Wunderkammer

Crocheted spider

2012-01-21T20:57:00.001-05:00

Pattern coming up in the next couple of days, hopefully!

Book here; fish for sale

2011-11-29T17:19:00.001-05:00

Physical copies of the book I wrote arrived recently and they look pretty shiny! Too bad I can never remember this title.

Feeling derpy for missing black Friday, I also went on a huge Etsy listing blitz - you can now find all of the original samples I made for the book for sale there. And I think I broke my personal record for # of items in the shop...

The Inspirational Moustache

2011-10-18T23:00:00.000-04:00

I just received a few sample copies of an adorable book celebrating mustaches. It features one of the crochet patterns I wrote, the rest of which are available through Etsy. The format is small, the content is diverse, and I can recommend it even if you think you have been suffering from mustache fatigue. Thank you Ziggy!

Finally done

2011-09-27T14:47:00.004-04:00

Most of my crocheting (and now, knitting) time for the past 9 months or so has been spent working on a collection of patterns for sea creatures. It's finally done - just communicated the few last edits to these proofs to the publishing company - and the release date is evidently set for January 17, 2012. The format is 8.5" x 8.5", softcover (that actually stays open nicely) with nice glossy photos. You can preorder it on amazon, which is what finally makes it seem real to me now!

The book follows the form of other titles from St. Martin's Griffin, which I really like - there are big gorgeous full bleed "selector" spreads in the front of the book that cross reference the patterns. And, at the end, there are nice examples of how to assemble the random stuff you made into larger projects.

The wonderful editors at Quarto who put this together did a fantastic job making my scribblings presentable, and every crochet pattern has a chart. I didn't appreciate the utility of those until now, especially for patterns that double back on themselves (like this octopus).

I actually wrote close to 100 patterns for the book, but some of them were cut due to lack of popular interest (diatoms! algae etc). Since those are dearest to my own heart, I will definitely be finding a way to make them available to my fellow dorks out there.

Tardigrade pattern

2011-09-13T00:48:00.000-04:00


sciento.co.uk

Tardigrades are so crispy! Nonbelievers, observe this beautiful comic by Alex Chitty.

Obviously I have been wanting to crochet these for a long time, but only recently got around to it, encouraged by a request from a great lab from my undergrad alma mater that uses them as a model organism. Here's a pattern so you can do it too.

I had a great time working on these articulated body segments, but they can definitely be optimized. I want to try inserting some rounds of thick craft foam or thin cardboard at the boundaries of each segment, and possibly tether the whole thing together internally, nose to tail, so that the segments remain compressed together. If you try it, let me know how it works!

I'm going to use abbreviations here - I always though they were weird and annoying, but I was forced to learn to use them for a project and now I am hooked on phonics. 'Sc' means to make a single crochet in the next stitch, and along those lines '2sc' means to increase. 'dec' means to make a decrease over the next two stitches using single crochet unless otherwise specified. Brackets denote parts of the pattern that will be repeated, '2x' (twice) or '3x' (three times) and so on.

You will need:

Worsted weight yarn (pretty sure this is Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Lemongrass)
Size G hook (my standard for a nice tight gauge)
Yarn needle
2 safety eyes
Needle and thread to match the yarn
Felt for the claws
Stuffing or fabric scraps to use as such

You'll use the following techniques:

Slip ring
Chain
Single crochet
Increase
Decrease
Importantly, to make the tardigrade look like it has a hard cuticle, you really need to work only in the back loops and then switch to working in only the front loops to form the hard edges at the boundaries of each segment. See this sculptural crochet primer I wrote for a demonstration of this technique.
Note that this is worked in a spiral like amigurumi.

Actual pattern now.

Body (make 1)
Round # / Instructions / (stitches in that round)

Make a slip ring. This forms the mouth of the tardigrade.
Sc 6 in this ring (6) Remember, always work in the back loops only unless specified.
[sc, 2sc] 3x (9)
[2sc, sc, sc] (12)
sc all (12)
[2sc, sc] 6x (18)
[sc, sc, 2sc] 6x (24)
sc all (24)
sc all (24)
[dec] 12x in front loops (12) You are almost done with the first segment, so stuff it now and add the safety eyes.
[sc, dec] 4x (8)
2sc all (16)
2sc all (32)
sc all in front loops (32)
sc all (32)
sc all (32)
sc all (32)
sc all (32)
sc all (32)
dec 16x in front loops (16) Stuff this segment.
dec 8x (8) Repeat rows 12-21 once more.
2sc all (16)
2sc all (32)
sc all in front loops (32)
[sc 6x, dec] 4x (28)
[dec, sc 5x] 4x (24)
[sc 4x, dec] 4x (20)
[dec, sc 3x] 4x (16)
[sc 2x, dec] 4x (12) Stuff this segment.
dec 6x (6)
make two decreases over 3 stitches each, and then finish off.

Legs (make 8)
Round # / Instructions / (stitches in that round)

Make a chain of 8 stitches (8)
sc all (8)
sc all (8)
sc all (8)
make one slip stitch and then finish off, leaving a long tail you will use to sew the leg to the body.

Making up

Cut 8 pieces of felt that end in claws, sized so that you can tuck them into the openings of the legs. Using the needle and thread, sew them in place, and then use the yarn needle to sew the legs to the body.

THE END. Enjoy!

Chromosomes for Schmancy

2011-09-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

I've been a long time (and long distance) admirer of Schmancy, a wonderful art/toy store in Seattle, and I'm delighted to be represented there now, even with this small initial offering. In keeping with the Schmancy's fantastic playful spirit I stuck some eyes on these chromosomes (which each have a unique banding pattern and a back loop for hanging). In store only!

Restocked

2011-08-27T17:12:00.002-04:00

A quick note to say that after a long period of neglect (the result of a potent cocktail of travel, experimental demands, and personal upheaval), the Etsy shop is finally back online. More patterns and posts will follow in the coming days!

Anglerfish

2011-04-14T19:57:00.000-04:00

I'm sure this is old news to everyone else, but today I learned that I don't even need to try to remember to buy pipe cleaners; twist ties work fine as armatures.

Crocheted radiolarians

2011-03-31T00:42:00.000-04:00

1-2" in diameter, made with crochet thread stiffened with craft glue. The hardest part was finding appropriate stuffing material, but a shredded plastic bag works perfectly.

Narwhal pattern

2011-03-08T18:00:00.003-05:00

I originally designed this guy for a larger project I'm working on, but something about the finished product made me want to share it here instead. Instructions (with chart!) are below.

Finished size: about 6" with tusk.
You'll need a size G hook, worsted weight yarn in two or three colors (not very much!) and a yarn needle for attaching the fins and eyes.

Tusk

The first step is to make the tusk. It's basically a short "spiral staircase" friendship bracelet. Make the first knot small so that the end of the tusk is somewhat pointed. Continue the tusk for 2", then finish off with a really big knot - you'll need it to be large to prevent the tusk from slipping out of the body.

Body

Make a magic ring start with 6 stitches, tightening it around the tusk, and slip in the first stitch.
Increase in every stitch (now you have 12 stitches)
Single crochet in every stitch (12 stitches)
Single crochet in every stitch (12)
Increase in the next stitch, then single crochet. Repeat this process 6 times (18 stitches in this row)
Single crochet in every stitch (18)
Single crochet in every stitch (18)
Decrease over the next two stitches, then single crochet in the next 7 stitches. Repeat. (16)
Single crochet in the next 4 stitches, then decrease. Single crochet in the next 6 stitches, then decrease. Finally, single crochet in the last two stitches (14)
Decrease, then single crochet 6. Decrease again, then single crochet 4. (12)
Single crochet 10. Decrease. (11)
Single crochet 4, decrease, single crochet 5 (10)
Single crochet 5, decrease, single crochet 2 (9)
Single crochet 1, decrease, single crochet 6 (8)
Single crochet 4, decrease, single crochet 2 (7)
Single crochet 2, decrease, single crochet 3 (6)
Decrease, single crochet 4 (5)
Single crochet 3, decrease. (4)
Finish off.

Fins (make 4!)

Chain 6
Double crochet in 4th from hook (the third chain stitch you made)
Single crochet
Slip
Finish off, leaving a tail of yarn to use to sew onto the body.

Now attach the fins to the body with your yarn needle. Sew the long edge of the fin to the body for the side fins, and the short end toward the body for the tail. Add eyes by making french knots or other embroidery stitches using a contrasting color.

Let me know how it turns out!

Narwhal crochet pattern by jpolka.blogspot.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Old school

2011-02-01T15:54:00.000-05:00

In the effort to make crocheted renditions of diatoms and radiolarians, I've been trying to teach myself some crochet lacework techniques.

You know who really had these down (in 1884)? Therese de Dillmont. You can download her fantastic Encyclopedia or Needlework for free from the always-awesome Project Gutenburg (it looks great on a Kindle). The crochet chapter is just one small part, and it's brimming with awesome illustrations and mind-bogglingly intense patterns.

Figure 485 of 890 (not joking) from Therese de Dillmont's Encyclopedia of Needlwork. She calls it "CROCHET CHAIR-BACK" but I think it should be called "NOOB GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN"

The best part about this book is the stitch notation. The names of stitches we are now familiar with (slip, single, treble, etc) used to belong to other stitches, and guess what: the old system makes a lot more sense. It acknowledges the modularity inherent in crochet, and as a result makes reading patterns much less of a headache. I'd be interested to find out why this system was abandoned...

Crocheted eukaryotic cell - with tutorial

2010-12-07T12:12:00.002-05:00

Not as exciting as bacteria, but lots of fun to make nevertheless.

The entire thing is worked up in worsted weight yarn: cotton for the nucleus, DNA, and mitochondria, acrylic for the ER, and wool for the cell membrane. I used a size G (US) hook.

If you want to make your own cell, here's a brief tutorial. You'll need to be able to make flat shapes (either intuitively as you crochet in the round, or with a modified...pot holder pattern I suppose).

CELL TUTORIAL
Materials: Yarn needle, size G hook and worsted weight yarn in 5 colors.
Skills: Magic/double ring, single crochet, increases, and the ability to make a flat disc in the round by placing increases appropriately.

Cell membrane

Magic/double ring start. Crochet 14 rounds, making the membrane remain flat. Then crochet 2 rounds without any increases to form the "wall" of the cross section.

Nucleus
Magic/double ring start. Crochet five rounds, making the nucleus remain flat. Then crochet 2 rounds without any increases to form the "wall" of the cross section.

Chromatin
FUN PART! Loosely wind some yarn around your fingers and nestle it into the nucleus. Thread one loose end through a yarn needle and sew up and down through the nucleus, tacking the chromatin in place as you go. You can then sew the nucleus on to the membrane.

ER
Made in three parts, and worked in rows instead of in the round. Chain 18, and crochet 2 rows on top of this. Repeat as above, starting with 15 chains, and then again with 11 chains. Using the loose ends, sew the long edge down parallel to the nucleus. Conceal the ends.

Mitochondria
Make 3 or 4 of these as follows: Chain 4 and crochet in the farthest chain from hook to make a ring. Crochet in a spiral for 3 - 6 rounds and finish off, preferably on the same side of the mitochondria as your start point. Then use these ends to tie onto the cell membrane. Conceal the ends.

Anita Bruce's plankton

2010-11-26T01:18:00.001-05:00

I feel cheated that the internet has been hiding these from me for 2 years: beautiful, ethereal, biologically inspired plankton knitted and crocheted from fine wire, made by the brilliant Anita Bruce. You can read more about them on her blog, and see more pictures on her Flickr album.

Gargantuan Etsy Bolus

2010-11-24T17:26:00.000-05:00

I just posted over 40 items to the Etsy shop - so many that my hand is now actually tired from clicking. There are lots of pendants (as you can see from the photo) but also cuttlefish, sea weed, mushrooms, mustaches, a log (for some reason) etc etc.

Aztec Wunderkammer

2010-11-09T14:47:00.001-05:00

I am probably not alone in acute National Geographic nostaliga - my parents subscribed when I was a kid, and I spent many happy hours mining through our stacks and stacks of gold-spined volumes. I just recently started a new subscription, and the first spread in the first issue I opened happened to be a glorious image, the 7th in this series, of an offering box containing thousands of objects, largely marine in origin, but still incredibly diverse. According to the accompanying article, the offerings were arranged in such a way that the relationship of each object to the other bears "cosmic significance." Please go look!

A scheme for crocheting fronds, ferns, seaweed, etc

2010-10-12T13:50:00.004-04:00

A few people have asked me for patterns for these types of structures. I think it is much easier to just explain the gist of how to freeform it, rather than give an explicit pattern, so here is my attempt.

Simply begin with a chain, which, at some point, you'll begin single crocheting back into. This will form the point of the leftmost branch. When the sub branch is as long as you would like (three stitches for the first small branch in the diagram above) chain again to start a second sub branch. Single crochet back onto these new chains to complete the sub branch. You can then continue to single crochet along the "stem" of the branch to finish it off, and chain again once you are back to where you'd like the main "stem" to be. (A "stem" is made from chains that remain without single crochets while you start working another chain.) Repeat as desired, and then begin single crocheting back along the stem instead of chaining again when you've finished the branch farthest from your start point. To make new branches on the other side of the main stem, you simply chain, and single crochet as before - but remember to single crochet when you reach the stem.

The "sea grass" here is was worked up in size 10 thread, but it's also fun to make in worsted weight or heavier yarn.You can also try varying the height of stitches (double crochet, slip) that you use to work back into the chains.

A sampler of bacterial anatomy

2010-08-24T00:55:00.008-04:00

Prokaryotic cells exhibit an astonishing panoply of sizes and shapes, their forms adapted to life in varied environments. Scale: 1 cm = 0.5 um.Top row: Spirochaeta halophila, Ancylobacter flavus. Second row: Nocardia opaca, Escherichia coli, Methanogenium cariaci. Third row: Prosthecobacter fusiformis, Stella sp., Caulobacter sp. Fourth row: Planctomyces sp, ratoon stunt-associated bacteria. Fifth row: Bifidobacterium bifidum, Borrelia burgdorferi, Clostridium cocleatum. Sixth row: Aquaspirillum autotrophicum, Alphaproteobacteria. Bottom row: Micrococcus sp, Bifidobacterium sp.

Adapted from Kevin D. Young, 2006. The selective value of bacterial shape. Microbiol. Molec. Biol. Rev. 70:660-703.

This was also made for The Dazzle.

EDIT: Now available online via Magic Pony.

Plush Mollusk Anatomy

2010-08-24T00:44:00.008-04:00

Above, a bivalve, and below, a scaphopod and chiton. These will be exhibited in Toronto next month at The Dazzle!

Mushrooms

2010-01-04T14:41:00.003-05:00

LOVE THEM. Eating them, looking at them, and reading about their weirdo biology. Only makes sense that I would crochet them sooner or later. I hope to do many more, but these three designs, and their size variants, are now available bundled together in one package - so you can crochet them too!

Crocheting protein structures

2009-11-22T20:49:00.013-05:00

I made an approximation of the microtubule binding domains of kinesin (the red dot is ATP).

I've actually been wanting to crochet proteins for a while, but there is a serious activation energy (ho ho!) involved in trying to replicate a complex three dimensional shape. I ended up just sitting in front of the computer with JMol (the viewer from the Protein Data Bank) open. I made a few cartoony sketches using the handy view presets. Then, as I worked, I tried to ignore all the crazy details that I hadn't incorporated into the sketches.

At this level, the kinesin heads are pretty much slightly curved, tapered objects with lots of bumps on them. One thing that was helpful in deciding how to form those was this little tool I made:

Each nub is made by a set number of increases followed in the next row by the same number of decreases, which are reported in felt. This way, when you are looking at the pdb file, you can easily estimate the size of "bump" you are going to need.

After I was finished crocheting, I used the ends of the yarn to "cinch" the structure together: I tucked the yarn inside the head, pulled it out on the opposite side, pulled it as tight as I needed to so that the structure created the pockets and bends I needed, made a knot, and then tucked the yarn back inside. All three axes were cinched in this way.

Then, after adding some red ATPs to the nucleotide binding pocket, I just sewed the coiled coils together with some like-colored thread. By the way, it's a good thing that so many proteins have coiled coil domains because they are Dead Easy to crochet.

This was really fun, and without question the most challenging thing I've tried to crochet. I'll definitely try more molecules in the future. I hope you do too - let me know how it goes!

Seahorses

2009-11-22T20:45:00.002-05:00

These guys are pretty small, about 5" tall. I sent a few premade ones to Cog & Pearl in NYC, and the Curiosity Shoppe here in SF will have kits available for the holidays. And of course, the pattern will also be available as a pdf download from Etsy.

Voyage of the Beagle Finger Puppets

2009-05-24T21:37:00.011-04:00

One of the pleasures of having friends with babies is that you have an excuse to make toys, like this dorked out set of felt finger puppets. From left to right: three finches (with differently shaped beaks), Charlie Darwin himself, and the famous Galapagos tortoise.

If you want to make your own (maybe in anticipation of the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of the Species this November?) please feel free to use my template, below.

2009-04-07T21:04:00.005-04:00

I'm proud to be a part of a lovely show in Portland at the Fontan elle Gallery, which I unfortunately won't have a chance to visit (but maybe you can!)

It's called A Hunter's Return To The Good Country, and runs from April 2nd - 30th. You can see the complete collection here, but here are two of my favorites:

Brieana Ruais
Wilderness Survival Kit For The Colonial Woman

Jessie Bean Goddman
Peace Bone

Mustaches

2008-12-06T20:15:00.004-05:00

Crocheted mustaches, all very fast to make. They're formed from two symmetrical parts and then sewn together with yarn in the middle. That part is the most fun; you can change the appearance dramatically by increasing or decreasing the angle. Pattern, possibly, coming soon.

Cuttlefish pattern available

2008-09-28T21:05:00.003-04:00

Finally, the cuttlefish (cuddlefish?) pattern is available. A million thanks to the amazing pattern testers who helped make this possible!

Cased shell necklaces, and new Etsy store

2008-05-24T13:19:00.003-04:00

Made from found shells and fabric (with the occasionally vintage button included). No metal is used at all; only the tension of the draw cords holds the shell securely in its fabric casing.
Available in my new Etsy store, Megadalton, which I plan to use for non-crochet things.

Plush Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

2008-05-16T10:31:00.004-04:00

I didn't make a pattern, or prototype, or really have a plan, so it's ultra wonky, BUT, I finally made a plush Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (a few more pictures are here). I've been wanting to do this for nigh on a year.

More information on this endearing anthropomorphization of cotton on wikipedia.

Primer on sculptural crochet

2008-05-13T23:55:00.002-04:00

Now on SuperNaturale: an article I wrote which explains how anyone can use crochet to sculpt 3D forms. It is based on a cabinet of crochet "elements" I use for workshops (most recently, the Maker Faire), and it contains (too?) lengthy descriptions of how various combinations of stitches can be used to make more complex forms. Furthermore, there are little pseudo-patterns available for each one of the sample pieces, so you can create a cabinet of your own if you like, which might be a fun way to familiarize yourself with the techniques discussed. Let me know if you have any additional questions!

Machine embroidery without a drop feed system

2008-04-05T13:18:00.004-04:00

I want to thank the amazing Julie Dunbar for teaching the public her machine embroidery technique through the Martha Stewart Show and Threadbangers.

She essentially copies an image onto water soluble embroidery stabilizer (like this) and then sews though it with her feed dogs lowered and a freehand foot on. Unfortunately, some low end sewing machines, like my beloved Brother LS-2125, don't have a drop feed system. A couple of adjustments can overcome the problem.

The Brother LS-2125 comes with a small darning attachment you can snap over the needle plate to cover the feed system. This raises the plate by about 3-4mm, so (as far as I can tell) you can't sew with a foot (or even a foot holder) in place, only the exposed needle.

Here the manual advises you, in bold face, to "keep fingers away from moving parts, especially needles." So control of the fabric is limited by how close you are willing to get to "moving parts," but sacrifices in accuracy are compensated by (what I like to pretend is) a charming degenerate quality of line. To illustrate: the crab above, made on t-shirt jersey, is about 4" across.

Cuttlefish

2008-03-20T19:20:00.007-04:00

Also baby-safe:
I plan to write up a pattern soon (in a couple of weeks?) - I'd love help in testing it out to make sure it's easy to understand and free of error. If you want me to send you a "beta" version when it's ready, please leave me a comment here with some way to get in touch - or just contact me directly. EDIT: Thank you so much for all who responded - I'm going to go ahead and cap sign-ups at comment 12.

Child-proofed octopus

2008-03-17T03:12:00.006-04:00

I normally make these octopuses with seed bead eyes and an unsecured, yarn-scrap belly, which is fine for display, but not very baby-friendly. Three modifications can address the problem:

Make the body to the point at which the neck begins, and stuff with polyfill. I usually crochet with pretty high tension, but if you crochet loosely, you can make a fabric sack to hold the polyfill to make sure it won't poke out.
Cut a piece of fabric larger than the hole and tuck the edges in, as shown above. Then sew in place (avoiding the last row of crochet, since you'll need to continue the neck).
After finishing the octopus, make eyes with french knots on top of rounds of felt, which are also sewn down separately along their perimeter with regular thread.

Figure Legend online

2008-03-06T11:05:00.002-05:00

The embroidery show at the Curiosity Shoppe is now down, but the pieces will still available online for a couple weeks through the Curiosity Shoppe's website.

Crochet clinic

2008-02-20T05:03:00.004-05:00

Above, the Curiosity Shoppe's photo showing a crochet workshop I gave in the gallery space there a couple of weekends back - it was so much fun for me, and I hope to do more things like this in the future. We were officially making sand dollars, but it was awesome to see people going in new directions with their own designs - bracelets, rings, coin purses, squids...

I had a lot of help from some of the more advanced crocheters there in teaching beginners, who started out making chains and progressed to working in the round.

For the more complicated stuff, I filled this old curio cabinet with crocheted samples, varying certain parameters one at a time (working in both loops? double stitch? slip? increase?) to show how these basic elements can be combined to create virtually any three dimensional object.When I started crocheting, I spent a lot of time messing around (crocheting for 5 minutes, frogging, crocheting, frogging, etc) to get some frame of reference on how certain stitches would look. My aim in making these samples was pretty much to expedite those early stages of the prototyping process for others.

Figure Legend

2008-02-20T04:43:00.009-05:00

I have a show of embroidery up at the Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco! Here are some shots of the installation taken by the wonderful owners, Lauren and Derek.

Here I draw the name of the show directly on the wall (!!!):
Some cyanotypes before hanging:And the beautiful treatment Lauren and Derek showed some legend-less embroidered figures:
Finally finished:Also there, and embroidered: 1970's pillowcase safari animals labeled with their scientific names, a portrait of Darwin, other fake ecosystems. Some crochet specimens are there too.

Figure Legend is up until the 4th of March.

More embroidered cyanotypes

2007-12-09T11:29:00.001-05:00

Based very loosely on the amazing Anna Atkins. Approximately 12" x 14", and a great excuse to make lots of french knots.

Go stone cases

2007-12-09T02:20:00.000-05:00

Go, pretty much the best strategy game of all time (and, perhaps relatedly, the only one in which human players can still beat the best computers), has very minimal physical requirements. You just need a grid and markers of two colors. Purists would argue that the materials and precise geometry of both is crucial to the experience, but people have taken the game to extreme permutations of these basic elements (for example, playing on a 3d meshwork)

So I felt comfortable improvising with one of the most popular go accouterments: the bowls from which the stones are taken.
The inside is fully lined so no raw edges are exposed. It's really just one extra-deep pocket of fabric, right side facing the go stones, with a wide "cuff" - the fold of which forms the drawstring casing, and the edge of which is handsewn onto the crochet shell. Notice the teal stitching (pathological, sewing machine threading laziness). Nevertheless, it felt good to crochet something so utilitarian (as a game-playing accessory?) for once.

Erhenberg via BibliOdyssey

2007-11-26T14:03:00.000-05:00

The DBF (as they say) pointed me toward this fantastic blog, BibliOdyssey, which is a collection of archival images which are freely available on the web.

One of my favorite offerings is a group of scans from badass microscopist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, which you can see here.

Micro gentleman

2007-11-21T19:43:00.000-05:00

Having made quite a few larger crochet prawns, this miniature one (made for a custom design) occupies a place in my mind normally reserved only for the venerable baby tuxedo.

For tinyshop

2007-11-17T12:52:00.000-05:00

Tiny sea urchin pins - crocheted from a big stash of hand-dyed size 10 thread and embroidered, in French knots, with DMC floss. The tag is tyvek. For scale:

They're for a show called tinyshop ( tinyshop.blogspot.com ):

double punch gallery presents tinyshop, a pop-up shop curated by Antoinette Celes, showcasing original art and handmade goods by artists, designers and creatives working in the medium of small.

As the world moves bigger, faster and stronger, we occasionally seek comfort in little things. tinyshop celebrates the preciousness of "mini" --- the shortest distance between 2 points, the space of minutiae, and creative endeavors on a small scale.

tinyshop will run from November 21, 2007 through January 11, 2008, at double punch gallery in San Francisco's North Beach district. Special events will be held throughout the shop's lifespan, pondering the tiny theme. Fun-spirited folks and magnifying glasses are most welcome.

I'm really excited to be involved with this, alongside tons of fantastic artists. The show so far includes Ashley G, Amy Earles, Jill Bliss and lots more. November 24th is the opening night!

New pattern the works

2007-11-12T12:49:00.000-05:00

Actual (yarn) jellyfish for sale at the wonderful Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco.

Anna Atkins homage

2007-11-03T14:50:00.001-04:00

This was embroidered onto muslin I'd bought already tea-dyed - I subsequently stained it blue, trying to balance (with difficulty) flat color with "tie-dye" to get something I though was reminiscent of the type of chemical effects present in the original:
(from the New York Public Library)

I tried to sketch out a faithful representation to start with, but smudging of the dressmaker's pencil encouraged improvisation.

I plan to do a series of 12 or 15 of these...

Sea Star Kin Group

2007-08-14T21:31:00.000-04:00

A new design for specimens for the Etsy Wunderkammer is shown above. I sold the originals, am working on a trial-run custom order now, and should have patterns up in several weeks.

The construction, as you may be able to see in the picture, is based on individual legs sewn together and embellished with decorative stitches in the same yarn.

Figure 2, in progress

2007-07-28T10:32:00.000-04:00

I'm lucky to be occupied by a high number of custom Etsy orders at the moment, but the downside is that I don't have much time to work on other projects.

This is "figure 2" in progress - a fictive anatomy combining elements of cow, clam, and tardigrade. There is still a long way to go, but I plan on leaving the digestive tract plain to allow the osnaburg to show through, emphasizing the TUBE-i-ness of this organ system.

Security envelopes

2007-07-22T10:27:00.000-04:00

I am wild for the subtle, printed patterns on the inside of certain envelopes. They're gorgeous, but rarely seen (except though a cellulose address-window, maybe), so it's fun to see what can be done with them by turning the envelope inside out.

A collection of paper butterflies on my wall...
and glassy "blue china" beads.From just two pre-used envelopes, I got almost 100 beads of various sizes. (If you're new to fine art of paper bead-making, there's a fantastic tutorial here) The triangles, which I rolled up around a spare piece of "music wire" I had lying around, were only about 0.5 - 1" wide by about 2" long, so it made for some very skinny beads. I ended up tearing off the last 1/4" of the skinny point since the frayed edge of the paper stayed glued down much better. I used a glue stick for the gluing, and then painted them with a high-gloss acrylic medium. This protects them against moisture, but also serves to make the colors pop a little more.

You can see what I did with these beads at Wardrobe Refashion.

Embroidered figures for fictive science textbook

2007-07-16T20:08:00.001-04:00

The first in what I hope will become a series of fictive illustrations of non-existent science pseudo-knowledge. The Balearic really is a name given to a sea near Spain, but I just like the way it sounds, much in the same way that I love how French knots resemble (vaguely) some kind of mote-like krill or plankton, and how woven spider's web stitches look sort of like starfish. Empiricism be damned!

I plan to stretch this puppy over a firm backing as a means of mounting, but not before I add a brown "frame" of bias tape around the diagram, feeding from under the sides of the label.

Vague plans for the future include a detailed anatomy of whatever those predatory things are at the bottom of the food web and diagrams of their courtship habits, bee--honey-dance annotation style.

The Embroiderer's guild is a great resource for crazy new stitches, as is Sharon B's.

Sea Urchin

2007-07-12T14:29:00.001-04:00

Sea Urchin, originally uploaded by naughton321.

Great photo here - thank you, Naughton...

I'd love to be able to capture some of these textures, but I'd really have to scale my work up in order to get the finer points in.

From Wikimedia

My first experiment with these textures proved this point.

Pattern for Baby Octopus (No. 5)

2007-07-09T08:30:00.000-04:00

This mini-pattern is much shorter than most in the Wunderkammer, but will give you an idea of their format and style.

Using a G hook and worsted weight yarn, these take just a few minutes to make and measure in at around 2" long, legs fully extended. They look adorable squished into sample-size jam jars.

You could experiment with adding rows (try duplicating row 3, for example) to make the body longer, or by adding stitches in the early rows to make it wider. It's good to end up with 8 stitches in the last row, however, so that you can easily attach the correct number of legs.

THE BODY

When starting the double loop start, leave an extra long tail - we're going to turn it into a leg later!

Row......Stitches
1.............Double loop start with 6 stitches.
2.............Increase in every stitch (12 stitches total in this row)
3.............Single crochet in each stitch (12 stitches)
4.............Decrease in the 1st and 6th stitch of row 3 (10 stitches)
5.............Decrease in the 5th and 10th stitch of row 4 (8 stitches)

Slip stitch three times to smooth out the edge of the body.

THE LEGS

(Note: the directions below assume you are making your chain stitches pretty loose. If you make them tight, or if you want the octopus to have longer legs, try increasing their length to 6 or 7 chain stitches)

With your hook still in the last slip stitch, chain 5, then tie off and trim the end. Tie an extra knot to secure.

Pull the "tail" from the double loop start to the inside of the body, if it isn't there already.

Insert your hook into a loop from an adjacent stitch on the last row of the body. Pull the "tail" through, and use it to chain 5. Again, tie off well, and trim.

Cut 3 segments of yarn about 2' long. Fold one in half. Insert your hook into the a stitch in the final row of the body, next to the last leg you made. Instead of using the top-most, outermost loop, use the one that is on the interior of the octopus, closer to you. The hook in this picture is being inserted into this interior loop.

Pull a short length of the doubled-up yarn through so that you have a loop, and feed the ends through that loop. You've now knotted the yarn to the body, and you should have 2 tails of equal length. Use these tails to make legs as described in the stitch the knot is made in as well as the adjacent stitch.

Repeat this with the other two lengths of yarn. You now have an eyeless octopus with 8 legs!

FINISHING

There are a variety of ways to make eyes, but I like to use the method that follows.

Cut two circles of felt about 4 mm in diameter. Sew a seed bead to the middle of each, and attach this, in turn, to the last row of the body of the octopus, at a spacing you find pleasing. If you sew only in the middle of the felt, the seed bead will give the appearance of being set deep within the felt.

Enjoy!

© 2007 Jessica Polka

Please post a comment to let me know how your baby octopus turned out! If you feel it needs a legal guardian, you can find a full-sized octopus pattern in my Etsy shop.

Sea grass lariats

2007-07-07T10:45:00.000-04:00

From the stash of hand-dyed thread I'd made a few weeks ago, I've been making these strands of sea grass:
They're long enough to be worn as necklaces, tied loosely together in the front.

I'm not sure yet if they should be tagged as specimens, like the rest, but I guess it couldn't hurt.

Karl Blossfeldt

2007-07-06T15:10:00.000-04:00

From wikimedia commons: Haarfarn (Maidenhair fern) from "Urformen der Kunst"(The original art)

This bad boy spent his entire career photographing plants at ginormous magnifications. You can see a huge collection (120 images!) here. Just click on "das werk" and then "unformen der kunst." Some of these things look like buildings, others like ironwork, and still others resemble, vaguely, people.

The tip off came from a wonderful Etsy seller, HummingbirdEyes, whose artful shop you can visit here. Take a look at her rad assemblage, "Evolution."

Barnacle quilt from yo-yos

2007-07-05T08:14:00.001-04:00

This is just wonderful. Please visit Sara's blog to see more pictures of her piece.

She's used a neat little gizmo to make the yo-yos, but doing it entirely by hand actually seems to require only one line of stitches rather than two, which I can't argue with. I have a ton of odd-sized scraps lying around that I can't quite persuade myself to discard, so I may have found a suitable way to purge.

SiCKO

2007-07-04T08:33:00.000-04:00

Please, go see this movie.

By a stroke of luck, I'll be moving to San Francisco next year, where the mayor has declared that it will become the first city in the US to provide universal health care. But we have a moral obligation as citizens to provide this basic human right to everyone nationwide.

HR 676 is a bill that would provide a public, universal, national health insurance program while keeping hospitals and clinics private. Get more information about it here, then sign up for the campaign to get it passed.

Wunderkammer at Beklina

2007-06-29T10:45:00.000-04:00

I'm delighted to report that some of my work is now for sale at Beklina, a wonderful California-based online boutique with a fair trade and organic focus. You can see the pendants above in the "accessories" section as well as display budding coral in "paper & nest."

Integrity verified

2007-06-28T18:02:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago, I wrote that I was testing the integrity of a "barnacle necklace" design. I'm happy to report that it seems to be very strong, and I've since developed a new way to attach the bale with is sturdier and less obtrusive.

The knots of the embroidery floss braid and concealed inside two adjacent barnacles. The braid is fed through the back of the base to create the loop which a cord or chain can be passed through.

The more recent "specimens" of this type which I've been making have more widely varied diameters of each individual barnacle. I am starting, in some cases, with a chain of up to 18 stitches....

The particularly huge one you see in the pictures is extremely dense, and took forever to make. I am now using a spacing that would put only about 11 "buds" on a backing of this size, rather than the 17 shown here.

1,000 yards of custom color

2007-06-28T08:51:00.000-04:00

Frustrated with working with only two decently ocean-y colors of crochet thread, I broke down and made my own using a dusting of dye from various permutations of three packages of RIT.

This was really an exercise in deriving the basic rules of skein-making. I spent way too much time untangling yarn last weekend...

Now that I have these balls, though, I can start free-forming seaweed gardens which I am planning to attach to pin backs....

"Customer appreciation"

2007-06-22T21:44:00.000-04:00

Experimetal, an incredibly talented jeweler and metalworker who was just recently Etsy's featured seller, placed a custom order with me for a 2-foot long coral frond. She made my week by sending this beautiful photo of the finished piece with her dogs - she says they are of the Alaskan Klee Kai breed, which, as far as my lazy internet research can tell, is relatively new and definitely super cute.

Untitled (Head) by selflesh

2007-06-22T12:01:00.001-04:00

Untitled (Head), originally uploaded by selflesh.

I love how selflesh uses these cut map fragments to produce a familiar human image - it's reminiscent of an anatomical drawing from a distance. The excellent twist, revealed upon closer inspection, is that all the information (markings, colors, lines) is erroneous as far as knowledge of the "head" goes, like much of what can be seen in very old, speculative anatomical works.

That's not to say the map is meaningless from an artistic perspective, of course!

Please take a look at the rest of her amazing work. She has a very bizarre way of combining crochet thread and wax...

Barnacle necklace

2007-06-13T21:14:00.000-04:00

The trouble with making these individual "barnacles" (which are just like the "white coral" I've made in the past, except that they vary in diameter rather than height) is that they tend to collapse when they're very small. I am trying to devise a way to keep them open....

The crochet thread is very slick, and it's difficult to negotiate a stable knot. I ended up weaving one of the "tails" through the wall of the "barnacle" to meet the other, where I tied them in a knot. One of those resultant thread tails was then trimmed off, and the other used to sew the piece of the backing. Unlike the white coral, these little things seem to look better if the last row made is pointing up, rather than down at the backing.

I plan to wear this thing around for a little while before making any more to test the integrity. It's going to be like those Ikea commercials where the chair gets pounded 10,000 times a day with what looks like a battering ram/erotic machine.

MUST TO SIT

2007-06-13T18:02:00.001-04:00

...on this ottoman by Constance Swinderman, who just graduated from RISD. I guess I would be worried about the rhinestones...

Via the excellent Design Sponge.

Pretty toy ladies, dissected

2007-06-10T00:56:00.000-04:00

Stephan Zick, 1639-1715

To see more, read this amazing post at bioephemera.com. In fact, you could also just read everything tagged with Museum Lust. It will be worth your while.

I love how the makers of these figures, meant as teaching tools, went to a lot of trouble to make these women beautiful - perhaps a frivolous aim, or even a source of potential distraction for the poor students? This ivory one, not so much. But scroll down in the bioephemera post to see what I am talking about.

Crochet jellyfish

2007-06-09T11:18:00.000-04:00

Inspired by these incredible ceramic versions, I've been playing around with making crochet jellyfish.

I wanted to do some IFF style "hyperspace" crenelation for the wavy "oral arms" hanging from the bell - but couldn't get them small enough. Instead I had to use a spiral knot I learned during my embroidery-floss-bracelet making days circa 2nd grade. The ends are sealed with a touch of clear nail polish to prevent unraveling.

I'm also pumped about these wearable tyvek specimen tags. This particular stuff came from an envelope I got in the mail - I painted it with acrylic and marked with a Pigma Micron. The tags are surprisingly durable...

Tiny, tiny thread

2007-06-07T07:48:00.000-04:00

I just started experimenting with size 10 crochet thread, done up with a steel hook. Coming from a crochet reference frame of WORSTED WEIGHT, this is totally mind blowing.

Did you ever, as a kid, have weird semi-hallucinations while you were almost asleep? I, for one, had the sense that I was flying, or growing or shrinking, so that my bed felt like an enormous prairie or my room was just a tiny little nest I could barely fit in. (They're called hypnagogic hallucinations, by the way, for the science dorks among us). They were definitely weird, but not scary or anything. As I got older, I had them less and less, and now not at all.

UNTIL CROCHETING THIS. I guess my brain was still telling me that all red yarn is worsted weight, and all hooks are G size, so my hands manipulating this size 10 thread must be huge. It was weird and fun.

I've turned this little branch frond into a pendant, and am thinking of making simpler ones for earrings. They would be great for that for me, since I always find earrings too heavy, but this coral is featherweight.

2-month pledge at Wardrobe Refashion

2007-06-06T12:36:00.000-04:00

I just committed myself to 60 days of acquiring (by either buying or making) only handmade or thrifted clothing, along with tons of other ladies over at Wardrobe Refashion. No new stuff at all.

Everyone is required to post once a week, and you should really check out the stuff people come up with. The current post is on this amazing old viking yarncraft I really want to try called NALBINDING. As if I needed an excuse to buy a weird oversized needle made from an antler.

Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

2007-06-04T18:44:00.001-04:00

My new favorite mythical animal:

Ever since the 5th century BCE, travelers made reports of half-plant, half-sheep growths. The lamb would hatch from a melon and was suspended from the plant (or leashed to it) by an umbilical vine. After grazing as much as possible from surrounding plants, the lamb would either die of starvation or gnaw itself free. Its blood tasted of honey!

A convenient explanation for cotton, according to this Wikipedia article, the real-life inspiration for the vegetable lamb turned out to be a fern of the "Dicksonia" genus, which has furry roots/stems. Reminds me of the rabbit foot fern my mom kept in the dining room when I was growing up - though I never made the "sheep" connection.

Read more here.

I heart Haeckel

2007-06-04T18:24:00.000-04:00

More textures than you ever wanted to know existed. Read more about him, or cut to the chase and see his work at the Wikimedia Commons.