Knitting for Geeks

June 3, 2007 5:29 PM

The Top 10 Geekiest Yarn CreationsIf you've ever felt knitting was in danger of getting too sexy these days, the people at Threadbanger have provided an antidote. They've compiled a list of the ten geekiest projects on the net, which include an Atari 2600 system (on which you will never max your Pac-Man score), a knitted Hogwarts (though it appears to actually be crocheted and needlepointed), and a scrollbar scarf. And if anyone wants a crocheted yoda hat and matching light sabre, I am not taking orders.
posted by orange swan (41 comments total)

Cool. But can knitting get me laid? Answers here.
posted by inconsequentialist at 5:49 PM on June 3, 2007

Those socks are pretty sweet.
posted by delmoi at 5:51 PM on June 3, 2007

Knitty's binary scarf is also awesomely geeky.
posted by craichead at 5:55 PM on June 3, 2007

My idea of a good geeky kntting project would be MeFi knitwear. Like a camera bag that bears the words "We have cameras". Or a blue cashmere hoodie with the MeFi logo on it.
posted by orange swan at 6:00 PM on June 3, 2007

From the article:
Sorry, Harry Potter fans, no knitted anus or knitted rectum in this one.

Huh?
posted by triolus at 6:02 PM on June 3, 2007

Cute stuff! Although, that baby in the Yoda Hat picture looks like he's been scarred for life.
posted by amyms at 6:03 PM on June 3, 2007

They all make me want to sneeze. It's not so much that the creations are dusty at the moment; it's that it's so easy to picture them gathering dust in a thrift store fifteen years from now.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:36 PM on June 3, 2007

I love the scroll bar scarf. Love love love.
posted by Many bubbles at 6:46 PM on June 3, 2007

Huh?

Look at the previous entry.
posted by DU at 6:48 PM on June 3, 2007

I can't believe they didn't put me on there. There's nothing geekier than going to the trouble of knitting your own Howarts costume and then being the only person at the theater. *SOB*

(I'd also just like to point out that I've lost a lot of weight since then.)
posted by web-goddess at 7:14 PM on June 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

For the truly ambitious crafty geek, there's always the Lorenz Manifold.
posted by H-Bar at 7:29 PM on June 3, 2007

I truly admire the level of obsession of the person who owns Doctorwhoscarf.com.
posted by Jeanne at 7:43 PM on June 3, 2007

Feeling warm and comforted now. Thank you Orange Swan. Neat. (knit?)
posted by longsleeves at 8:00 PM on June 3, 2007

Do I get bonus points because I'm knitting while reading this thread? No? Ok.
posted by Lucinda at 8:17 PM on June 3, 2007

Knitty's binary scarf fills me with rage. Or, the sentence of the blurb that says "we managed to fit x number of bits on the scarf", which someone at BoingBoing breathlessly quoted - woo woo! look how much info is coded into the scarf!

Knitting is naturally a binary medium (two main stitches: knit, purl). The compression of binary information in that scarf is absurdly low compared with the compression available if we just treat a knit as 0 and a purl as 1. We could encode the Declaration of Independence in that scarf, not just the first sentence (or equivalent amount of data), if we just exploited the natural binariness of the medium.

Harumph.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:31 PM on June 3, 2007 [5 favorites]

web-goddess, you're too adorable for words.
posted by Hildegarde at 8:35 PM on June 3, 2007

I can't believe they didn't put me on there. There's nothing geekier than going to the trouble of knitting your own Howarts costume and then being the only person at the theater. *SOB*

Much love for you and your costume!
posted by Many bubbles at 8:49 PM on June 3, 2007

Aww! Lovely Hogwarts costume, web-goddess.

I covet the Atari and TV set from that list. Unfortunately my crochet skills are more limited than my knitting abilities. Could I knit a TV set? Hmm. [/geeky]

And did anyone else think the Yoda kid's light sabre looked like a dildo?
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:13 PM on June 3, 2007

No geeky knitting thread is complete without the Jayne Cobb hat!

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=19076.20
posted by MrVisible at 12:19 AM on June 4, 2007

Some other interesting geeky knit/crochetwear I've come across:
Flying Spaghetti Monster hat
Domo-kun kid's backpack
Monitor Cozy
posted by Emredi at 12:57 AM on June 4, 2007

Ah, mrs. dreamsign is lusting after those katamari knit figures. She's been saying she's not up to them yet, but has been working on a set of chiyo-gami ones that are very cool.

LOVE that atari one with Pitfall!
posted by dreamsign at 1:20 AM on June 4, 2007

May I add my own contribution to the world of geekish knitting?
posted by litlnemo at 3:12 AM on June 4, 2007

amyms: "Cute stuff! Although, that baby in the Yoda Hat picture looks like he's been scarred for life."

And I seriously think they should attach a label reading "lightsaber" to the... other accessory. Just in case people might get ideas.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 3:37 AM on June 4, 2007

Knitty's binary scarf is also awesomely geeky.
posted by craichead at 5:55 PM on June 3 [+] [!]

No, no it isn't. It's poser shit. Take your fake 'geek chic' and shove it, madam.

Harumph! indeed…
posted by blasdelf at 4:50 AM on June 4, 2007

I truly admire the level of obsession of the person who owns Doctorwhoscarf.com.

Back in the early 80s, when my local public television station ran Tom Baker episodes of Doctor Who, one of their pledge drive gifts was a set of instructions on how to knit your own Doctor Who scarf. I got my parents to cough up the $25.00 or whatever they wanted for pledges back then, and then my grandmother took the pattern and knit a Doctor Who scarf for me.

I don't remember the scarf being 20 feet long, though; more like maybe 12 or 15, but it certainly was long enough on a 7-year-old. To wear it, I had to loop it 'round my head three times to ensure I wasn't dragging half of it on the ground. I was the coolest mummified-head geek kid on the wintery playground and out of a competitive pool of maybe two geek kids in school, I figure I was doing pretty fine.

However, I have two younger brothers, and Grandma always wanted to make sure she never favored one grandchild over another, so she knit them Doctor Who scarves as well. This woman knit three 15-20 foot scarves for her grandchildren. That's 45 to 60 feet of knittin' right there. Grandma loved us. She also loved to knit.
posted by Spatch at 5:27 AM on June 4, 2007 [2 favorites]

btw, im geeky enough to have knit a doctor who scarf for a friend of mine. okay, it was for the guy i was into's best friend. but incase you were wondering, it must have helped because we are married now. nonetheless, i made the scarf without the help of a website pattern.
and i would do it again! i cant help myself! i confess! i love to knit geeky things!

(glad for the confession space folks. im feeling better now.)
posted by stackmonster at 6:17 AM on June 4, 2007

What, no Jayne hat?
posted by Foosnark at 7:43 AM on June 4, 2007

Another pattern for a Jayne Cobb hat. Glad to see MrVisible posted one already!

I don't knit, but I think the treesweater is fantastic.

On preview: not meant to snark at Foosnark.
posted by Tehanu at 7:52 AM on June 4, 2007

I apologize for the faux-geek binary scarf! I'm not that kind of geek! I'm a historian, and I run from anything math-y!

(I am, however, geeky enough to have found a baby Jayne hat pattern to make a baby shower gift for my Browncoat friends. And their baby is still hypothetical.)

To make up for my sins, I will post a link to this, which I think is my all-time favorite knitted thing, period. It's geeky, but its fabulousness transcends the geekitude.
posted by craichead at 8:05 AM on June 4, 2007

While we're at it, let's straddle the geek/nerd divide: DNA cable scarf and my favorite, this amazing page of knitted orientable and nonorientable surfaces, plus many awesome links.
posted by clavicle at 8:06 AM on June 4, 2007

craichead, yarn + zombies = awesome!

yarn + zombies + Shaun = more awesome (Flikr sideshow)

Ed and Shaun's shirts are even accurate. It's geektastic!

clavicle, the DNA helix scarf just doesn't look comfortable. But plenty geeky.
posted by Tehanu at 8:25 AM on June 4, 2007

Hey, if anyone wants MeFi knitwear patterns, don't forget you've got the author of 10+ knitting-and-related books sitting right here.

*cough cough, that'd be me*

If there really exists a need, I'll fill it. Just ask.

We did hyperbolic crochet at Maker Faire but couldn't do moebius knitting because none of the needles the sponsor had were long enough.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:28 AM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

OH -- their moebius knitted link is so not as good as Cat Bordhi's method -- they've got you doing that fake-y half-twist rigamarole. If you want to knit a REAL moebius, you gotta do it Cat's way. See here or any of her books.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:43 AM on June 4, 2007

My friend G. wants me to knit him a girlfriend. I told him he'd have to be satisfied with a nice scarf.
posted by orange swan at 9:12 AM on June 4, 2007

I keep telling kittens for breakfast he should let me teach him how to knit so he can attract babes, orange swan. It would totally work!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:52 AM on June 4, 2007

bitter-girl, for moebius, do you just knit a scarf and then kitchener stitch the ends together with a half-twist?

craichead, no worries about the binary scarf. It's a very nice looking design. I'm more harumphing at the breathless description the geek blog BoingBoing gave it, when they linked to it a while ago - they should really know better. Just an old bee in my bonnet.

And yeah, can I say that this kind of geekiness and creativity is exactly why I enjoy knitting so much? So, nice work all around. Go knitters!
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:23 PM on June 4, 2007

Ah no... you cast on stitches on the long side of the scarf, onto circulars, and then join up the first round the "wrong way" (or, what would be the wrong way if you wanted to knit a cylinder)?
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:27 PM on June 4, 2007

Actually, LobsterMitten, it's a bit more complex than that -- you use a superlong circular needle (40" +), and loop it around itself, then start casting on and picking up stitches from either side of the needle cord...

(Eeee, did that make sense at all? it's one of those learning-by-doing things, if you ask me -- if you've got access to Knitty Gritty on TV, keep taping 'til you get Cat's episode if you're more a visual learner. Or see catbordhi.com for a list of her books).

Done properly it really only has ONE EDGE, which the half-twisting, Kitchenering, cheating methods don't! Very, very cool. And as you knit, you notice that it is growing equally on either side -- in essence, you're starting from the middle and knitting out.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 2:42 PM on June 4, 2007

Hmmm. I'm going to have to try that to get it.

The kitchener version should be just like the paper-strip version we made in elementary school, though, in terms of how many edges it has. So those paper-strip things weren't really moebius strips either?
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:44 PM on June 4, 2007

I can't believe there's a binary scarf being discussed without Neal Stephenson even being mentioned. Hasn't anyone read The Baroque Cycle?
posted by meditative_zebra at 11:11 PM on June 4, 2007

No crochet coral reef?

The MrsMoonPie is an accomplished knitter, and made me a fantastic camoflage, 6-foot-long, 18-inch-wide scarf, though I'm having no luck getting her to make me a Strongbad ski mask. That'd be sweet.
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:13 AM on June 5, 2007