Knit

Knit has been my favourite technical block so far. Although I found it challenging, frustrating and at times, hard to understand, I also found knit to be so enjoyable, satisfying and most importantly I love the finished pieces, making it so much more worthwhile.

On the first day we learnt how to cast on, we did this by wrapping under and over, forming a “e” shape around the needles. We learnt how to manage tension, with 0 the tightest and 10 the loosest, we adjusted according to the thickness of the yarn. We threaded 15 needles on each side of the ‘0’ and then fed the yarn through the gate and pulled through the letter ‘A’. After casting on 6-7 rows we were directed to hang weights on either end of our knit, and as the knit gets longer to move the weights up toward the knitting machine to keep tension. Through out the knit block I never really got the hang of casting on as it was slightly different for left handers.

Just as I was becoming more confident on the knitting machine we were given instructions on how to knit stripes. To create stripes we fed our second colour into the second side of the tension mask, carry down and wrap the yarn around the other post. Take the first yarn out of A and place this yarn onto a hook on one end of the machine. You then simply feed your new yarn through A and knit! I loved being able to see my knit samples come together and found the pace of knit really gratifying.

One mistake I continued to make was forgetting to hold the knit when pushing the needles forwards and allowing my sample to fall off the machine.

Learning how to use the transfer tool initially made next to no sense to me until I tried and practiced on my own. Using the end of the transfer tool with a single hole we hooked it onto the end of the needle. The purpose of the tool is to allow us to manipulate the needle. Using this technique we pulled out a single stitch and carried on knitting, this created a ladder. To make the gap bigger, transfer the needle on either side.

After a while of knitting I decided I wanted to use thicker and courser threads which I thought reflected my box, to do this I learnt to change the needle set up to accommodate for thicker yarn as yarn can become too strong for the needles.