The knit rooms sit above a tile shop and smell of lanolin and coffee. Eleven people work there. The oldest machine is from 1974 and it is the one everybody fights over.
We went for three days and stayed three weeks. Not because anything went wrong — because it turns out you cannot usefully watch knitwear being made in three days. The gauge swatch alone takes a morning, and then it has to be washed, and then it has to sit, because wool moves after washing and any measurement you take before it has settled is a lie you will pay for later.
Nothing is quick and everything is on purpose
Ana runs the rollneck line. She has been doing it for nineteen years and has strong feelings about ribbing. Her rule: a collar should hold its shape after being pulled over a head five thousand times, which is roughly what a good jumper gets asked to do. So the rib is knitted tighter than comfort suggests, then relaxed by a wash, then measured again.
Gauge swatches, washed and pinned, waiting to stop moving.
Wool moves after washing. Every measurement before that is a lie.
The cable knit takes four hours on the machine and about ninety minutes by hand afterwards — closing shoulders, setting sleeves, running in the ends. That last part is entirely invisible and entirely the difference. Turn one of ours inside out; that is where the money went.
Why we do not restock quickly
People ask. The honest answer is that the rooms make about forty pieces a week across every style, and we would rather sell out than open a second workshop that does it worse. When a colour goes, it usually goes for good. When a cut comes back, it comes back in different weather — same shape, new yarn.
It is a slower business than it could be. Everyone upstairs seems fine with that.
