A MONSTER AND MATH AMONG US!

Yay!  I accomplished my first yarn bomb project.  I successfully bombed a tree on campus without much notice.  Good thing my dogs were good decoys. 

I’ve read that there are two ways to yarn bomb.  One is to know what you are going to tag and do the measuring beforehand and the other is to make something and find the right size object to tag.  Since I wasn’t really sure where to begin, I chose to sit and knit and picture where I would like to place my finished project.

While creating this piece, I was also learning a new stitch, which involves creating fast increases and fast decreases to form a bubble on the surface of the knitting.  I wanted to space these out in a pattern, so I had to count my stiches and do the math to figure out where I would place them.  I wanted them to be offset, so I had to do the math there too in order to have the bubbles scattered across my sample equally.

I also wanted to place three monster claws on the bottom of my swatch, which required dividing my stitch count by 3 in order to equally space my them.

Once completed, I measured my swatch lying on a flat surface.  It was approximately 11”.  I had read that a good tag fits snuggly on the object in order to not flop and drop and sit securely.  As I was walking to campus, I stopped when I noticed a small tree I thought might be a good fit.  I measured the base of the trunk and it was just over 12”.   I then wrapped my sample around the trunk and it was a perfect fit – snug enough to stretch and grab tightly.

Feeling a bit more confident that I knew what I was doing, I walked on campus to the edge of the woods seeking a similar size tree trunk, visible from the walking path but also “hidden” enough that I could easily complete my tag in broad daylight.

Nervously I bent over and began to whip stitch the ends together using the long tail from the top and the bottom.  (I had left enough yarn at the beginning and the end of my swatch, having done the math to know how much yarn would be needed to sew my swatch to the tree.)  I had just enough to secure the sample, stretched just enough to fit tightly around the tree trunk.

Hooray!  The math prep enabled me to create an interesting and successful tag.  Now on to my next tag.  Stay tuned. 

HOW KNITTING FAILS WHEN YOU DON’T TO THE MATH!

A few weeks ago, I realized I was behind in getting a start on a baby gift.  I rifled through my yarn stash and found a skein I thought would suit the pattern.  In my haste to begin, I DID NOT do a swatch, I DID NOT check my gauge, and I DID NOT check my needle size.   I began knitting along, only paying attention math wise, to increases and decreases and number of stitches on my needles.    About half way in, I stopped to really take a look at what I was creating.  Boy, did I wish I had done the math!  My sweater that was intended to fit a 9 month old, would probably fit a 10 year old!  Rats.  I was forced to frog the whole piece.  (Rip it, rip it, rip it.) 

I learned my lesson.  My second attempt involved making swatches and testing needle size.  The important thing to always remember in knitting is to think of the ratio of the thickness of the yarn to the size of the needle.  Make a swatch, count your stitches and compare that result to the recommend stitches per inch on the pattern and then make adjustments, if necessary.

While I always try to look at the cup half full, I sure wish I hadn’t wasted my time by not doing the math.  Winter is coming.

Think Tank(top) - Part 2

After several weeks, I have finally finished my first full-knit garment. As mentioned in an earlier post, I have been working on the Beach Tank pattern by Jess Schreibstein. I initially began the tank top as a summer challenge. The top was intended to be an ideal knit for warmer weather. I chose to knit the piece with hemp so that it would be light and airy, and the finished pattern - mostly stockinette - would add style to any Beach Babe outfit (after all, it is the Beach Tank).  

The finished Beach Tank with high-low hem. 

"What took you so long? What could be tricky about a tank top?" you ask. In my imagination, I would whip up this garment in a few days, but as you probably can imagine, the project was not a piece of cake. 

The pattern appeared to be within my knitting skill range, but I did not anticipate a few of the challenges that arose along the path to completion. In particular, I was not aware that I would have so much variability in my tension. I have not experienced issues with tension since my earliest days of knitting. This variability led to two the creation of two tank top components of different size; even though I had used the same materials and the same needles, the front of the tank top was smaller than the back. Gauge can be fickle. The math is reliable, but sometimes, the crafter is not. 

I sat in my living room, looking at the two problematic tank top pieces. The edges did not line up. I thought back to all of the places I had carried these materials: Indiana, Illinois, Oregon, California. These materials were with me as a I stressfully waited for my airplane to arrive at O'Hare and also as I calmly observed the Cascades, just outside of Eugene. In these moments of reflection, it occurred to me that the context in which I had knitted the different sides of the tank top had varied, and this variation in context could have led to variation in tension. There is some humor in this reflection. Who else can look at a knitted piece and identify the rows that were more cathartic and perhaps less meditative? Can you look closely at the last cowl you made and find the point at which you changed location (mentally or physically) in your knitted project? 

The high-low hem is visible at the end of the seam. 

The two knitted pieces flew with me across the U.S., bundled in my backpack until I arrived in Bloomington, IN, where I could stop in Yarns Unlimited for some fiber art expertise. One knitter at the shop listened to my story about the two tank top pieces and responded in an "it's no problem" tone that caught me off guard. I had been worried that I would need to reknit one complete side of the tank, but this knitter communicated that there almost always exists a way to incorporate mistakes into the complete project. We measured the sides of the tank top, and she then suggested that I seam the sides to make a high-low hem. I had never heard of this type of hem, but I did recognize the idea once she explained. She then showed me how to seam the two sides of the tank top together from the inside. Lastly, I completed the i-cord straps and wove in the ends. 

I-cord straps weave in on both sides.  

Yarn Bombs

Have you noticed trees in your community that are wrapped in yarn. Or a light post that wears a sweater? How about a bike rack, adorned with granny squares? 

What is going on there?  Two words: Yarn Bomb

Yarn bombing, otherwise known as graffiti knitting, is a form of street art through which an artist covers an object or space with knitted or crocheted pieces. This "kniffiti" can be traced back to Houston, TX, where the movement began in the early 2000s. A group of six artists collectively began to cover objects in the city with yarn. They called themselves Knitta, Please. Though this group has since dissolved, one member - Magda Sayeg - continues to cover her world in wool. In fact, many people look to Magda as the leader of the global yarn bomb movement.

Yarn bombers are percolating in crafting communities (and actual communities) worldwide. Like other forms of street art, the yarn bombers often use the material as a medium though which to fire up conversations about controversial topics. For example, one group of artists in California has been working on an environmental textile project titled There Is A River Here, which serves to draw awareness to healthy and vitality of the Santa Ana River. 

It is interesting to note the contrast between harsh nature of hard-to-talk-about topics and the softness of natural fibers. In some ways, wool is nearly limitless*. Further, we tend to conceptualize bombs as destructive, eradicative creations, but it seems that yarn bombs function exactly oppositely. Yarn bombs are constructive and hold presence without requiring permanence. 

Over the next few weeks, I will be taking a closer look at the practice of yarn bombing. In particular, I will be exploring the mathematics, collaborative design, and engineering involved in these wooly wonders. Quite frankly, how does an artist figure out how to cover a curvy park bench in a nicely-fitting sweater? 

*Note: Different than this form of limitless.

Think Tank(top) - Part I

As summer comes to a close and the time for those beloved, warm wooly materials approaches (woo!), I realize that my days are numbered for lightweight yarns and bare arms. It so happens that this is also the time I begin to think about tank tops. 

Specifically, I am curious about the construction of a tank top - the garment architecture, if there were such a term. What is the foundation of a tank top? Is this the sensible starting point for a new garment maker (me)? Is sensibility important in knitting? 

How difficult would it be to knit a tank top? 

Observation-inspired

This tank-top-thinking was further inspired by a recent trip to Knit One in Pittsburgh, PA, where I observed Kylen - master knitter and manager of the shop - knitting a tank. At first, I couldn't quite identify what she was making. I knew the mystery piece was not a scarf, but I could also see that the project was not being knitted in the round. She told me that she was knitting a tank top. Specifically, she was working through the Beach Tank pattern by Jess Schreibstein. 

Kylen used two lightweight yarns instead of a single yarn, so her project was two-colored and textured. I was interested in the way that the colors looked together; the dual yarns added a dimension to the stockinette stitches that I really liked, both tactually and visually. 

(It is also interesting to note the way that observations of knitters by knitters during yarn shop visits often inspire future projects.)

Kylen showed me how to find the pattern on Ravelry and talked through color choices with me. We picked up many skeins of yarn and held different colors next to each other through the familiar pre-knit waltz around the yarn shop, which has become standard procedure for many of my knitting endeavors. Ultimately, I chose to use hemp, a natural fiber that is both lightweight and new to me.

The use of two colors in the Beach Tank pattern gives the knitted loops a textured, multi-chrome look.

Hemp hem

The pattern is knitted from bottom to top, so the cast-on stitches and first rows become the bottom of the garment. This bottom-to-top process of making was familiar to me, for hats are also knitted like this.

Note: I find that knitting, which is often a bottom-to-top endeavor, has changed the way I look at clothes, hats, scarves, and other handmade pieces. I now think through the form and construction of the piece, rather the the look alone, similarly to the way that an architect may look at and analyze a structure.

The first few rows of the garment gave me a feel for the hemp, which was a new material for me. The fibers do not expand in the same way that animal fibers do. I learned experientially that this fiber feature leads to more space between loops if the rows are not knitted tightly enough. Since I tend to be a loose knitter, I had to tink - or unknit - the hem after knitting a few rows and reknit with greater tension. It soon occurred to me that I needed to beware to knit much more tightly than usual if I wanted to end up with a garment that was not full of loose loops and therefore see-through.

In the beginning, I knitted loosely, which left too much space between knits and purls in the ribbed hemline.

Shipshape shaping

The Beach Tank pattern also introduced more complex shaping to my repertoire of skills. To clarify, shaping is the technical term for the use of increases and decreases to shape the a knitted fabric. Although previously-knitted hat patterns had included decreases, I had never thought through the steps involved in armhole and neckline shaping. The shaping in the Beach Tank involved a series of slipped stitches (SSK) and stitches knit together (K2tog). 

Decreases are used to shape the armholes of the Beach Tank. 

Instead of knitting in the round, the Beach Tank pattern calls for two separate pieces: a front and a back. As I worked through the shaping of the first main body piece, it was important to remember that I would be crafting a second piece that would need to be shaped in the same way. Therefore, it was crucial to check in occasionally and take note of the tension with which I was knitting. In retrospect, I should have been even more attentive to the similarities and differences in the creation of the two main body pieces. Look out for Part 2 in the Think Tank(top) series to see how things shaped up. 

YOU CAN TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS!

As a woman who has math and science anxiety, I still bristle when given a task involving these subjects.   What I realize now is that, under the right circumstances, I can get really excited when I learn something new and discover how things work. 

I am in the process of learning the Arduino coding system for Lilypad circuitry as well as creating beautiful cuffs and other wearable items that light up with LED lights, batteries and conductivethread. 

The design part is what I first love to tackle and peeks my interest the most.  I could spend hours on my drawings, choosing color combinations, carding the embroidery thread and mapping out the design.  I’ve taught myself several embroidery stitches (no fear there) in preparation for my most recent project.  I chose three LED colors to include in my cuff and diagramed the layout of lights, thread, snaps and battery.  I loved working on this hands-on project and seeing the pattern take shape and come into fruition. 

When the last thread was stitched, I couldn’t wait to snap the cuff together and see the lights light up.  Oops.  What happened?  The two red lights I had chosen were shining bright but the pink light flickered faintly and sometimes wouldn’t light up at all.  I checked my stitching circuitry and all was correct.   I then remembered that the pink lights don’t work well with warm colors.  Back to the drawing board.  I replaced the pink light and connected the LEDs with new thread.  Now none of the lights worked.  What had I don’t wrong?  I looked online for answers and couldn’t find any reason as to why my lights wouldn’t work.  I really took a good look at my stitching and circuitry and a light went off (figuratively speaking!)  I noticed that one of my short tails had wandered under another stitch which interfered with the circuit.  There it was – the problem.  As soon as I pulled the stitch out and clipped it shorter so as not to have this happen again, all the lights sparkled brightly!  Success at last.  I did notice that the one snap didn’t keep the battery stable so I added two small snaps on either side which seemed to make the connection stronger.
 

My next project was to create a simple t-shirt using the Lilypad.  The simple circuitry didn’t threaten me too much, but writing code – now that was another issue all together.   Thanks to my team Mishael and Sophia, I had the Arduino and Ardublock systems loaded and working on my computer.  I now had to tackle writing the code to make my three lights light up in the pattern I planned and make the buzzer play a little tune.  As the Ardublock program is visually based, I didn’t have too much of a problem working with this and really began enjoying playing around with different ideas for my light show that preceded the tune I wanted.  I couldn’t believe it, but I was really having some fun.  My design idea for the t-shirt was an old fashioned bicycle incorporating the Lilypad in the big wheel and the lights on the road leading to a buzzer in an old streetlight playing a tune.  It was quite simple to adjust the frequency for different notes, lengthen the duration the note played and upload it to Arduino.  I did have one difficulty in playing the tune.  We realized that a delay must be inserted between each note in order for the tune to play.   Once again, I was relieved and happy to see my ideas actually work and the tune play. 



 

Now I’m on to a more complicated solar panel powered sweatshirt.  Stay tuned for my progress and the big reveal of the design. 

LED Dress

For my final project I decided to do a dress with LED panels. There are two panels, each consisting of 34 colored LEDs and then one Lillypad with 9 white LEDs that blink very quickly in a circle. The two panels are mirror images of each other except the Lillypad one starts at the top and one starts at the bottom so when you turn them on together they “spin” opposite of each other.

The actually dress is just a simple cotton dress with a very mild shark bite hemline and a v-neckline. The Panels were made with a Pleather material so I also added a similar material to the sides and the straps. I also have a v-strap in the middle.

Before I could start the panels I needed to know how many LEDs one battery pack could support, the most I have connected to a single battery is 13, so I started at 8 and built up from there. I have a feeling you could add more than 13. Something that I did find out that was interesting was at first I had designed the dress with sections of blues and greens and then sections of red, yellow, and pink.

I had previous trouble with getting the pink to light up, and when I did the test of how many I could fit on one battery I did it with red, yellow and pink specifically to see if the pinks would work this time and they didn’t. So I changed my design to just be sections of blue and green, and then red and yellow. But, after talking to Sophia we started thinking that maybe the pink was actually considered a cool color. So then I did another test to see if I could group together pink, green and blue and it worked! So now I have one section on the panel that has the three colors.

My next problem I had to solve was how to attach the panels onto the dress. The problem is I wanted to hide the battery packs on the bottom so you would still have to have access to them. So my solution was Velcro. I sewed the rounded side of the panels to the dress and the middle point, but kept the top and the bottom points free then added a piece of Velcro to the panel and Velcro to the dress. Now it sticks to the dress while still allowing me to peel it back and add the batter when I need to. The other thing I did was slice a section of the side to secure the batteries for the Lillypad.

So that’s basically it, I think it turned out really well, I’m not sure how comfortable it would be to wear because of the battery packs sticking into you, but at least it looks cool!