WEEK SEVEN

Knitting Week

Day One; learning the basics, working with the machine, creating samples

Today we started knitting week by learning the basics and how to set up the machine. At first I found it all a bit tricky and I was quite slow at the beginning however after a while I began to get more used to it. Normal knitting became easy but some of the other samples we were asked to create were a bit more fiddly and hard to get used to.

Other samples we created today were "drop stitch", "lace hole", "honeycomb" and "cable knit". When we were first shown how to do them I thought that it was going to be really hard as you have to use a special tool and pull different needles out of the machine. "Drop stitch" and "lace hole" looked tricky to do but actually it was quite easy and we used these techniques to create different patterns and shapes on our samples. Cable knitting was one of my favourites although it was probably one of the hardest to do as it involved using the control tools and swapping the yarn over each other. The hard work paid off though as it looked really nice once you had finished. 

We made a diamond shape for one sample which I liked as it was nice to be able to make different shapes within our samples. Once I made the diamond shape, Freya and I attempted to make a heart shape using the same technique however completely forgot that we couldn't go back further down the knitting to make more holes so it didn't really work out the way we wanted it to.

Day Two; more samples, working with the hold button, using two coloured yarns

Today we carried on with making more samples and we learnt some new techniques. The techniques we learnt today was "stripe", "orange peel", "volcano", "circle", "waffle", "weaving" and "fringing".

Some of them seemed quite difficult when we were being shown how to do them but with lots of concentration I managed to do them all quite well. However was a bit disappointed when I cast off after making my "orange peel" to find lots of holes in it because I thought it was going well at first and wanted it to look really good so that was a bit disappointing. Fringing was also a little confusing as you had to use a ruler to make the loops and I found this difficult as it was hard to keep everything steady and accurate however afterwards it looked really effective. 

Today we focused on more 3D knitting samples, I think it's really clever that you can create really interesting shapes using a knitting machine and by simply putting the machine to different settings to do it. We also started to introduce another coloured yarn, I thought this was going to be hard but once we were shown how to do it, it was actually really straight forward. If i had more time than I would want to experiment with using two colours in different ways other than just stripes to create patterns and shapes.

Weekly Review

Overall I found this week a lot better than I thought I was going to. My previous experiences with knitting were never that successful so I wasn't really looking forward to this week to begin with. Although I did find some of the samples rather tricky, others worked really well and I'm pleased at how my samples have come out. Knitting was hard at first but it got easier as I got more used to it. 

It was fun to start working with more than one colour because you get to see some of the samples and techniques more clearly. With the "orange peel" technique I would have liked to be able to take it further if we had more time so that it could become more of a spiral shape. My favourite samples were the cable knit and the diamond shaped holes as they are both very neat and although simple they are very effective.