Knitting

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Knitting Made Musical with Cyberknitics

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Cyberknitics translates the action of knitting into sound.Thanks to Make, I learned about this really cool project that Teresa Lamb made for her master’s thesis called Cyberknitics. She made a leather harness a knitter can wear as they knit, which also connects to the knitter’s arm and uses circuit boards to translate the movement of knitting into sound.

Here’s what that looks (and sounds) like:

[vimeo 165971570 w=600 h=350]

This is really cool, and would be interesting as a piece of performance art, or even just knitting for yourself and listening to the sound your knitting makes. Or how about outfitting a knit night full of knitters for a knitting symphony? How cool would that be?

Here’s what she says about the project:

Cyberknitics is the study of the relationship between craft, technology, and humans. Crafting is calming, healing, communal, expressive and empowering. It fills a basic human desire that transcends its utility. My work explores what it means to be a crafter now, and what it will mean in the future.

This is really fascinating to me and I’d love to try it out myself. What about you? What do you think your knitting sounds like?

[Photo via Teresa Lamb.]

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Comments

  1. Will the sound patterns change with different movements, such as purling, yarn over, double decreases, cabling, and psso, for example?

Have you read?

Practice Colorwork on a Cute Knit Bunny

Sometimes I feel like knitters get intimidated to try new things because they think they need to start with a big project. Your first time working in the round doesn’t need to be a sock, and your first colorwork doesn’t need to be a sweater, for example. You can find little projects that use the skills you want to learn to build your confidence before you move on to something that requires more time commitment.

This adorable knit bunny, for example.

The colorwork bunny from Knit Picks was designed by Amy Munson and is a kind of bowling pin shaped bunny complete with a knit hat, contrasting inner ears and a little stranded colorwork on its body. Note that the ears are attached the the hat not the bunny, but you could stitch them to the bunny if you’d rather.

It’s worked from the bottom up and also has a tiny pompom tail you can’t see in the picture but it’s a really cute touch. There are a variety of little fair isle patterns to choose from to make the best bunny for you.

The bunny comes out about 8 inches tall (or just over 20 cm) and use several colors to complete the colorwork, depending on the design you choose.

You can purchase the pattern by itself from Knit Picks, or make a kit that includes sport weight yarn in all the colors you need for your creation. There are gray and brown options for the main body of the bunny, but of course if you’re using your own yarn you can make it whatever color you like.

Once you’ve tried colorwork (maybe also working in the round and shaping if those are skills you haven’t used before) in a little project like this you’ll be ready to take on something bigger in no time.

Check out the pattern on Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks]