shamajac

Hi Keni One machine that will be of interest to most is your sock machine as they are going for serious money nowadays thanks to the utube videos on how to operate them, the other consequence of this is that you can now purchase needles for these old machines - tho for the life of me I cannot understand why such large amounts of money are paid for them as its so much easier to knit socks on the normal kniting machines, especially the passaps.  (I own a sock machine and find it a tedious way to make socks as I can knit a pair in an hour on the Passap, however that being the case, they are an important part of knitting machine history and I would not part with it).   Funny thing is that everytime I meet someone who wants a bit of tuition and taking into account how cheap socks are, its the one thing that they want to know how to knit.  I must admit it dismays me to hear of the amount of knitting machines that are landing on skips everywhere and personally, I think they will become rarer to find - most of the golden oldie ones still knit beautifully, as I found out the other day when I took out an old knitmaster 321 to give it to an interested party and believe it or not, it knitted like a dream. I have plenty of is yarn, I made sure of that before I came over here and  have two filing cabinets full of every knitting machine magazine known to mankind.   I still try to promote machine knitting as much as possible by giving tuition and perhaps lending my machines to interested parties. Sorry this reponse has taken so long, I just decided to take a look at the craft forum and was surprised to see that this thread is still running.  Please feel free to email me directly should you wish to do so.          

HI Keni I do have a collection of old knitting machines including a couple of Turmix ones, the same goes for the green knitmasters,  as far as selling them, I think you have probably tried the ususal route ie Ebay.  I still occassionally find machines I do not have, but its getting harder, the larger my collection gets.  Its interesting that you used to write for MKN and MKM - you must be an accomplished machine knitter.  I wonder have you tried ebay france or are the machines still in the UK.      

Hi Jazzer I  use and collect knitting machines, and like your wife had problems with yarn stocks, to be honest I found the best and cheapest way to get yarn was to visit the uk via car and buy from knitting machine shows like Bournemouth in Feb/March. Recently I struck lucky -  via the local charity place in Morlaix  ie Emmaus, I noticed in their window a large amount of industrial cones of yarn - I raced in and was enthusiastically raking through when the old guy beckoned me to come with him and he then showed me a more  yarn through the back of the place (obviously some factory outlet had donated the yarn) and offered me the lot for the princely sum of 70 euroes,  it took me all of 2 seconds to say yes, then my poor old other half had to go back home to get the trailer - it filled all the back of our hatchback and the trailer with tall sides on and was a mix of wool, cotton, linen and   industrial   acrylics which suit me fine, as I have every make of machine known to man.  I love machine knitting and spend most of my time, keeping my substantial collection of vintage and modern knitting machines and gadgets in working order, besides knitting - I did advertise for like minded people here in on the border of dept 29/ ie dept 22  (Brittany) but only received a small response.  I think of machine knitting as an art - and spend everyday working on them.  Many people do not appreciate just what knitting machines can do, ie lace, weaving, tuck, slip, pile, intarsia, rib to name but a few techniques and  they can operate and download through computers via designaknit. Seriously though, I maintain the very best way to buy yarn is to arrange a trip to the knitting show in Bournemouth and stockpile - the price of yarn in France is very high.  I thankfully now have enough to keep me going for many years to come.  I did intiially send for around 15 cones of the good old Acrylic from a company in the uk but boy was it expensive and I can no longer afford to do that now. Kind regards, Maggi      .