Sock TV Circular Knitting Machines With Jamie Mayfield

  I've always been a crafter, making glass beads was a way of supplementing my income when the kids were little. One day I walk into the shop and Pee Wee says I'm going to make a machine that when you crank on the handle it spits out a sock. Grayson and I looked at each other and said, "right!". 90 days later there's this machine that when you crank on the handle it spits out socks.

 

  I had to learn how to operate the machine while keeping books for the company. Every time I got off the phone with a customer a part would be missing from the machine. By the time I learned how to make a sock that old machine had all new Erlbacher parts. The first sock I made could've fit Paul Bunyan (they actually did fit over my shoe).

 

  Once the word got out, people started bringing in their antique machines for Pee Wee to look at in hopes of using their machine to pattern after. Because of so many different machine users coming into the shop I got to learn different methods from different people. Everybody got socks for Christmas that year.

 

  The first pattern I wrote was for women that just had a mastectomy, the "build a boob" . From fingerless gloves to headbands to mittens I've earned the right to be heard from longtime professionals I have respected over the years. I have taught hundreds of people how to use the machine. I love to bring new knitters to the craft.

 

  Our goal is to get beginners past the learning curve as easily as possible. My proudest moments were when I finally got married, my kids were born, and the day that all those parts on that old antique machine were parts that Peewee made.