The Beginning…
In a now-deleted post on Craigslist several years ago, I asked for information on available knitting items in the area. I was in search of knitting machines, mostly, merely curious about the art since I had very little patience and attention span for hand knitting and was wondering if anyone in the area had one they were wanting to offload. I was shocked when I got two responses. The first from a woman a couple hours away from me who said she had one she was trying to get rid of and would love to give it to me. After some back and forth, asking what the machine model and make was, how much she wanted for it, etc., she reiterated it was for free. Oh, actually, she had two. I was welcome to both, plus all the books her dearly departed mother had accumulated over the years of her owning it. I looked up the prices on eBay and had to ask her if she was sure, these machines could go for thousands of dollars, of course! She thanked me for doing my research but she was quite sure, she just wanted them to go somewhere they would get good use. The second response? I’ll get to that soon.
I said “yes,” of course. She and her sister made plans to load up the machines and trek up to the city I was living in at the time where we would do a pass-off. I couldn’t let them make the trip for nothing so I bought them some gift cards for fuel and coffee and a very heartfelt card. I was raised Lutheran, so cards are how we show affection. My husband accompanied me and we took them out of her SUV and into mine, did the hand off and with a promise to make excellent use of them, we parted ways. I immediately got them home, went thru all the literature I could find with the machines and even located the sales receipt from the late 80s. I ordered a how-to VHS tape on eBay which was less-than-helpful, but then found a video on YouTube where someone had copied the original set-up from a dealer’s resources. In no time, I had the smaller of the two machines on its stand and it more-or-less working order.
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I had gone from merely curious to having in my possession a Passap DuoMatic 80 and an e6000, one motor, several other accessories, a box of acrylic yarn on cones, a couple binders and paper pocket folders of mail-order and hand-written patterns for projects that she had either completed or was in the planning stages of, and a flat under-bed storage box of parts and hardware for maintenance. I never thought to even clean the machine before threading it up and making a couple items from the manual. when my items were coming out with black streaks on it, I thought maybe i should have given it a good cleaning… too late now!
So about that second message I got relating to the Craigslist ad; I was sent a rather terse email by someone who didn’t identify themselves or where they were from just berating me, asking me where do I “get off scamming people” out of their expensive knitting machines? In the ad, I mentioned some brand names I was vaguely familiar with, just in case someone had one in they inherited stuffed in a closet or a barn somewhere, had no idea what it was, but knew it was a specific brand. I expressly said I would pay for them, I was just searching to see if anyone had one available. When I refuted their claim that I was a scammer, I was just looking for information or products, they doubled down on their insistence that I was trying to cheat someone out of hundreds if not thousands of dollars. After an anxiety-ridden few hours where I wondered if I had done something wrong… I recalled that there was a lovely woman who had already contacted me and was giving me a beautiful gift simply for asking… and that Craigslist is full of people with too much time on their hands. I blocked their emails going forwards and got on with my life.
In the beginning, I joined Passap groups online, in Facebook and on Yahoo Groups. In experimenting with the machine, working with the manual and some step-by-step written patterns from the internet and the previous owner’s notes, I managed a thin, floppy beanie, a scarf of the same color and stitch pattern, a pair of the socks from the manual, and the beginnings of the baby blanket also from the manual. Then… we had to move. I had made good progress learning the DM80 from zero, and had to box it all up and head North to a small apartment where the machines would not fit. My grandparents offered to host them in their basement for a while until we got settled more and could make space. A few weeks or months turned into 6 years. My knowledge of the usage of the DM80 purged from my brain as I didn’t practice or keep it up. I couldn’t even recall how to set up the stand. I stayed subscribed to the groups online and dreamed. One day, I’ll use all this knowledge, but for now, I can’t even read it. It will be there for me when I am ready.
Finally, we bought a house. I thought “Yes! Now I can bring them home!” It was never the right time. Never a priority. Never a moment where I was assertive enough to say “We’re getting them this weekend.” Until recently. After 2 years of home ownership, I did it. I made it a priority, I went myself with a good friend and brought them home. I have a crafting room with my sewing machine and my two knitting machines and it’s time to get back to what I have been dreaming of for so long now. Join me as I start out my learning process again from the beginning. I plan to log resources and impressions as I go, but I am human and very anxiety-riddled, so the accountability will keep me going, I hope.
