The Vintage Empisal Knitting Machine

My Vintage Empisal Knitting Machine and the rompers I knitted 30 years ago.

This metal box made by my handy grandfather, in its bubble wrap, has been tucked away at the top of my cupboard for many decades. I was sorting through paperwork this week to declutter and found the original Patternbook, which of course triggered the memory of this single-bed knitting machine.

It was time to appreciate its story and to decide its new fate.

For the last 3 years or so I have had a daily practice to organise, streamline and simplify my homes. I regift, I donate, I share, I pass on, I move things between my spaces and I simply chuck. It has truly been mountains of stuff. A quiet pleasure has come with this discipline. In focusing on all that surrounds me, I pay attention, I use and enjoy what I have and with this comes appreciation. And the hidden benefit of knowing where everything is.

The Empisal Knitting Machine belonged to my Nan during the late 50's or early 60's. She and my mother were prodigious knitters, using both their machines, as well as hand-knitting. My grandfather custom-made a table for the machine and I can still hear the sound of the handheld carriage whipping across the metal knitting needles. I inherited the Empisal and also used it for a while. I have kept one of my knitted items, a pair of rompers that I made for Shawni as a baby, so I took it out to look at, maybe I will have a little granddaughter one day and it can be worn again. In the meantime it is in my kist.

The Empisal story is nostalgic to me. Rather than dump the machine or try sell it, I researched Community Knitting Groups and came across St. Martins-in-the-Veld in Dunkeld. They have an active knitting and crocheting group who make items for the needy, especially for babies in the government hospitals here in Johannesburg.

How I value this practice of mine, my Empisal has a new life and purpose again! And now I move onto all the keys we have, who knows which doors or cars they open, time to find out.

‘Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony’. 

Thomas Merton.