sat on a built in bench and operated it.
It was used for making stockings. They were in great demand in that era, and men, women and children ALL wore stockings.
The knitting frame produced flat panels of knitted silk which was then hand sewn into the finished product. Very often a family would have a business in which the man operated the knitter, and the woman and possibly children would finish the stockings. The machine was patented under British law and it was a criminal offense to take one out of the country!
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Knitting is one of the simplest ways to make fabric. Fundamentally, the method of knitting is simply drawing loops through loops, using sticks to help do it.
Making fabric in this way can be done using any kind of string, yarn, twisted fibers of any sort, even with ropes and steel cables. Still, simple as it is, knitting is enormously versatile. Thousands of techniques and patterns have been published and there is still many more published every day! Only one's own imagination limits what you can do with this craft.
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Nålebinding is an old Danish term which means "binding with a needle". Technically a form of knitting, but historians and others like to say it isn't. The technique isn't quite the same as modern knitting, but certainly is a kind of knitting. In Nålebinding the free end of the thread is pulled through all the active stitches rather than through each loop individually.
In Scandinavia Nålebinding survived longer than in most other countries because it was considered to be a superior method. More skill was required and the fabric thus made was thicker and warmer.
The way it's done: (from Wikipedia on line encyclopedia)
The basic technique involves the use of a single flat needle. A loop is formed, and the needle passed through the loop. The thread is pulled through the loop, but the knot is not snugged up, but rather left loose, forming a new loop. The needle is then passed through this new loop, forming a chain. At the end of a row, the work may be turned, and each stitch passed through both its partner loop and a loop in the previous row, or the work may be performed in a single direction "in the round", forming circles and tubes for socks and mittens.
Due to the "pulling through", the technique is well adapted to short lengths of yarn which can be joined together to form a textile.
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Visit this page from time to time. We'll be adding additional items of interest as we find the articles and the time to put them up.
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