The hours sped by  at an incredible rate todaybecause I was coding a small routine that allows me access to Flickr photo’s by inputting a tag. I’m really getting into this thing called PHP coding! My algorithm can be played with  here. I’m going to look for niftier things to do than just line pictures up in two columns – want to express the idea of images floating around in a cloud, just waiting to be accessed. Or do some geo-related thing, or …. The ideas are all there, just need to find a way to manipulate the images my algorithm finds, manipulate them at pixel level like Photoshop filters do. To be continued!

Later: it would be good to have a ‘go forward’ and ‘go back’ option.

Biggest knit yet! Size .18 needles, 40 stitches, 40 rows. It took 15 t-shirts, cut to ribbons of 4 cm size.

Could not sew the ends of the ribbons together – sewing  machine won’t do tricot, it breaks or bends the needle. So I did little knots – looked them up, they are called reef knots. These are strong enough and don’t show (almost).

Calculations:

Took me 4 hours to cut, stretch then knit a 75 cm wide x 40 cm long  piece, using 15 t-shirts. It weighs 920 grams and stretches to 110 x 65 without losing elasticity.

Extrapolate this: a piece that is about 2 m wide by 3 m long would be about 20x  as big, so it would take  300 t-shirts and weigh about 20 kg, and would take 80 hours.

An earlier try=out took me 1/2 hours to knit  a  14 wide x 39 cm long piece, using 2 t-shirts. It weighs 140 gram and stretches to 18 x 54 cm.

Extrapolate this: a piece that is about 2 m wide by 3 m long would be about 110 x as big, so it would take 220 t-shirts and weigh 15,5 kg, and would take 55 hours.

Knits are getting bigger! Made six new knitting needles today (.18 cm x 90 cm) to suit the yarn I am making from cut-up T-shirts. Knitting needs a bit of strength but can still be done sitting on a chair without armrests.

This is what I learned today:

- cutting up takes at least as long as the knitting itself;
- not all T-shirts can be used. Strips cut from the more expensive ones (Esprit & suchlike) won’t roll themselves up;
- tried strips 2 cm, 3 cm, 4 cm and 5 cm wide. Best size is 3 – 4 cm, this makes a smooth yarn. The 2 cm strips are a bit ragged, the 5 cm one is ok but a bit stiff;
- T-shirt strips roll up so that  inside becomes outside; the knit shows the colours that are inside the shirts;
- the seamless t-shirts are the best;
- I only use about 1/2 of a T-shirt so there will be a pile of leftovers on each project;
- knotted the ends of the strips together, also sewn them together; sewing is better;
- knitting needles  .18 mm work best with this yarn. With .13 mm needles the knit is a bit too stiff;

- Note:  need to be able to wash the finished product?
- Note: try knitting while sitting on the floor.
- Note: test strength!
- Note: what to do with the leftovers on a bigger project?

.13 mm needles, 10 stitches, 30 rows
2 t-shirts
weighs 190 gram
16 x 33 cm
15 x  44 stretched

.18 mm needles, 10 stitches, 30 rows
2+  t-shirts
weighs 140 gram
18 x 39 cm
15 x  54 stretched

This is the result of another test knit and some Photoshop – I’m dying to create really large panels, but have to make do with scale models for now.

Note: find a way to attach panels so they deal with a. the weight of the knit and b. the weight of people leaning/climbing/crawling/whatever-ing. Safety = a concern!

Needed to test the idea of knitting with strips cut from old T-shirts: it works! The local thrift shop donated a few childrens shirts  - we’re great friends, I go treasure-hunting there almost every week, Icut them shirts into strips, there is a website here that shows an economical way of cutting shirts up into strip. Trick is to yank the strip in both hands, it is the stretch that converts it into yarn. Then knitted away, and the result is both a. good to look at and b. very, very resilient. Tried out another knitting stitch, too:

Note: these knits took 2 small kid’s shirts each. Note: next time, weigh the shirts and weigh and measure the resulting knit. Need to know the amount of material needed for and the weight of a really really big knit. Note: test out different strip widths. Note: used knot to attach strip 1 to strip 2, try out using sewing machine next time.