Spinning a Yarn: Spyn creators Professor Kimiko Ryokai (right) and grad student Daniela Rosner (left) demonstrate how Sypn works while weaving a tale of the demonstration at the same time.

 

patterns, start projects without patterns, and teach herself new techniques, I think the record-keeping possibilities of Spyn are a great learning tool,” she says. “I’m also excited about the idea of producing a web-based gift along with the knit that includes a slide show with captions, music, or the sound-scape of the knitting experience and GPS-generated maps of where I was and the paths I traveled during knitting.”

Photograph by Branca Nitzche

The name Spyn comes from the storytelling expression “spinning a yarn.” Knitting and storytelling have always been linked, and this is reflected in the huge popularity of online knitting communities such as Ravelry and the thousands of knitting blogs where one can read about such varied topics as cable stitches, teething babies, and vacations gone awry all in a single paragraph.

Rosner and Ryokai hope to one day make Spyn

compatible with websites such as Ravelry, so that knitters can post pictures of their projects that include embedded links to the photos, videos, and sounds that they included in the knitted projects.

Spyn has quite a journey ahead before it’s available to the public, but the fact that it’s on the horizon is yet another example of how technology can be used to preserve and extend, rather than undermine, the process of handcrafting.

Spyn project website: craftzine.com/go/spyn

Spyn research paper (PDF) by Rosner and Ryokai: craftzine.com/go/spynpdf

 

Anna Dilemna is a writer and crafter who lives in Madrid, Spain. Her website is annadilemna.typepad.com.