Knit for work or play: Midnight Blazer

Last year, when working in a freezing office, I went looking around the internet for a  super warm work appropriate blazer. There wasn't a lot that left my forearms free to do computer work and fit my intern budget. I got the idea to knit something that looked work appropriate and chic yet a bit edgy with a bit of extra shoulder padding like a tailored blazer.
This silhouette is designed to flatter “pear shapes” by drawing the eye up and balancing a bottom heavy figure.

Working with Lamb's Pride Bulky (budget appropriate and a quick knit) I came up with this simple fitted cardigan with a modified set in sleeve. In 4 days of commute knitting and about $40 I had a great new piece to wear and established myself as "the intern who could fix your knitting."
 

My mom also made this and added long sleeves which are a great easy mod. she doesn't know I'm using her picture here, but she looks great, so I'm sneaking it up before she can object.

Also, Look at how nice her back neck looks.

Sizes - determined by bust measurement:

Bust Measurement (from body): XS(28-30”), S(32-34”), M(36-38”), L(40-42”), XL(44-46”)

Garment Bust: XS(15.5”), S(17.5”), M(19.5”), L(21.5”), XL(23.5”)
Garment Waist: XS(12.5”), S(13.75”), M(15.5”), L(17.5”), XL(19.5”)
Garment Hips: XS(17”), S(18”), M(20”), L(22”), XL(24”)
Garment Length: XS(22”), S(22.5”), M(22.75”), L(23”), XL(23.25”)

Grading, test knitting, tech editing, and illustrating the unique sleeve seams may have taken a year, but it is finally out and ready to purchase right here or view via ravelry so please take a look . 

carpet planning...

More carpets are in the works, made using a more precise and less dangerous process (I got tired of felting needle wounds). They are also more water resistant and durable.

If anyone is interested in seeing samples, send me a note.

ID view 2011

feelology

These are the final images of the products made for my feelology project. The project started with the intent to introduce textures to the backs of electronic devices in order to make them more tactile. While sketching in silicone, I realized that though it is interesting to make a device feel good in the hand, it is not going to change how people interact with their electronics. Tactile surfaces have more impact when they are not directly competing with the functional screen side of the device.

I branched out into other materials, incorporating my love of textiles and craft into my experimentation in feelology. The result is a group of three products (plus a bunch of silicone sketches) which add an element of tactility to an environment.

The quilt is a new interpretation of the classic trapunto technique. The pattern of stuffed areas is unevenly distributed and is therefore more interesting to feel in some areas than others. By emphasizing the texture of an object that is already used as a comfort object, the user may become more aware of the physical object which they are interacting with, or maybe not.

The carpet, made entirely out of wool, has a similar concept to the quilt. The lumps of varying size are placed unevenly so the texture is more noticeable. In the process of sketching, I found that a uniform texture is the tactile equivalent of white noise: You can feel it, but the sensation is constant that after a while you no longer notice it. The bumps kind of massage the bottoms of your feet. They feel pretty good.

The third product in the series is kind of the odd duck of the group. This is the hoodie that I posted about earlier. It has an inset pocket with a texture inside. The idea is based on the observation that people reach into their pockets and jingle their change or their keys when they are nervous or bored. The hoodie took on an unusual form because I wanted to make it look cozy and inviting. I also have an affinity for strangely shaped garments. The adult size has a beard of texture, the kid's (not shown) only got texture in the pockets. There is a bit more work to be done on this garment, but for the purpose of school, all of the ideas are there. More versions can be expected.

So, one week from now there will be a show/critique at Pratt Institute. I think it might be open to visitors, so drop by room 44a in Pratt studios at 1:30, Wednesday, May 4th if you want to see my work and some really cool stuff from my classmates. I may have some more to show.

Spring Break

The week after.

first casting

 These are the first rubber textures that were successful, yet the small dots are having a serious bubble issue.

Help on the bubble thing is welcome. I am going to try out the vacuum chamber soon.

feltscapes

This is a feltscape, or a felt landscape made with my new lumpy knitting technique. see the lumps as they slowly rise out of the flat felt piece to create hills.

My next step is to make jewelry pieces that are a soft version of those studded spike bracelets.

The Glass Wall

I am currently in the process of defining my senior project for my last semester in school. There are so many things that interest me, yet there is one area of life which continues to worry me more and more. Life is becoming digitized, there is so little time spent away from the internet. The internet is meant to be our tool, yet for many it has become the prison which keeps their mind away from novel thought. This is a habit which must be broken if we are to keep human ingenuity and problem solving alive.
One of the reasons that the overuse of mobile devices bothers me is that I can see the reliance on constant entertainment. Mobile devices are used most for entertainment and games, this means that instead of personal thought and reflection, most people turn to their hand held device of choice to fill empty brain time. It can be argued that this used to be the role of television, but television was never so portable and widely available. It is important to keep a certain amount of thinking time away from technology in order to process the incessant stream of data which is entering our mind.
And that is the problem, an overabundance of data which we do not take the proper time to analyze and digest. Sure, many people do use this information learned to create amazing new things, but the average internet user is substituting a slice of their reality for a digital world. This is where the glass wall comes in. The glass wall is my term for the physical feeling of the touch screen and the division between the real and the virtual. Behind the wall there is another world filled with the ideas of many, yet it is also the place where people can only get lost in the thoughts of others. They get lost in research or games.
If at this point you are reading this and you cannot think of an experience with a glass wall, think about every time you use an interface which is designed to look three dimensional or textured. It is only there for visual interest. You cannot feel the dimensionality of your GUI when you use it. Even more bothersome is when the interface emphasizes its artificiality. When you read a book on your iPad, the pages turn as if it is a physical object. This is just incredibly stupid interface design, I don't know if there is any other way to say it. This animation is supposed to make you feel as if you are interacting with a real book, as long as you usually read books from the other side of a glass wall.
Humans are evolved to have a sense of touch, and we like to use it. This is one of the reasons that the touch screen has caught on so well. But it isn't called a feel screen, there is really nothing about it that you feel besides sometimes a small amount of haptic feedback. And now I can finally make the connection between my project and the glass wall. I would like to make something that satisfies the sense of touch. These objects will probably be textures which I will use for the cases of mobile devices among other things.

That is all.

Many more uses for plastidip

There was a lot of rubber left over from painting the soles on my shoes. I used it to make a few other things.

I dipped an old set of fake pearls in the rubber, and they turned out well. I made a few more out of some other fake pearls that i had around the house.

These thinner strands came out pretty nicely, have already turned them into longer necklaces.

I dipped the rings from my old Pretty Pretty Princess game in the rubber, and the black ring came out nicely.

I also dipped one of my heels, I think these shoes are a lot more interesting now.

More to come later

The Dipped Shoe Project III

These are the boots so far. Do they look like the sketches? I think they do. Somebody help me decide where the blue stitching should go. I am totally stuck on the stitching.

Finalizing Sketches

I made a bunch more sketches and made the cuts. I think that there needs to be some stitching so that they look less elfy. I think blue may be the best color. One of the sketches has some blue on it. I am doing some taping to see where stitching should go. Stitching could probably give some structure to the felt in certain areas.

The Dipped Shoe Project

I am getting some stuff lined up to dip in rubber. I got my can of plastidip to make some soles for my felt boots. It dries out really quickly, so I need to have a plan before the can is opened. It is really difficult to choose a sketch to work from. I have plenty of ideas, but it is hard to know what the rubber will look like on the felt. I also only have one shot to make something nice and the pressure makes the final decision that much harder.

This is rather surprising...

This morning I found a surprising amount of traffic leading to my flickr account. I went to find the source, and was shocked to find this. Thank you Becky Stern for writing about my "noodle chair" and for linking to my portfolio.

Boredom and Felt

Yesterday I felt very unproductive. I came to a rough spot in my knitting pattern for my sexy babushka project (yes it can be done), and so I turned to some scraps of industrial felt left over from a furniture project that I did last semester. I sketched out a few ideas for felt bowls and boxes, but nothing interesting came out of it.

Just last week I received my first needle felting supplies in the mail, and as exciting as it was to get 2 pounds of undyed roving and 6 felting needles, I just didn't have anything to stab. I had an idea. I could stick some of the roving onto the industrial felt with the needles. I had some really great rusty colored roving that would look brilliant on a gray background.


As you can see, the final product came out pretty nicely for a first try at needle felting. I put some little dots of of latex carpet backing on them so that they would not slide off the table.


If you really like them, you can buy a set here, or you can probably make your own.

Knitting Chainmaille Part 2

Here is the finished scarf. I have put it up on etsy and I hope to make more. It really matches my coat and makes me wish that winter would come soon.

In other news, today we turned on the air conditioning.

Knitting chainmaille

It takes a long time to knit chainmaille, but it looks pretty interesting when it is done. It took me a few months to finish this cowl out of felted rings, but I think it was worth the work. The rings are .5" cord with a 1.25" ID woven in a euro 4-1 pattern.

I will be posting pictures of my color and half Persian experimentation soon, and possibly some pictures of a new, faster version of this concept.

Oops!!

Apparently people actually read this blog sometimes. Although I am pretty sure none of them are really following what I do, I promise myself to post weekly and try to do something decent this semester.

Ok, so on that note, I have been busy making felt jewelry all vacation. I plan on getting some rest during the first week of school.