Dye Kitchen

Ive decided for this project to dye my own yarns, ive chosen to use combed cotton as i wanted to use a yarn i hadn't used much before.

With the advise of Yasmin we decided for the colours i wanted it would be good to try the cold dyes, which i hadn't ever used. 

The first colour i wanted to get was a florescent so i mixed lime green and some yellow together to get the colour i wanted.

With the cold dyes you have to have the dye with salt into the water all measured out, then add the yarn leave for half an hour stirring occasionally once the half an hour is up remove the yarn from the dye bath and add the measured soda ash which is a fixative, wait until that dissolves and add the yarn back into the dye for another half an hour and then wash.

 Below are the colours fresh out of the dye ready to be washed 

 The grey was a little more blue than i wanted but i am still happy with the final colours 

I really liked doing the cold dyes and i think I'm going to try this process with some wool and also a thicker cotton 

Below are the final colour that ive put onto cones ready to knit, i may have to double up the cotton to use for some double bed knitting but i am also going to order some thicker cotton to dye as well, as this cotton is a little to fine for what i want to do but i should of tested it before i dyed it all but i can still use it for some single bed knitting.

Hanks

For this project i have chosen to use cotton yarn for my jumper and also i've decided to dye my own yarns which i haven't done in a while. 

Im dying three different colours 

One Lime ( florescent ) and very pale pink and a light grey from my new colour palette

Drawing

In my tutorial with Grainne i said to her how i felt lost and a bit like i had run out of puff and didn't know where i was going with anything, other than the fact i knew i wanted to make jumpers for my final collection.  

Grainne never fails to really see where i am enjoying myself and where i am not which for me is the most helpful as it points out to me where i should be going and continuing, she could see that i wasn't enjoying the 'drawing'. 

With the suggestion of making life size paper jumpers and drawing directly onto them i found my spark again and found this process really helpful

Doing this helped me to think about proportions and designs which along side drawing i could run to my knitting machine when an idea came and try it out straight away

Jumper making

For our final university project i decided i would like to learn to make some garment so i went with the idea of making a collection of jumpers

To make my jumpers ive used designaknit at university which you can put in measurements etc to get the size jumper you would like, and also type so cardigan / sweater or if you would like a round neck or v neck. 

For this first sample jumper i decided on a sweater with ribs and a rounded neckline and i am using black acrylic yarn, i have chosen to use acrylic yarn as it makes for a softer garment and also a thicker fabric compared to the lambs wool which i normally use. 

It didnt take me long to knit the pieces for the jumper which i was surprised about, i then decided to come home and link the jumper together as it makes for a better finish then sewing.

I had to learn as i went with this as i had never made a jumper so figuring out how each piece went to together took a bit longer for me but now i know i will know for when it comes to making the final jumpers 

I had to learn how to attach a neckline rib which was a bit confusing but got there in the end. Below is what i did first and it looks horrible, and above is the correct sample which has a nice clean edge to it.

Development

Recently i had been really struggling with the project and didn't know where i was going with it /it wasn't going where i had expected it to go.

I had started with an image of what i wanted my final project to look like, which is always a bad idea as i get disappointed when it isn't working out like i wanted. 

i started with looking at colour blocking and did some drawings to relate to this, they were ok but not where i wanted them to go as they began to look quite retro which wasn't what i wanted.  

With this i decided to start again and get new inspiration and set myself a colour palette. Doing this really helped me move forward and create some work i am really happy with.