Just Do Something

Wearablehug in use – Bamboo Aviator Hat

Nicki — Sun, 01 May 2016 23:47:44 +0000

As part of my final project I wanted to develop my spinning skills, throughout this unit I have been using wool, I decided to try spinning bamboo as it doesn’t contain lanolin and can be quite slippery and difficult to spin increasing my skill base. Also to try experimenting with fibres that are kind to skin and suitable for allergy suffers.

I spun a single yarn and dyed the yarn using acid dyes, creating a beautifully silky black yarn and knitted the yarn into an Aviator hat as I wanted to use the hat when driving .

This hat was very popular I have orders for 1 more hat and an order for more bamboo yarn for a customer to knit the hat herself.

Dyeing handspun yarn

Nicki — Sat, 30 Apr 2016 22:01:48 +0000

As part of this final unit I wanted to experiment dyeing my had spun yarn, felting of the yarn during the process was an issue with one particular batch of yarn , initially I thought this would make the yarn unsuitable but it created an amazing structural piece.

I spun a second batch of yarn and tried again ……… this time dip dyeing the yarn ….

Wearable hugs

Nicki — Sat, 30 Apr 2016 21:22:43 +0000

I wanted to continue to develop my spinning skills into the last unit but wasn’t sure how to make this part of my unit, I decided to create yarns to crochet and knit into wraps, following my successful free form wrap created on homelessness.

What to call them ….. wearable hugs the name popped into my head as they would be warm and cosy , I wanted each one to feel like a warm cosy hug…..

I began to spin…….. creating yarns , what to do next with the yarns ? Wraps shawls hats gloves anything that I felt was warm and cosy…….

Examples of some of my wearable hugs

Some smaller hugs …..

Future development….

Spin yarn – measure using wraps per inch – crochet /knit tension square- calculate yardage to ensure I don’t run out of yarn

?? Develop patterns to make kits enabling e to sell yarn and pattern …

Woolly Well-Being Workshop

Nicki — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 17:02:23 +0000

To support my research for my dissertation I decided to facilitate a Woolly Well- Being Workshop, creating a large piece of knitting that would enable a large group of knitters to knit from the same piece of knitting all at the same time.

I created a piece of machine knitting with multiple legs that would enable each knitter to pick up the stitches and to continue knitting from the end of the’ knitted leg’ , no restriction were placed on the knitters such as colour or size of needle or yarn thickness. The workshop was about having fun and enjoying the process.

The beginning … The middle ……….

IMG_1917 Click on the link to see a short film of the knitting in progress

The day was very successful, each knitter was asked to complete a label to attach to their knitting and a subsequent label on how they felt knitting improved their wellbeing.

The end ………..

The workshop went well, I think all the participants enjoyed themselves, next time the knitted legs could be made longer to prevent back ache!

Each label was removed from the knitting and collated into a small book alongside the second label containing the participants views on how knitting has helped their wellbeing. This book contains a snapshot of each person, this outcome was not the intentional product but I think is a more valuable resource than the piece of knitting. This event created a valuable research resource for my dissertation.

Book

Learning to take forward…

Look at the incidental outcomes , this can be a more valued resource than the initial intended outcome.

Using a variety of mediums to record events (need to develop film editing skills)