Skills Week.

During skills week we were asked to choose a specialism in which we were most interested in pursuing for the next few years. For me this decision was easy. I chose knit. Print was a definite no go for me as I found out during textiles in practice back in semester 1. I didn't like using print to translate my designs in my sketchbook as I wasn't very good, and to tell the truth I couldn't deal with all the mixing of the dyes. Even though knit can be frustrating quite a lot of the time it was definitely the specialism for me.
Throughout this week we discovered new and different techniques to use in our knit samples. It was good as we got to mess about with the knitting machines rather than having to produce samples for our sketchbooks. I found this week a little frustrating at times as I messed up a few times, making holes and dropping stitches in my pieces. Here's some of my successful samples from the week;

These first three samples were created by using punchcards. I quickly got the hang of using these and found they were good for creating patterns easily. We were also shown how to use the punchcards in other ways to create elongated and fair isle patterns.

This sample was created by using a slip stitch technique while also using the punchcards. I really liked this technique as it created a nice pattern when I varied the colour of yarn I was using.

We were also shown how to weave using the knitting machine. The sample on the left of this photo didn't turn out as well as I would have hoped as the yarn I chose was too thick and it kept getting stuck. I liked the overall appearance of the full weaving though and would definitely use this technique again. The sample on the right is also an example of weaving but it's slightly different as I did an e-wrap weave. This was basically the same approach but you can control how much is weaved into the kitting and lets you create shapes.