This last week has been an exciting week in the studio for me, with the arrival of a new industrial hand-flat Dubied knitting machine. For those of you not familiar with this terminology, the term hand-flat is used to describe a type of knitting machine that is hand operated and contains a flat bed of needles (instead of a circular one, which would produce products like socks). The brand, Dubied, is one of a few similar makes of knitting machines (for instance Stoll or Santagostina) that were predominantly used to produce knitwear before industrial electronic machines took the lead in the knitting industry. Although not in production anymore, Dubied machines are still highly valuable to both students learning the technicalities of industrial machine knitting, and to small scale knitwear brands and knitwear designer/makers like myself.
I learned to use a Dubied when studying at university; we were introduced to this type of machine in our second year of study, after we had gained confidence using hand powered domestic knitting machines.
Having secured funding kindly donated by the Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters, I was able to purchase this re-conditioned Dubied from Scottish engineer Jerry Douglas, who drove the length of the country to deliver and install this beautiful vintage machine in my little Cornish studio.
I have spent much of the last week getting back to grips with using the Dubied, exploring the stitches and techniques that can be made on it. I can't wait to develop some new products on it and share them with you all!
Above images show my Dubied machine being reconditioned by Scottish knitting machine engineer Jerry Douglas of Knitting Machine Services. Photo credits to Jerry.