MADELEINE'S HEP HERD

Earlier this year the Scientific Director at my day job moved on to a new post.  As well as a big collective leaving present, some of us thought we'd like to give him more personal souvenirs of his time at ICMS.  One of my colleagues suggested I knit him a new hat to wear while standing outside on his cigarette breaks. So this is what I came up with. As a hat for a mathematician, of course there are mathematical features - simple ones that could be made quickly and which don't detract from a classic shape. There are powers of two in the rib, the Fibonacci sequence in the sides and then a seven-sided (heptagonal) crown.   It's knitted in the round  with one skein of Rowan's Lima, an amazingly soft, baby alpaca yarn that's approximately aran weight.  I picked this colour because it's similar to the ICMS logo colours but it's much richer, with a lot of detail in the drifting shades. Different yarns will work but beware of tension etc.  I don't have...

Happy to say that the knitted neuraminidase is now in Australia,. The Crystals in the City team should have it assembled and on show soon. At the end of the last post I was just about to start stuffing the polystyrene balls into the tubes.  That was a much tougher job than I expected.  The balls fitted neatly in the tubes and so each one of the 1200 of the needed pushed into position individually.  Each  module was a day's work. Then they needed twisted and stitched so all colours were the same shape and interlocked.  Photos above show that. It all got done and packed at the beginning of the month an shipped the day before I left for a conference in Berlin (subject of a future post). Just over a week later I  got word the parcels had all arrived intact.   I'm really looking forward to seeing it installed in its home in Canberra.

It's ages since I posted something. It's been a  busy summer with, Open Studios, Festival Exhibitions and assorted other things.  The project that's keeping me busy just now is a great big heap of fun though - and I thought my readers ought to know the story so far. Sometime back in the summer I spotted a tweet from a science communicator looking for an Australian fibre artist to create a crystallography-inspired sculpture. I retweeted to spread the word and replied that it was a shame the project wasn't in Scotland or I'd have been very keen.  Never thought any more about it Then I was contacted again by Helen Maynard-Casely, one of the organisers of  the Australian celebration of  2014 International Year of Crystallography . Turned out they couldn't find a local artist  but the did find extra funding for shipping so if I was serious about doing it the job was mine. Wow!   Such a good opportunity but such a difficult time to fit in the work. I a...

Last Saturday my knitting machine guru came to visit. We spent two hours going through the basics of how the Passap makes stitches and looking at all the bits that came with the basic machine.  I'm so grateful for the confidence this has given me.  I'm giving some thought to an appropriate reward - John Lewis vouchers seem a bit lame. Having practiced some plain rib and fisherman's rib in basic Shetland yarns, I decided to try out some of the more exotic yarns in the stash.  In the picture you'll see 4-ply baby alpaca in grey and a fine lace weight silk merino mix in cream. Both are knitted in plain rib - the only change to the settings is the stitch size.  The alpaca was a struggle to knit and dropped a couple of stitches.  I think it might be at the limit of what the machine can handle.  The lace weight yarn knitted much more easily and I only stopped because the yarn caught in the tension wire and broke - otherwise I might be wearing as a scarf now. ...

After failing to find much online help about troubleshooting the Passap Duo80 I went back to the studio on Saturday afternoon and loosen a few screws.  I tugged and shuffled the locks and suddenly everything was moving again.  So I tightened the screws again and changed the needle that broke to release it all. Luckily I had been given a massive box of needles along with all the other gadgets and add-ons I've yet to figure out.  Also luckily, changing a needle is very straightforward and much like it was on the Toyota machine I had 30 years ago. With a sigh of relief, I cast on with my practice yarn and knitted a fairly scraggy bit of lambswool rib. That's proof it will work once I work out what I'm doing.  We'll see what happens over the next few weeks - there might even be some prototypes and samples ready by Open Studios Weekend 2&3 August.

The Rolls Royce of knitting machines (Passap Duo 80) arrived in my studio last night.  I've got it clamped to it's stand and done the equivalent of crashing the gears already.  Got the locks stuck while sliding them on for the first time because some needles had been pushed up into working position without me noticing. Now they're tangled together and I can't take the locks off to start again from scratch.  Any advice is welcome - except giving up!

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was nuts about animals. She went to the zoo and the museum regularly and lived round the corner from the veterinary college. From about the age of 2 she wanted to be a vet and work at the zoo. She collected plastic animals and memorised lots of facts.  She also loved plants and did the same for them, visiting the botanic gardens and leafing through her father's textbooks.  Then she went to school and it all went wrong.  How it went wrong is long and complicated, took 50 years to work out and doesn't belong in this blog post.  The little girl never went to vet school.  The college round the corner eventually moved to an out of town site. The old college buildings have become a wonderful arts venue in the heart of Edinburgh.  After a twisty turny careery thing, the little girl realised she had been a textile artist all along. At last the girl and the college have come together and the arts centre is home to her t...