A Knitting Factory Museum!

 

What a treat! 

At the end of a recent trip to the British Isles, our Viking Cruise ship deposited us in Bergen, Norway. I was thrilled to see a tour of a knitting factory museum as an option. Of course, I signed up right away. How better to spend a day?

From a Factory Town to a Museum:

The Salhus Tricotagefabrik is located a short drive from Bergen, Norway, in the town of Salhus which was created around the factory. It was founded by two German entrepreneurs in 1859 and produced everyday knit clothing, including cotton long underwear, until 1989, when cheaper imports made it no longer viable. 

Thankfully, the equipment was preserved and the factory was converted into a museum that knitting and history buffs can enjoy. They maintain and still use the machines to make yarns and some knit products that are sold in the shop. Their café serves delicious, not-to-miss cakes (including a vegan option) and the small shop offers yarn, knitwear, patterns, beautiful books, and kits so you can make your own pillows, hats, etc. 

Machinery in Action:

The process begins with carding - this is a small batch machine for testing, the actual carding machines are huge and the wool runs through several of them in sequence. They turn the wool from fluff to loosely twisted roving ready for spinning.

Next the roving is spun into single ply yarn, then twisted into multi-ply yarns. 

Then, even more magic happens - the beautiful knitting machines create fabrics, socks, etc. This one is producing a scarf way faster than I could. 

Some of the knitting machines are round and produce large swaths of fabric that are cut and sewn into garments. I was fascinated by another little machine that churned out sock after sock in tubes - these are cut apart and the toes sewn shut to form perfect socks. I truly loved the traditional Norwegian patterns with little dots.

Serendipity and a Finished Object:

Thanks to the sock knitting machine, I finally figured out how to finish the SoleMate sock I worked on throughout the trip. At the toe, the directions said to continue as for the heel and then sew shut. This baffled me, as I've always done decreases to finish sock toes. But when the tour guide was explaining the sock machine, she said it makes two heels and the second one is cut and then sewn shut to make the toe... aha! Finished sock... now to find time to complete the matching one.