crochet machine?

[SaxDragon]

Sometimes when I search yahoo for crochet (like today), I see links for a crochet machine, but when I follow the links, most of them are HUGE things (industrial sized) and not really clear if it's really crochet or knit, since it reads as if it's been translated from some other language. Anybody else see these things? Do you think it's really crochet (I kind of have my doubts)?

 

I've often thought about getting a computerized knitting machine, and a long arm quilting machine, but both would require a cat-free work space LOL which I don't have. If I don't someday move to a bigger house, I'll have to consider renting a workshop - one big enough that I can also move all the fabric and junk from the 15x20 storeroom into so I'm not paying rent on two spaces.

 

I looked at those portable storeage buildings that people put in their backyards, but geez, I can't afford one big enough to work in (would need electric for the a/c) ... little one would make a nifty cat playroom though :-)

[jleinhauser]

Those big industrial machines you see are used for making drapery trims.

The aren't really crochet at all. They call them crochet machines because they use hooks in the process (crochet means hook in French).

 

Knitting is a process of interlooping to make the fabric, which is fairly easy for a machine to do. The complicated process of knotting used in crochet has not yet been duplicated by machine.

 

Jean

[ErinLindsey]

There is no way to replicate crochet with a machine. It's one of the few needlearts that can only be reproduced by hand.

[morrigan1974]

So, how do they make the crocheted doilies and such you see in department and dollar stores? I'm curious, not doubting what you say at all, Erin. I know it may look that way, but I don't doubt you at all. I've always wondered how they were made, and assumed it was with a machine. Do you know?

[LadyBeBop]

That lace is not crocheted, it's a kind of tatting, I think. However, they can be machine made.

 

Here is a good article on machine-made lace.

 

http://lace.lacefairy.com/ID/Machine.html

[Katchkan]

So, how do they make the crocheted doilies and such you see in department and dollar stores? I'm curious, not doubting what you say at all, Erin. I know it may look that way, but I don't doubt you at all. I've always wondered how they were made, and assumed it was with a machine. Do you know?

That type of crochet work is done in Third world countries where they are paid next to nothing for their work. It saddens me to see it. But it is part of someone's lively hood over there.

It devalues what we do also. It's a no win situation as far as I can see. Well the retailers win maybe.......

 

As far as I know there is no machine that can truly do a crochet stitch. Imitate it, Yes, but It cannot do an actual stitch.

[ErinLindsey]

So, how do they make the crocheted doilies and such you see in department and dollar stores? I'm curious, not doubting what you say at all, Erin. I know it may look that way, but I don't doubt you at all. I've always wondered how they were made, and assumed it was with a machine. Do you know?

 

They hire a bunch of people in third world countries like Bangladesh to sit and crochet those doilies...and they pay them next to nothing for the doilies.

 

 

and it is possible to knit doilies with a knitting machine, some of those doilies that you think are crochet, could actually be knitted. (not sure if knitting machines can knit in the round, but they can do the square and rectangle type)

[SaxDragon]

Nice to know that those machines aren't turning out granny squares and fancy shell afghans :-)

 

Don't knock the work women and children do in third world countries - for them it is the difference between eating or starving to death. And even though they get 'next to nothing' by our standards, it is decent wage' by their standard - not good, not great, but just enough - most of them do not have any other means of survival. Many of those countires have a high population density of unskilled, uneducated poor, more often than not few if any social systems in place to help - chairty aid is not as wide spread and bountiful as we'd like to think it is.

 

There is a big difference between relative, subsistance, and absolute poverty. Here, we have relative poverty - the poor have access to housing and food programs, free education and healthcare, as well as social security and disability programs. Most of us don't need to grow our own food, or build our own homes. We can buy inexpensive imports of things like shoes, blankets, or a bycycle or bus ticket if we can't afford a car to get to work. It often takes two or more incomes in each family to afford more than that, and that means our kids may be working after school or getting paper routes.

 

Subsistance poverty means just barely surviving on the food you can grow on your own land, maybe being able to sell or trade any excess produce or craft item in order to buy shoes once a year for your kids. Maybe save up enough for a bicycle. Maybe you're really lucky and you have limited electricity and a radio too. Countires with subsistance poverty may or may not have limited education systems (basic reading/writing/math) on a half-day basis for children (who still have to work - either at home on the farm or in the village making rugs or hats, or whatever). They may or may not have access to assistance programs like food, clothing, or medical outside of charity. Still, they survive, even if only by the skin of their teeth as long as they own land.

 

Absolute poverty means no land, therefore you can't grow your own food, you'll have to pay somebody for the house you live in, no radio because there is no electricity, there are few if any programs for schooling or healthcare, few if any good paying jobs, and in all likihood, one or more of your family members will die of starvation or disease unless you can find some means of earning an income, and it takes everybody in the family working to do it. That nickle per doily times however many doilies you can make today means everybody eats tonight. You husband earns just enough a month to pay rent. Your kids earn whatever they can to help fund the extras - like the shoes they need.

 

Everybody wants to see an end to child labor and an increase in wages for the adults in third world countires, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon. They don't have an idustrial boom with lots of jobs available for the adults (part of the reason we enacted mandatory high school education and some of the child labor laws was to restrict the available jobs in an economic downturn to the adults). Jobs will have to be created. Better paying jobs often need better educated workers, which means children need mandatory (and free) schooling. Better paying jobs need healthier workers, which means better access to (and free) healthcare. Better paying jobs need availble consumers for the product produced, which can reduce the comsumer base available to similar products made elsewhere, leading to job losses elsewhere.

 

If you want to help the desparately poor in other countires, buy their doilies. If want them to earn more per doily, inact international laws garunteeing it, but be prepared to pay double for the imported ones at walmart (which, now that they cost more, fewer of us can afford to buy). If you want to raise them out of poverty and into middle class, then be prepared to fund, out of your own pocket, all the social services and job creation they need for the next three to five, maybe ten generations, plus buying their product at an increased cost, as well as being willing to risk loosing your own job to the competition.

 

Why don't many of these countires do this themselves? Many of them can't afford it, considering the vast number of poor they have and the limited jobs available. Plus, many of them hold social/cultural/religious views that women, children, and the poor in general are not 'worthy enough' to be assisted. Those kind of views take generations to change - look how long it has taken for civil rights in the states to actually make a difference - you can't just change the laws, you have to change their thinking, too.

 

My indian nieghbors used to think it was pretty odd that I crocheted - and in public no less - something that a 'rich student' would not do. One of them finally asked me why I crocheted. We talked for a long time about it - the poor in places like india, the poor here (I'm hardly a 'rich student'), and world business/politics/religion/etc. He was a business major, so it gave us a common ground to talk from .

 

We'd better start colonizing space soon - think of all the new industries and jobs that will be created to supply goods and services (both worldwide on earth and in the colonies) ... what teen wouldn't want jewelry made with a space jem discovered when mining asteroids for ores? Sweaters made from yarn spun of martian spider webs? Dinner for two, dancing, and the honeymoon suite at the space station Hilton? Sure, most of us couldn't afford the luxuries, but we'd have the jobs :-)

[ErinLindsey]

I'm not knocking the third worlders for getting paid next to nothing for their crochet work.

 

It's the corporations like WalMart that refuse to pay these people a better wage for the stuff they make that I'd like to knock around a little bit.

[snugsmontreal]

So, how do they make the crocheted doilies and such you see in department and dollar stores? I'm curious, not doubting what you say at all, Erin. I know it may look that way, but I don't doubt you at all. I've always wondered how they were made, and assumed it was with a machine. Do you know?

those are made by paying some poor lady in china 5 cents and hour and using cheap materials

[morrigan1974]

I'm not knocking the third worlders for getting paid next to nothing for their crochet work.

 

It's the corporations like WalMart that refuse to pay these people a better wage for the stuff they make that I'd like to knock around a little bit.

 

It's kind of a catch-22, though. The stores know that most consumers can't and/or won't pay but a certain dollar amount for the product, and they have to keep it priced so they still make a profit (otherwise they wouldn't be a business). So the store has to get what they can for a price low enough to make enough many to, at the very least, pay the overhead for running a store (electricity, property taxes, etc.).

 

And without the stores purchasing these for us to buy in the first place, those people would have no income whatsoever.

 

So, in a nutshell, unless we're willing to pay more for our goods (and I can't afford to, I'm barely able to scrape up $25 a week for a family of 3 sometimes!!), they're not going to get higher rates for their work. IMHO, of course. I am, by no means, an economics major!

[catlyn]

It's kind of a catch-22, though. The stores know that most consumers can't and/or won't pay but a certain dollar amount for the product, and they have to keep it priced so they still make a profit (otherwise they wouldn't be a business). So the store has to get what they can for a price low enough to make enough many to, at the very least, pay the overhead for running a store (electricity, property taxes, etc.).

 

And without the stores purchasing these for us to buy in the first place, those people would have no income whatsoever.

 

So, in a nutshell, unless we're willing to pay more for our goods (and I can't afford to, I'm barely able to scrape up $25 a week for a family of 3 sometimes!!), they're not going to get higher rates for their work. IMHO, of course. I am, by no means, an economics major!

 

I think even if we paid a higher price for the item in WalMart is unlikely that the person who made the doily would receive any of the money.

It's kind of like the farmers here in America and their plight.

They only receive so much for their produce, barely enough to keep their farms afloat, but price of milk and fruit and other things keeps going up. Who gets the extra money when prices are raised?

Seems not to be the farmers.

[amdm]

Saxdragon - thank you for a very balanced and informative post. As an Indian, I can confirm the truth of what you say. The US dollar is worth over 40 Indian rupees, and for most needlecraft workers the paltry (even by our standards ) amounts they earn are what stand between them and starvation (or prostitution in the case of young girls). Many of us in the Third World also try to be responsible shoppers, and buy from organizations that subscribe to the Fair Trade charter, although their goods cost more.

I don't quite understand your Indian neighbour's attitude, though. It is true that artisans tend to be poor, but many Indian women do needlework as a hobby, and are admired for it. Maybe his grandmother never knitted him a sweater.