In 1957 the Fairfield Sewing Machine Centre in Sydney posted a running series of newspaper ads for the Prior Purl knitting machine.

1957 ‘Advertising’, The Biz (Fairfield, NSW : 1928 - 1972), 24 July, p. 23. , viewed 22 Nov 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article189939634

In South Australia, one further ad was placed by “Trudgen’s”.

After that, there’s a slow trickle of Prior Purl machines mentioned in the classifieds sections of various newspapers. Even now, occasionally one turns up on a local marketplace or website for sale.

But what’s special about the Prior Purl? The world is awash with old knitting machines, most by much better known brands. But the Prior Purl is a garter stitch machine, and it was made in Australia. Both of those are highly unusual, making this machine an unsual item.

A garter stitch machine looks kind of like any other double-bed machine (such as a Passap), but rather than having two beds of needles, it has one set of double-ended needles it passes back and forth. So to knit garter stitch, or seed stitch, or any other purl-textured pattern, you just have to move the needles to the appropriate possition and pass the carriage. You don’t need to manually transfer any stitches. You can see that in action in this video: Prior Purl does Garter Stitch by Nix Knits.

Garter stitch can be accieved on a standard machine by using a garter bar and flipping the entire work after each row. But something like seed stitch requires manual stitch manipulation, or the Brother Garter Carriage.

So hopefully you can see why, when I saw one recently for $10, I jumped on it. For that price, it would be interesting even if it was mostly rust, and it didn’t look to be too rusty.

I’ve begun the process of cleaning it and making it nice. I asked around if anyone had more on this machine, and was pointed to the following:

• Prior Purl Knitting Machhine as the Knitting Machine Museum. This one looks different to mine, with a golden needle bed and knob handles.
• Deep Cleaning a Prior Plain’n Purl with Bakelite [sic] beds by Akeru Joyden (Rumpledsilkskeins) on Youtube. This looks exactly like mine.
• Prior Purl ‘n Plain Garter Machine Ravelry thread (login required) which recommends against the technique in the above video.

I have already made one mistake with the cleaning, I left some of the spare needles in white vinegar for too long and disolved the pins! This is especially sad as these are a more unusual needle and may be hard (or impossible) to replace.

I’m planning a trip to the National Library to access their copies of the manuals and books which will hopefully be enlightening. The manuals aren’t available online, and since the Library believes they are still in copyright, they won’t be putting them in the digital collection yet. Hopefully some day!