Helen Fields » knitting

science, journalism, and knitting on ice

Helen — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:33:30 +0000

This afternoon at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, I’m giving a talk with the clever title “Science, Journalism and Knitting on Ice: My Six-week Adventure in the Bering Sea.” I’ll be talking about my 2009 Bering Sea trip. I really am planning to tell some stories about knitting, but mostly it’ll be about how science gets done on a big ship in the middle of the ice.

If you know anyone in or near Appleton, tell them to come! Here’s the information.

pineapple purse

Helen — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:26:51 +0000

In other 19th-century accessory news, I’m not sure how I have managed to live this long without a pineapple purse. A modern adaptation of this pattern appears in the spring/summer 2012 issue of Knitty, a lovely online knitting magazine. The designer who translated it explained how he did it on his own blog.

You might think a knitting pattern is a knitting pattern is a knitting pattern, but they’ve changed quite a lot over the years. From what I’ve seen, old knitting patterns seem to assume a lot of knowledge about knitting, and they use different terms than modern patterns. And, as the designer wrote, “we cannot call, text, e-mail, Tweet or otherwise harass Jane Gaugain to find out what she intended, because even the worms that devoured the worms that devoured her mortal body have long since gone to dust.”

But he worked it out. Ok, I don’t know that I *really* need a pineapple purse, but if I come across the right silk yarn, well…I might have to give it a shot.

If you’re having trouble imagining a pineapple purse, you must visit the Kyoto Costume Institute’s website, because they have a completely zoomable photograph of one from about 1800. And the blog that referred me to that picture has a link to another pattern for a pineapple purse. Wow. So many options.

knitting technology

Helen — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:49:16 +0000

Who even knew that Knitting Industry News existed? But it’s a real publication, apparently, or at least a website, and it has a new article about Nike figuring out how to knit a shoe upper. Shoes are normally assembled from elements of several materials, but for this shoe, the whole top is knitted in one flat, weirdly-shaped piece. No cutting and pasting required. A single finished Nike Flyknit Racer weighs 5.6 ounces–about as much as a banana. According to Nike, the shoe will be appearing in the Olympic marathons this summer.

museum tourist: yarn edition

Helen — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:28:23 +0000

From the British Museum in London, I bring you a lady spinning fleece into yarn:

The label says it was made in Athens around 490 BC. Some people who make their own yarn still spin this way, with a drop spindle. You hold the wool in one hand and spin the yarn around with the other, just like the nice lady is doing on the vase.

This was in a section on daily life – apparently Ancient Greek ladies made their families’ clothing from scratch.

For all my Museum Tourist posts, click here.

hyperbolic crochet coral reef update

Helen — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:48:47 +0000

Remember the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef? It’s an ongoing project – they’ll keep mounting exhibits of parts of it in different places. Right now there’s a show in Pasadena. But I heard good news recently about the Smithsonian Community Reef, the part that I contributed to. It’s going on display at the Putnam Museum in Davenport, Iowa, and will stay up for five years. (So there’s plenty of time to plan your vacation to Eastern Iowa.) Read about it here.

crochet coral reef: last chance!

Helen — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:49:54 +0000

If you’ve been meaning to see the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef at the Smithsonian, you only have a few more days; it closes this Sunday, April 24th.

It’s surprising how much a bunch of knotted yarn can look like a real live coral reef.

If you miss it in D.C., there will be other reefs in other places, though who knows if my five pieces will ever appear again. Watch this page for a list of upcoming appearances. (Part of it will be in New York from May.)

photo: me

crochetdermy

Helen — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 07:59:09 +0000

A friend pointed out this nifty link to me: an artist who makes life-sized crochet versions of animals. Crochet + taxidermy = crochetdermy. Clever, eh?

The writer seems to think “knit” and “crochet” can be used interchangeably, but as far as I can tell from the pictures, these are all crocheted.

crochet bull

Helen — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:16:29 +0000

Love this – a crocheter covering the Wall Street bull statue in her work. (In the dead of night.) Be sure to watch the video. Thanks to my friend Megan for pointing it out.

museum tourist: coral reef, again

Helen — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:41:07 +0000

I couldn’t resist going back to the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef this weekend. And my mom said she hadn’t realized from my previous pictures quite how big it is. So here’s another picture, with a gaggle of Japanese teenagers for scale:

For all my Museum Tourist posts, click here.

museum tourist: crochet coral reef

Helen — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:10:36 +0000

At last, the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef has opened at the natural history museum! You may recall, I was crocheting some pieces for this exhibit over the summer – this is what they looked like – and dropped them off at a local yarn store in August. The show opened earlier this month, and last Thursday I went down to see my work in the Smithsonian.

The coral reef is at the back of the museum’s Ocean Hall. The organizers took all the individual pieces, submitted by crafters like me, from all kinds of yarns and done in all sorts of ways, and assembled them into one three-dimensional, multi-colored extravaganza of coral. It’s stunning. I walked around it for about 20 minutes, and while I was there several tourists stopped to admire it, then exclaim at the fact that it was made of yarn. (Most of them misidentified it as knitting, but oh well, guess you can’t expect everyone to know the difference. Or read the signs.)

Here’s what the whole reef looks like:

The genesis of the reef is a little complicated – I’ll try to give the short version. A mathematician who knits figured out that the easiest way to model hyperbolic shapes is to crochet them. Hyperbolic geometry is a kind of geometry that describes sort of ruffly space, like a leaf of kale or a piece of coral. A pair of sisters were crocheting these models in brightly colored yarn and noticed that the pile of objects looked kind of like a coral reef. Ta-da! The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef was born. Read about it here.

I walked up to it and saw one of my pieces immediately. Can you spot it in the picture below? (Refresh your memory here.)

It took me longer to find the others, but I eventually located four out of five. Another one is in this picture. It’s a little harder to pick out:

The above picture is from the “toxic” section of the reef, crocheted mostly out of trash. People used plastic bags, soda can tabs, and other unsavory materials. The piece of mine I couldn’t find was made out of audiotape. It turns out a lot of people had that idea. I think I found it, but I’m not sure. It could’ve been someone else’s cleverly crocheted audiotape.

My work is part of the Smithsonian Community Reef – called that because it’s made by crafty types like me. The exhibit includes several displays from other iterations of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, but the community reef is the centerpiece and the best-looking part, I thought. It’s on display through April 24, 2011. Look for my name in the list of contributors! Ok, it looks like this:

For all my Museum Tourist posts, click here.