Week 5

This week consisted of learning to knit on machines instead of hand knitting, I had never used a machine to knit before and was looking forward to it. When we got started and were shown the different techniques that we could create I found that I picked it up fairly easily and was able to make quick but effective samples such as the honeycomb, polka dot and also how to hem the sample. I enjoyed using the machines although there were many elements to remember such as when casting on and making sure that all of the needles are threaded up, because if they weren't this resulted in having hole in the samples, fortunately this did not happen often   and I was able to avoid these issues. I think the sample I struggled on the most was probably the polka dot sample as I did this a couple of times and each time either the thread was loose or the sample had laddered. I think this was because I kept on forgetting to do particular things on the machine such as change the settings into hold, but then after realising my mistakes and checking with my tutor I was able to create a sample that had no issues.

I really liked the variety of samples that I created as they are all different and showcase different shapes and textures such as the bubble or pyramid shape as well as the tucking. As I liked the use of the tucking I wanted to start incorporating my own fabric into it which was not knit, I used quite thin fabrics as these would work best with the machine so I used long strips of chiffon and organza's, I feel that they created an interesting outcome as I didn't just use wool. I then moved on to using a stronger thicker fabric which was PVC, I really like the effect of this because I think that it is quite unusual and I believe that the mix of the soft wool and the hard PVC create an interesting aesthetic.  

 

I think that maybe if I was a bit slower on the machines such as checking I have the correct settings some of my samples would have come out better and would not have any loops in them, but the majority came out as I wanted them to, which I think is why I enjoyed the knit week as I was able to understand the machine and create samples that I liked, whereas before I did not believe that I would enjoy this week as much as I did, but I found that I really enjoyed working with the different textures and shapes that I could create easily.