Translating Ideas into Knit

In order to move forward with my work this week I started by scanning my drawings, zooming into areas, rearranging and deconstructing them to produce new compositions. This method was useful when generating ideas for knit as I could concentrate on the key areas of my drawings, highlighting the significant parts that successfully represent my concept.

 In addition to this I created carefully constructed knit ideas to help me with the knitting process, labelling them appropriately with what techniques I intended on using for that specific sample. Planning ahead proved useful when knitting as I already made informed decisions in terms of proportion and colour, which resulted in using my time efficiently.

 I have decided to emphasise on creating a textural surface on my knit samples in order to interpret the visualisation of sound, producing loud and lively samples as a means of translating concept into process, whilst the subtle colours will reflect upon the quiet and subconscious aspects of my concept. E-wrapping is a technique that I have incorporated in order to achieve a textured surface as I have been using a mohair yarn for volume and mercerised cotton for a sharp injection of colour.    

Background colour knitted with own dyed yarn

I received the feedback that the man-made acrylic yarns that I used last week were too dull for the standard and vibrancy of colour in my sketchbook. This week I have only worked with cotton, wool and mohair in order to succeed in attaining a more desirable quality of colour. 

I wanted to experiment with dyeing my own yarn to see if I could create an accurate colour that related to my drawings. The lambs wool that I used absorbed the dye well however produced a slightly more purple shade of blue than I was hoping for, and the dip dyed pink needed longer in the dye bath in order to form a brighter colour. As I started to work with my dyed yarns I felt that they did not epitomise my colour palette, therefore I decided to foil my yarn in an attempt to make them more interesting and relatable to my work.     

I propose to refine my colour choices once again in the coming weeks as I discovered from editing the samples on photoshop that I need to further intensify the colours that I choose to knit with. I have learnt that I need to make important decisions based on both yarn quality and colour in order to create successful samples that fully represent my work. In order to obtain accurate colours I have sourced my own bright pink and blue yarns that relate to my colour palette. 

I found that Ashley Golderg's work related well with how I design my knit samples, using block colours to create an interesting pattern and contrasting light and dark colours in order to have a satisfying balance of colour proportion.