knitting

knitting

Knit the National – Bollard Creations Competition | National Folk Festival | Every Easter in Canberra

Knit the National – Bollard Creations Competition | National Folk Festival | Every Easter in Canberra

Knit the National is a new project to decorate the National Folk Festival Site in 2015. Part of this initiative was the successful CD weaving project at Floriade earlier this year. They have decided to take it up a notch with the Bollard Creations Competition.

the website has more info on the competition including the Bollard dimensions

via http://folkfestival.org.au/knit-the-national-bollard-creations-competition

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a spoonful of threads

I made a knitted spoon for the upcoming "Spoons!" exhibition at The Slow Club. It’s called "A Spoonful of Threads" (original name was "nice and slow"). I was thinking of a slow / handmade theme – slow baking, stitching, knitting. I was going to do stitching but ended up knitting. it's using three stitches — knit, purl and knit-from-behind, in random order to give the holes some texture. the wooden spoon is made of birch wood and I used red embroidery thread. it was a short callout—so I made it over the weekend. the exhibition runs from May 12-24th.

The Slowclub has since changed names to The Snug.

here’s the flyer for the Spoons! exhibition (when still called The Slowclub)

here is the call for submissions & here is the event page.

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green beanie

green beanie. greanie.

 

this is a Jo Sharp beanie:

 


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the knitted stitch

20090314_closeup_knitting, originally uploaded by AliaK

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The Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

The Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef - In the interest of contributing to the world wide phenomenon initiated by The Institute For Figuring, In Stitches Collective is facilitating the creation of a Sydney Coral Reef. We invite you to participate in this woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and craft, a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.

The reef was inspired by geometric models of hyperbolic space, originally developed by mathematician Dr Daina Taimina in 1997, using the art of crochet. Until that time most mathematicians had believed it was impossible to construct physical models of hyperbolic forms, yet nature had been doing just that for hundreds of millions of years. It turns out that many marine organisms embody hyperbolic geometry, among them kelps, corals, sponges and nudibranchs. The IFF reef not only looks like an actual coral reef, it draws on the same underlying geometry endemic in the oceanic realm.

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urban knitting - graffiti knitting

deputy-dog blog has posted an article about urban / graffiti knitting & the knitta please crew who do graffiti knitting around their towns. check out the tree cosies below

Knitta began in August 2005, when the soon-to-be-Knittas were discussing their frustration over unfinished knitting projects: half-knitted sweaters and balls of yarn gathering dust. That afternoon, they knit their first door handle. Then it dawned on them ... a tag crew of knitters, bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings. With a mix of clandestine moves and gangsta rap - Knitta was born! Today, Knitta is a group of ladies of all ages, nationalities, and ... gender.

there's a video of them on youtube :
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=9wVfUwVQhS8

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Frances Goodman's Sculptures - Toilet Graffiti Embroideries

- thanks Avital for the links!

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craftzine.com has a cool Motherboard Dishtowel Embroidery article - embroidery of motherboard circuit boards

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Lion Brand Yarn Studio looks like a great space! I love their stash shelves - they're like an artwork in themselves, and functional too

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knitting links

knitting resources and links

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knitty (online) magazine
http://knitty.com

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online knit communities

knit-list
wooly thoughts yahoogroup
wooly thoughts site
subversive yarn

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knitted toys

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/knitlist/message/90742
Squid Hat
Chicken hat
Knit Spider
Knit Veggies
Knit Dinos
Jess Hutchison - Her pattern booklet is fantastic!! but now out of print (i have a copy)

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first of squarey's arms



080620081165, originally uploaded by AliaK.

one of Squarey's arm - I finally worked out how to knit in the round using 3 double point needles. so Amelie's toy squarey is almost finished! one more arm + 2 legs + a face to go. whew, it's only been knitted in almost 2 years and 6 countries - Australia, New Zealand, UK, Israel, Turkey, India. I almost thought she'd be a teenager before I finished it..

I think this could be used to make fingers for gloves too

08/06/2008

080620081165

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this is what squarey looks like when he's finished - it's a Jess Hutchison (Jess Hutch) pattern from her book "Unusual Toys For You to Knit and Enjoy"
the below picture is Jess' squarey. the one I'm making has yellow instead of green (and there's a few more imperfections but I'm sure he'll still look cute) I'll post pictures when I've finished him

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesshutch/51386088

http://www.jesshutch.com/2005/10/booklette.html

http://www.flickr.com/groups/99032870@N00/pool is a Jess Hutch flickr pool which has other examples of her patterns that others have knitted

if only I wasn't allergic to wool - itchy!!

08/06/2008 update : ok I've finished all the pieces - just need to sew him up and add the stuffing and sew his face
I'll move his arms down to the stripes position like in the pattern - not like in the photo below

he's finished!

Amelie's knitted toy - Squarey - he's been knitted in 6 countries over 2 years. he's a Jess Hutch pattern
finished 04/10/2008

Amelie's knitted toy - Squarey - he's been knitted in 6 countries over 2 years - Australia, New Zealand, India, Israel, UK, Turkey. I almost thought he was going to be a 21st present for Amelie! Amelie is my friend's little girl - I found out she was pregnant whilst overseas, so started knitting a toy whilst my friend was pregnant - before I knew whether she was a girl or a boy. my friend chose the colours - she wouldn’t tell any of us whether she was having a girl or a boy. I finished Squarey just before meeting Amelie for the first time after I’d moved back home. she calls him “Mr Square”

he's a Jess Hutch pattern : Squarey from "Unusual Toys for You to Knit and Enjoy" - by Jess Hutchison
finished 04/10/2008




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Miss Deaths Knitting Group

Miss Deaths Knitting Group

Do you want to learn how to knit, crochet and any other craft? Or you just want to come along for a social? For the new ladies who are coming for the first time bring a friend.

Boys are welcome as long as they do a craft or something useful

Sunday 18th May
Mu-Meson Archives

Time 4pm
Cost Bring a plate

http://www.mumeson.org

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The History of Guerilla Knitting session by Rose White at Chaos Communication Congress

"Guerrilla knitting" has a couple of meanings in the knitting community - to some, it merely means knitting in public, while to others, it means creating public art by knitted means.

Rose White from yarnivore spoke at The History of Guerilla Knitting session at the 24th Chaos Communication Congress in 2007 in Berlin on day 3 - 29/12/2007. a torrent video can be downloaded of the session. (open the video in VLC if you don't have another video player that can play the .mkv video file). The Chaos Communication Congress is organised by the Chaos Computer Club, Europe's largest hacker group, founded in 1981.

Rose gave a brief history of knitting, and some of the myths held over the years about the foundations and age of knitting. She compares knitting with computer hacking referring to proprietary knowledge, pattern making, knitting guilds. Also about the commercialisation and control of patterns prior to 1960s and subsequently by Knitting pattern books and yarn companies who controlled the market

Elizabeth Zimmermann who in the 1960s generated generic pattern books which broke out of the usual mold of patterns requiring a yarn makers yarn to make the pattern correctly. Effectively she made knitting open source again! She had a TV show in the USA which brought her style of knitting to the public, and she ran knitting camps to teach others.

Rose also mentioned KnitML, the knitting XML code specification which is being introduced to standardise knitting patterns and terminology.

"The KnitML Project's main goal is to develop and promote adoption of a standard content model for knitting patterns. By developing a community-supported specification (KnitML) and providing basic rendering and transformation tools, the KnitML Project aims to make KnitML easy to use and valuable to the knitter."

Questions were raised also about knitting (patterns) and Creative Commons licencing. many patterns are not available to be used as they are still covered by US copyright so are still unavailable to the public.

Rose talks about giving back the creative power to the knitter - to allow them to modify the patterns, or not make the project exactly as per the pattern. even changing the colours used in an accompanying photo of a finished pattern is a stretch for some knitters!

Rose says, "over the past 30 years or so, there have been different individuals who have contributed to this geekier, more hands on approach to knitting - wresting it out of the control of commercial enterprises. this leads us to guerilla knitting in the end."

Barbara Walker - Rose referred to her as "a knitting engineer". "she wrote 4 books of stitch patterns, where she knitted swatches, and dissected them and included written instructions on how to knit them - stitch by stitch. and she also developed a charting system, so that next to the swatch there would be a grid showing you how to do it in pictures, so that, you didn't even have to speak her language to do it. so that many of these knitting patterns were available, not just to English speakers, but to anyone who could pick them up and look at them. so this enormous dissemination of knowledge occurred when she started doing that."

Debbie New - who creates "labyrinth knitting" and wrote a book called Unexpected Knitting, which includes experimental knitting patterns including her swirl, sculptural, free-form, swatchless, labyrinth, cellular automaton, virtual and ouroborus knitting techniques.

also featured was Dave Cole and his knitted lead teddy bears and giant outdoor knitting using cranes and telephone poles as knitting needles to knit the American Flag at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

the Simply Crafted website also lists some of these knitting pioneers as well as some freeform fibre (knitting & crocheting) artists such as Prudence Mapstone

also mentioned was the new Ravelry site - a social networking site for crafters, knitters and fibre artists, where they can "Organize projects, stash, needles, and more" & "Show off your work. Share your ideas and techniques." & "discover. Find new designs & yarns. Make friends. Try new things." the site is only open in beta stages at the moment. aso of today, they send out 500 - 800 invitations daily and there are currently 6,193 people waiting for their invites, so the site is in demand!

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a simple knitted Ada Deitz polynomial equation

Dan sent me an invite to the Open Source Embroidery facebook group. their website is www.open-source-embroidery.org.uk. I haven't tried embroidery since I was a child, and I don't remember being that good at it, but it sounds like a good project. so I thought I'd post info / photos my knitted polynomial bag. (even though it's not as nice / perfect as some of the other online examples!!) when I was a child I used to do lots of crafts and was always making things. I had a resurgence of this about a year ago. it feels good to make things with your hands, especially little presents for people. so I've been (very slowly) working on hand made things. I find it's better than buying something, though it does tend to take me longer to finish things these days!

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mathematical knitting

knitting patterns have a certain mathematical quality to them. knitting is basically a binary system - knit & purl stitches. so it's possible to knit binary sequences, letters eg convert the letters to ascii hex, then binary - some people knit their names as signatures in their work.

people knit in fibonacci sequences and end up with patterns and colours / stripes that somehow seem natural, just as the fibonacci sequences showing up so much in nature.

so I'm keeping a list of some patterns and urls for sites on logical / mathematical knitting.

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there's also the crocheting - such as the hyperbolic plane crocheted recently by Daina Taimina as a way to describe it physically. I need to practice crocheting though, so will stick to knitting for a while

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craftster.org

Craftster is a forum for people who love to make things but who are not inspired by cross-stitched home sweet home plaques and wooden boxes with ducks in bonnets painted on... If you've been known to run with scissors, you can break the rules of crafting with your fellow rebel DIY'ers there!

knitted recycled converse shoes

I just came across this article whilst reading some rss feeds. BlueAndRedCows on the craftster.org message board has posted a pattern for knitting converse shoes. apparently her old ones broke, so she replaced the fabric/canvas upper shoe with a knitted piece. they look great!! and seem to be really popular on the site also. Boing Boing's just posted an article about them also so I guess they'll be really popular soon!

it's great to see hand made / craft items being made, especially when recycling your favourite pair of shoes. I had a pair of converse boots when I was younger and I used to love those shoes. I bought another of the shoe type connies a couple of years ago but they were ruined once when they got too wet so I had to throw them out (couldn't get rid of the smell :( )

here's some photos of the final product. below is the pattern in case it's removed from the forum.
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=120442.msg1154164#msg1154164 is the url of the original forum message if you want to read the whole thread.

read more to see the pattern

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