Knit Rotation

The knit unit has been the biggest challenge for me. I felt like there was a lot to learn in a short space of time. Although I was frequently booked onto machines, I feel like I wasn't getting much done. It became frustrating when I’d spend an hour on a sample and then would fall off the machine or drop a stitch and completely unravel. Through practice on the machines I have slowly learnt how to recover from mistakes.

Week 1
The first week was about learning the basics of a domestic machine and grasping basic skills. It was exciting to see the samples rapidly grow, especially compared to hand knitting. After learning the techniques, it was about creating a small sample to put in my technical file so that i can refer back to later on. Initially in was quite fun as the techniques where easy and quick to knit.

Week 2
This second week I’ve learnt more techniques, which are a lot more difficult and time consuming to perfect but are more beneficial to my practice. This has included skills such as lace hole, hooking up, e-wrapping and correctly casting on and off. It took longer than I thought to complete the samples, so the technical file was my main focus.

Week 3

 During the last week there was a heavy emphasis on finalizing my technical file and creating my final samples for the unit. I have translated my ‘line’ drawings into knitted samples using the learnt techniques. I have kept the designs quite bold and simple so that i could perfect them, but have used yellow in my colour palette to make them stand out. I particularly liked combining skills such as lace hole and hooking up to create relief and contrast in my knits. Although at times it was overwhelming and frustrating, it was very rewarding to complete my final samples. Once i new I was following a fashion context, it made it easier to create designs.