Week 1 !

Welcome to Week 1 of my senior project. For my project, I am doing various crafting projects. I am knitting, crocheting, making jewelry, and embroidering. I chose to do this project because I wanted to do a project where I could work with my hands and be away from screens. During quarantine, I started making a lot of jewelry and found it to be a very calming and relaxing activity. I've also always found crafts to be very peaceful to do, so I wanted to expand on my crafting skills by learning a few new ones during my senior project. I have never done any knitting, crochet, or embroidery, and I thought it would be fun to learn. Another part of criteria for my project was being able to work on something anywhere, particularly being outside.


My inspiration was seeing my friends and family experiment with knitting and crochet, and also having a positive experience with jewelry making. I saw a lot of trends on social media that I thought I could expand on to create small goals each week. Each week, I am tackling a new craft. To generate ideas, I researched each craft and talked to people in my life who have experience in each area. Every Monday, I go to Michaels to get all the supplies I need and reach out to experts in the topic. My goals are to complete all my deliverables to the best of my ability and learn from people around me.


This week, I was knitting. Going into knitting, I thought it would be easier than it turned out to be. My deliverables were a hand knitted blanket and a needle stitched oven mitt. I had read that hand knitting was a good way to start learning the motions of knitting, which I found to be true. I also found it to very time consuming and I had to restart a few times due to errors. So far, I think that there is as very large learning curve to knitting. Once you get the hang of it, it is very easy, but it can take awhile to get there. After finishing my hand-knitted blanket, I moved onto using needles. Below is the first few rows of the blanket and the final product.




This was SO frustrating. I spent around four hours watching videos trying to cast on and start the first row, but it wasn't working. I realized that I am at a disadvantage being left-handed as most of the videos on knitting are modeled on the right hand side. Luckily there are a few videos for left-handed people, and those were pretty helpful. After shedding a few tears and throwing the needles on the ground a few times, I am starting to get it. I might choose to devote a few extra days on knitting so I can get a better grasp of the skill, but we will see. The photo below is one of the multiple tries of doing the first row.

Here is the link to the Youtube Playlist I have created where I am adding every video that I use to learn from.



Comments

  1. I echo Jim's comment that this is a great antidote to being on screens all day. You can even knit through zoom meetings! Keep it up and have fun trying out different crafts.

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  2. I think your blog sounds like a good cable TV show! Hey, thanks for sharing the playlist! It's inspiring.

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  3. This is cool Julia. I also got into crocheting and jewelry making since quarantine started it’s a lot of fun!

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  4. Hi Julia! That video experience sounds very frustrating. I’m glad it worked out that blanket look very cozy

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  5. This looks like a fun project! I've never knit before, maybe I should give it a try...

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  6. Wow. It looks really cool and it sounds like such a fun and creative project!

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  7. That sounds so frustrating julia! They all look so cool though! You will be a great knitter!

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  8. You are so talented, Julia!

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  9. Incredible work Julia. I'm looking forward to keeping up with you crafts!

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