Love Is All You Knit

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on this blog, but the building I live in used to be a factory building that housed at least two knitwear manufacturers.  Right now there is construction on one of the lower floors to convert old factory space into loft apartments.  The other day I walked past a bin filled with construction debris from one of these floors- and something caught my eye:

An old Brother Knitting Machine!  And I also discovered:

A Singer Model 604 sewing machine, which I think was manufactured in the 1960s.

Both machines are missing parts- the sewing machine is missing its power cord, which would be fairly easy to replace, but it may have other issues.  The knitting machine is missing the piece that sits on top and passes back and forth, running the yarn over the hooks.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with these- they might even end up back in the construction bin if it seems like too big of a task to get them working again…. but for now its fun having them around to look at and think about all the knitting that used to go on in this building!

And speaking of knitting within these walls… Back when I was knitting the decreases for the v-neck on my cardigan while also doing the raglan shoulder decreases, I was worried that I was decreasing all of my stitches on the front sides of the sweater away, so I decided to eliminate the last four v-neck decreases.  This left about six stitches on each of the fronts.  Now that I’ve gotten the button/neck band knitted on, I see my error– those extra stitches ruin the smooth v-neck to back collar transition.  See what I mean?

I realize it’s not terrible, and that’s why I kept knitting when I first realized the mistake- because I thought it was something I could live with.  But now that I’m only inches away from being done I know I need to go back because it will bother me too much.  So I’m about to start ripping back- ripping back the button band and the top few inches of the sweater.  I’m not upset about it though– I wasn’t ready to be finished knitting this cardigan anyways!