8. Open Source Hardware: From Fibers to Fabric#

Objectives from Fabricademy website :

Create or hack an existing machine#

Produce samples of work from your machine#

Document and make a 30s video of your machine working#

Workshop with Studio HILO#

Fab Lab Bcn welcomed HILO co-founders Natalija Krasnoperova and Sara Diaz Rodriguez. They led us in a 3-day crash course on how to build their one-of-a-kind yarn spinning machine.

Built Hilo Yarn Spinning Machines (6x machines, in groups of 2)
Involved using electronics, carpentry + power tools, coding, and digital design software
Learned the full cycle of fiber to fabric
Learned how to combine ancient techniques (in our case yarn spinning) with the most current technology
Expanded understanding of the concept of DIT (Do-It-Together) and open source machine frameworks

Fab Lab Bcn with HILO dynamic duo, Natalija and Sara.

Spinnen mit selbstgebaute Spinnmaschine from Studio HILO on Vimeo.

Materials List#

Workshop Schedule

Step-by-Step Assembly#

Yarn Spinning Machine from Jenny Kleininger on Vimeo.

Video by Montserrat Ciges

Team Monochromo (aka Montserrat and I) with our final yarns

Creating swatches with our yarns#

A. Knitted swatch#

Swatch created by knitting cream wool blend + grey wool blend together

Step 1: Learn how to knit
- My mom taught my sister and I how to knit when we were kids, but I haven’t done it for years.
- I watched some tutorials and researched knitting techniques
- Learned the knitting process backwards: I started from the last step and worked in reverse. All I knew was that I wanted the end result to be a knitted swatch in which both colours could be visible, and at times interwoven.
- So I researched knitting techniques and found the two-colored linen stich, which is really pretty. But from watching the tutorial, I realized that I needed to learn how to do a linen stitch with just ONE colour first. So I watched a One-Colour Linen Stitch tutorial…and from watching this, realized I needed to learn how to make my stitches before I could do any stitching. This is called casting on, and is the first step of knitting.

Tutorials
- Casting On
- How to Knit a Linen Stitch
- How to Knit a Two-Colored Linen Stitch

Step 2: Begin to knit by casting on

Materials:
- Cream wool blend
- Chopsticks

Step 3: Linen stitching

Step 4: Attempt two-coloured linen stitching

Step 5: Go back to single colour linen stiching

EXPECTATION vs REALITY