A friend has commissioned a small knitted video tape sculpture from me and, realizing that it may not be available until after the gift is needed, she has graciously extended my delivery date. She would like to give it as a gift for a June 11 event, and I'm simply swamped with the "tree cozy" project between now and then.

However, knowing that I want to do her project in a specific style, I'm taking advantage of the manic knitting I'm doing now to practice the technique I want to use for her project. So last night I started in on a skein of yarn and 5 double-pointed needles, knitting squares from the center out. I got 5 squares done, starting with the simplest form and, making a few that aren't all that pretty, I worked out a design I'm happy enough with to expand on further.

I'm thinking that, come Sunday, I'll be putting yarn away for a while and taking my video tape back up.
 
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.