Maquette–noun— a small model or study in three dimensions for either a sculptural or an architectural project.

The paperwork for the sculptural submission process says: "digital image only, up to three views per piece in .jpeg format." I'm an advanced beginner in Photoshop—I have created simple digital images in the program and plunked them into a photo of the site and it works just fine. Problem is my skills don't extend to creating a 3-d image on the computer only.

So, to comply with the requirements in front of me I've got to create a maquette, photograph it, and remove anything from the photo that gives a clue to its actual size. I've spent the past few days knitting mittens and a sphere from my video tape stash (specifically a video of Foster Brooks and another that didn't have a readable label). Once the second mitten is painted I'll rig them up into a usable scenario, put my camera on the tripod and the maquette on a lazy susan and start snapping shots.

The maquette process has also been helpful in exploring the anatomy of a mitten and sphere. When I make the sculpture full scale (3 or 4 feet tall) I'll need to work in sections rather than knit it all on double pointed needles as I have.

And then there's the armature, which I still have to figure out.

 
A friend has asked me to create some pieces from audio cassette tape for her to give as a gift. She's supplied me with about 30 tapes and has plenty more where they came from*. So I'm swatching the fiber in knit and crochet fabrics to see what I like and here are some observations I've made about the two plastics:

Video tape spools are pretty easy to remove from the cassette—take out 5 screws, pry the cassette apart, cut the tape (be sure to rewind the tape before removing the screws) and set it aside. Toss everything else into the box to ship to greendisk**.

Audio tape fiber just has to be snipped and used straight from the cassette since the cassettes don't really come apart and if they did you'd just have a mass of loose fiber rather than neatly spooled tape.

Video tape can be a bit squeaky when you're working with it; haven't noticed much sound coming from the audio tape. I would call that ironic, I think.

I only double up the video tape for sturdy, free-standing items like shopping bag bottoms or boxes and things. Audio tape is not really usable in a single strand. I've experimented with multiple strands—3, 5, 6—to get the results I want.

Video tape comes in a flattering black color—consistently, no matter who made the tape. Audio tape comes in a range of shades from black to light brown and varies by manufacturer. 

*Before you ask, I'm good on my audio tape stock at the moment. I'll put out a call when I need more. 

**I send pretty much everything except the tape along with bum CDs and other techno-trash to greendisk.com.

 
Back in November we took a trip to the Midwest to visit family. I took along the project I was working on at the time—the diagonal stripes for the Lamp Post Cozy called "Don't Hit Me." (Project #8 at http://videoknitter.weebly.com/index.html) The concept for the piece was to make the lamp post base more visible because it had been dinged by several cars in its short life in the Bemis parking lot. It's now covered with orange and yellow diagonal stripes and accented with cables and ruffles.

So during the trip various family members would ask me what I was knitting. "A stripe" was my usual reply. Without fail, every time I said that I had to explain what I meant by my answer and to assure them I wasn't being a trying to fool them.