Knitted space dogs and other animals!

It's April and Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire is almost upon us and I don't really know where the time has gone since my last post in December! Most of my creative time has been spent learning just what the hacked knitting machine I posted about last time can and can't do.

We had a great weekend break in London during February, visiting inspiring exhibitions meeting friends and going to shows.  The Cosmonauts exhibition in the Science Museum certainly gave me a lot of immediate inspiration for the machine and is likely to do so for some time to come. I was very taken with the story of Belka and Strelka, (the dogs who came back alive - along with a rabbit, 42 mice and 2 rats!).  They went on to be Soviet celebrities with children's books and animated TV series being created as well as a huge souvenir industry. So I'm adding to the souvenirs...


That's just a test piece - the yarn turned out to be unsuitable but the colours are good. Some of my other test pieces for the machine have been images of animals: a baby tapir and a giant sunfish.  The notion slowly emerged that I should work up a series of science celebrity animal wall hangings. The obvious first choice for woolly science in Edinburgh is Dolly the Sheep, the first cloned mammal, so here's the first sample towards making a final hanging.


I've thought of a few more animals to include but I'm still working on the list and open to suggestions.

You can see all the animal sample pieces and my finished cosmonauts (Yuri and Valentina) at Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire on Sunday 10 April.  I'll be bringing the hacked machine too so you can see it in action. 

Finally, a big shout out to my friends from team Craft Reactor who are going to be helping me over the weekend. 

Comments

  1. Yvonne7 April 2016 at 19:58

    Those wall hangings look great, had to share your blog post on facebook. Have you seen about the hyperbolic crochet forest that's in the offing? Are you anything to do with it all and how goes Botanica mathematica? Have fun at the Mini Maker Fair!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MadeleineS22 November 2016 at 13:59

      Hi Yvonne, so sorry for missing this comment when it came in for moderation.

      As you know, I did finally catch up with the hyperbolic crochet forest and contributed. We also had great fun at Maker Faire.

      Delete

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