Conductive Yarn Used for Cool Gadget Interactions

We all love our gadgets, but there’s something kind of cold and impersonal about using them. Touching a screen or flipping a switch isn’t very soul-satisfying, but as knitters we know that connecting with yarn is.

Those two things — fiber and technology — might not seem to go together, but they do for Royal College of Art student Yen Chen Chang, who has developed gadgets that use conductive yarn as part of their means of operation.

There’s a juicer that works when two people squeeze a giant knit ball (pictured here), a fan that works by petting a patch of knit carpet that looks like grass and a light that dims when you pull on a knit chain.

None of these projects are likely to hit mass production, but they do offer an interesting perspective on our everyday lives and how we interact with machines. Wouldn’t it be nice if some of those things could be a little warmer and fuzzier?

Check out more on this project, including a video of the machines in use, at Wired.

[Photo by Yen Chen Chang, via Wired.]

Next Pattern:

As I write this, it’s probably time to start thinking about winter knitting if you haven’t already. And it’s definitely time to think about gift knitting if you have any of that you plan to do for the holidays.

The Dreamy Waves Scarf from Knit Picks, designed by Stacey Winklepleck, would be a great project to go in either category.

It uses two different multicolored yarns and a simple repeating wave pattern to make a project that looks a lot more complicated and dramatic than it is. The gradient look happens naturally just by switching which yarn you’re knitting with.

This pattern uses worsted weight yarn so it’s a pretty quick project even though a scarf is large and this one is pretty wide. It measures 8.5 inches (21.5 cm) wide and 63 inches or 120 cm long. Of course you can make it longer or shorter as you like. As written it takes one ball of each color so it’s a pretty economical project, too.

It’s rated for intermediate knitters but if you know how to do various increases and decreases you’ll be all set. The pattern uses knit 2 together, make 1 left and right, centered double decrease and slip slip knit. All of the stitches are explained in a glossary in the pattern so even if you haven’t done all of them it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

The pattern also includes tons of options for different colorways in yarn that Knit Picks sells, so you can see how different combinations knit up before you buy the yarn. That’s such a great idea!

Of course if you already have two multicolored yarns with long color runs on hand, you can absolutely use them, too. It might also be fun, but would give you a totally different look, to use a solid color and a bunch of scraps or one multicolored yarn to see how the different colors play together. So many options!

You can grab this free pattern and check out all the color options at Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks]

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