Knitting: Machine

music
ambience: Sheep bleating, yarn machine

We’re at a sheep farm in Monona, Iowa, where Bonnie Smola and her twin sister, Donna have been manufacturing socks for the past twenty-five years. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet. The sisters are the people to call if you want a pair of wool socks that have been sheared, dyed, spun and knit by the same hands.

“We do have a cottage industry. We’ve established it together, and primarily we knit socks.”

Bonnie agrees to demonstrate their method of manufacturing using an antique machine which knits most of the sock.

“Right now I’m sitting at my sock knitting machine, and as you see, I’m going to crank to make the sock. So I’ll start out by knitting the ribbing and I usually like to do about 60 rounds of knitting. And now when I finish the ribbing I’ll go into knitting the body of the sock. Once I complete the body I’m ready to knit the heel in the sock. In order to do that, I raise the needles in the back that are not going to be knitted, so that I leave room for the heel pouch. Then I can knit the toe and that’s all there is to making a sock.”

Interestingly enough, over the past century, hundreds of U.S. patents were issued for manually operated Circular Sock Machines.

Pulse of the Planet is presented with support provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

music

Knitting: Machine

For the past twenty-five years, a pair of sisters have been making wool socks- from sheep to finished product.
Air Date:09/19/2002
Scientist:
Transcript:


music
ambience: Sheep bleating, yarn machine

We're at a sheep farm in Monona, Iowa, where Bonnie Smola and her twin sister, Donna have been manufacturing socks for the past twenty-five years. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet. The sisters are the people to call if you want a pair of wool socks that have been sheared, dyed, spun and knit by the same hands.

"We do have a cottage industry. We’ve established it together, and primarily we knit socks."

Bonnie agrees to demonstrate their method of manufacturing using an antique machine which knits most of the sock.

"Right now I’m sitting at my sock knitting machine, and as you see, I’m going to crank to make the sock. So I'll start out by knitting the ribbing and I usually like to do about 60 rounds of knitting. And now when I finish the ribbing I’ll go into knitting the body of the sock. Once I complete the body I'm ready to knit the heel in the sock. In order to do that, I raise the needles in the back that are not going to be knitted, so that I leave room for the heel pouch. Then I can knit the toe and that's all there is to making a sock."

Interestingly enough, over the past century, hundreds of U.S. patents were issued for manually operated Circular Sock Machines.

Pulse of the Planet is presented with support provided by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.

music