Mar 04
Do you want to learn how to knit? Sure you do! And, hey, you’re in luck; making a scarf is not as tough as you might think. Here’s how to in a few easy steps.
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Feb 28
Welp, there goes my afternoon: once I start staring at this looping experiment in stitchery, I just can’t look away. Instead of using photos, artist Sam Meech made this Eadweard Muybridge-inspired animation with 272 frames captured on a custom 13-meter-long stretch of woven fabric.
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Feb 20
The burgeoning small scale 3D printing industry is focused on producing plastic or metal objects. A small team of makers led by Gerard Rubio hopes to turn the spotlight on a more practical material: fabric. The OpenKnit is a work-in-progress open source printer that automatically knits thread to create clothing based on digital templates.
The printer is powered by an Arduino Leonardo and can control three needles at the same time. Like the pioneering RepRap, the OpenKnit printer itself will have parts that can be 3D printed to further save on costs. Gerard says the printer should cost around $750 (USD) to build.
Aside from the printer itself, OpenKnit also has a companion program called Knitic that can be used to design clothes. Knitic was developed by Mar Canet and Varvara Guljajeva, who used their experience from hacking old electronic knitting machines to create a user-friendly program for designing clothes. Finally, there’s Do-Knit-Yourself, a “virtual wardrobe” where people can share their designs. Think of the site as the Thingiverse of clothing.
Obviously, all three parts of the OpenKnit project are still in their infancy, and the clothes that have come out of it are not much to look at. But I hope the project takes off and democratizes fashion, because that industry badly needs a wake up call. Check out the OpenKnit website to learn more about the printer. Makers should head to Gerard’s Github page to find out how they can replicate the device.
[via Gadgetify]
Jun 09
A couple of weeks ago we saw a crochet hook that looks like a lightsaber. This DIY project on the other hand gives you a knitting implement that looks like a lightsaber, except this time it also lights up. Not that you’d want to knit in the dark.
Instructables member Random_Canadian came up with the design. He used small LED flashlights as the base. He replaced the white LEDs in the flashlights with red and green, but you can pick whatever color you want. He then used acrylic rods as needles, because the rods focus and extend the light from the LEDs.
Force browse to Instructables to find out how you can make your own lightsaber knitting needles.
[via Geek Crafts]
Nov 15
The Chair That Knits While You Rock
Posted in: Today's ChiliOld folks aren’t the only ones who might want to take up knitting. For years, I’ve wanted to learn because I wanted to wear knitted stuff and be able to tell people that I knitted it myself.
Unfortunately, I’m pretty bad at it. But fortunately for me and all the other people who suck at knitting, there’s the Rocking-Knit.
Basically, this rocking chair will do all the knitting for you. And all you have to do is sit and do whatever you want, as long as you keep rocking.
The Rocking-Knit was built by Damien Ludi and Colin Peillex from the University of Art and Design in Lausanne, Switzerland because they just couldn’t bear to see all that geriatric rocking energy go to waste.
The chair itself was created for the University’s Low-Tech Factory design exhibition, and we’re not likely to see it go into production commercially. Regardless, I know a lot of people who’d want to have this chair in their living room to help them get their knitting out of the way while at the same time lounging.
[via Treehugger via Dvice]
Nov 06
Is there anything more relaxing than the back and forth motion of a comfy rocking chair? Of course there is—rocking while sporting a stylish knit cap you made yourself, which is made all the more easy with this rocking chair knitting machine. More »
Aug 30
Early Nintendo brochure shows us the childhood we could have had, the knitting we never did
Posted in: Today's Chili 
We all know what the Nintendo Entertainment System looks like, right? Well, if a butterfly had flapped its wings in a slightly different manner, things could have apparently been quite different. Former Director of Game Creative at Nintendo America, Howard Phillips, has recently uploaded some images taken from a 1985 brochure for a precursor to the NES called the AVS (Advanced Video System). While a glance at some vintage-looking hardware that never came to be — such as the wireless controller — is a retrospective tease, it was the marketing material from a couple of years later that really snags the attention: an advert for a knitting machine peripheral. The image shows the NES we know and love, with a controller in a dock, attached to a knitting device turning-out what we can only assume are some leg-warmers. Not wanting to alienate its largely male audience, however, the tagline reads “Now you’re knitting with power.” Given that it never came to market, though, we guess that not quite everything was acceptable in the eighties.
Filed under: Gaming
Early Nintendo brochure shows us the childhood we could have had, the knitting we never did originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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