Knitting is a weak point foe me. as someone who struggles working in a repetitive manner its always been a struggle. I started however looking at easier methods of knitting. I came across a technique which was hand knitting using my fingers. I found this really interesting as ive always used knitting needles! I also wanted to incorporate my alternative materials as it was working really well with my project so far!
I started by cutting the plastic bags into strips, I wanted to recreate yarns so I used the sewing machine to sew the ends together. This gave me a really interesting yarn alternative. I also really enjoyed the opacity of the plastic bags, with knit being so structured it was nice to have a contrast with the material used. I stumbled across a page on youtube called Bean Creative, this page is all about knitting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3BEgP5s9Pg as a beginning knitter i found the instructions really easy to follow and was actually able to create a length!
After creating this length I wanted to challenge myself and try knitting on the knitting needles as someone with two left hands for knitting I knew I wanted a basic stitch, I didn’t want this too be too simple so I decided to keep going with the alternative materials however adding in more complex materials. In my previous samples I have been using pink tulle, bin bags, tape measures, shoe laces and also scarf material. However most of these materials werent flexible enough to knit with. I decided to cut strips of pink tulle, purple crispy tulle and bin bags and repeated the process of sewing the ends until I had a length long enough to knit with.
I think the sample is effective in the sense that its fun with a tactile element, the materials sucessfully link to the samples which strengthen my project. I also love the contrasting materials, it makes you just want to grab and play about with it!
lrichar3
well done in your perseverance. Finger knitting is such a great method for making a structure without additional tools. You can finger knit as a fidgiting activitity with any cord or bit of string or yarn anywhere. I once did a talk at a digital teacing conference and handed out yarn to the delegates and got them all to do finger knitting as an ice breaker to promote collaborative learning. It was brilliant to see the efforts of acadmics from across the university mastering this simple manual technique together.
To join the yarn strips have a wee look at the link to the person making rag rugs. I think its on week 3. You can make a less lumpy join by making wee slits in the ends of both of your strips of yarn and threading one through the other.
Any links to inspring designers using knit or exciting use of alternative materials with knit?