I restored this Imperia sock machine for the Stanmer Preservation Society in Sussex. It was a treat to find this video of me working on the machine at the Heritage Open Day at Stanmer Park in 2021. The event focused on the heritage crafts of spinning, weaving, knitting, linen and lace making. The Preservation Society had grown its own flax crop and were processing it from straw to yarn in preparation for weaving it into linen cloth.

I can’t believe that this was five years ago! I had my own machine then, an AKMC made by the Automatic Knitting Machine Co, and now I also have an Autoknitter. The AKMC, although a gorgeous and better made machine has more needles so I actually use it less because it comes up a bit wide in diameter for socks, whereas the Autoknitter has the perfect number of needles. Of the top of my head I seem to remember that the AKMC has 84 needles and the Autoknitter has 64 needles, but don’t hold me to that. I dearly wish I had the compound dial for the AKMC to make smaller diameter tubes.

Fortunately I have ribber dials for both machines which makes a difference. The AKMC knits great socks in rib.