Crochet Balls in a tea pot.

Is it the time to tidy up my studio?

Learning the domestic knitting machine

I took an induction on knitting machines last year, but had few hand knitting projects going on so I didn't get that into it. Actually, that was a little lie there, the real reason why I didn't get into it was because I found it so damn hard! As quite skilled hand knitter it was very frustrating to try to work out the machine as the result of the samples weren't tidy or beautiful. It is more difficult to control the piece of knitting when you are working on a machine, than if you have them on your hands. Imagine you have 70 stitches on the needles of your hand knitting, when using a machine, these 70 stitches are on all individual needles and when the knit feeder goes trough them, they all push forward and open up to take on the new loops. In this process if the yarn is wrong size, or if any of the setting of the machine has set wrong, it drops out the stitches, and that makes the machine user in less of control.

In machine knitting it is important that everything is set up right. The yarn size, threading has to be set right, casting on has to be done in the right way, the buttons has to be in the right position and the speed and the pressure has to be controlled when pushing the feeder trough the bed of the needles. It is definitely wrong to say that knitting with domestic machine would be cheating, as there is as much to learn as in hand knitting. After learning the methods and developing a relationship (and some patience) it is very rewarding and saves you time.

I have been using domestic machine "Zippy Plus" (a japanese beauty) at the university. I was stuck with my work for a while, but then decided that now is the perfect time to learn what there is to learn about the knitting machine. And that did get me back into work and I am very enthusiastic again. I feel so much happier that I am accomplishing a new area in knitting. The technician (Sue) at the Knitting room has been very helpful-what a cool job she has "Knitting technician"! It is good that she is helping me and telling me what there is to learn before I will buy my own machine.

In the single bed domestic knitting machine I have been learning the following stitches and functions: Fair isle (the colorful patterns), Tuck stitch (the blue and the ochre color samples) and lace. I am very interested to learn cable as well, but I will have to wait until next week as I am going to London tomorrow!

Knitted Roll Performance

Dear Readers,

A couple of weeks ago I gathered some of my fellow students for a performance. I used the knitted Roll, which has been mentioned in the Post on Friday 9th October 2009 and Monday 18th January 2010. I have been receiving few strips for the knitted Roll from some lovely knitters. Unfortunately I have been having some problems uploading my images to the blogger, so I am sorry for the delay of the images. These images are taken by Elizabeth (thank you Elizabeth), I will probably add the images which I have taken later as well.

This project is still going on, as long as we can complete a whole mile worth of knitting. So I will still happily receive more strips.

That Monday was a lot of fun, but very cold standing outside, when we were doing the performance.

I would like to give special thanks for the following people:

1. Assistant of the project:

Caiti Berry

Cameras:

Elizabeth Ralph

Valpuri Vihriala

Video Cameras:

Richard Howe

Knitters:

Odacascat

Molly the woodtagger

Valpuri Vihriala

Jesus Masso Valdes

Justyna Stula

Roll Models:

Gaz Travis

Eddie Williams

Georgie Dixon

Marcin Wozniak

Runa Begum

Laura Burke

Ryan Higgins

Helen Austin

Kay Woodley

Miriam Baynes

Daniel Watson

Samantha Kelly

Olivia Glasser

James Moffat

Sakis Caramanlis

Rhys Fagan

Patrick Mcguire

Without you I could have not make the performance happen. Now I am thinking more things to do with the Roll, and of course grow it, suggestions are welcome.

With Love

Purlpuri

Whoa!

Check this out, it is amazing. I have been feeling a little bit stuck lately with my work. The best cure for that is to research and look for an inspiration, and this one was pretty much the highlight of my day!

Back to life!

Ok, christmas is over and the snow what was first so nicely treating Manchester, before it turned to mush and then horrible ice, where you couldn't even walk on, is gone. It is time to get back to work and produce things again. I have been knitting a jumper and the sequin leggins are ready, altought they need some adjustments. Few things needs to be photographed and then I can update the blog with new lovely images again.

To remind you about the knitted roll project, I will put up few images about a little performance I did with it. It is a while ago, but I realized that I have not shared these images with you, so I may as well.

I hope you all had a good christmas and new years eve! My solutions is to work hard, eat well and try to take everything out of these coming months!

Drawings

Recently I have been taking on drawing again. I think every artists should keep up with their drawing skills as it does fade away when its not practiced regularly. I noticed that my skills are a bit rusty after a long period of focusing on learning different mediums. It is weird how I have been studying art at the university for several years now and actually haven't practiced drawing. It seems that many artists have taken drawing back in to their practice. I have always enjoyed drawing and I am glad that I started it properly again. Many of the drawings I show in this post are based on things what I seem to "doodle" on the corner of notes in the lectures or other things I draw when I am just passing time. I have plans to print these on fabric with silk screen, pillow cases maybe,-saying this I have just revealed what my christmas presents to some people might be, but I hope they are so good that it wont matter that I spoiled the surprise!

Here I want to put a comment what my tutor said which was : "It is a little bit like knitting". It has been very time consuming and detailed, but that seems to be the thing I love doing.