365 knitting clock by Siren Elise Wilhelmsen -Inspiration - SYD 004

photo by Miriam Lehnart

The 365 Knitting Clock by Siren Elise Wilhelmsen is another knitting nancy based object, and it is completely different to superblues life size sitting sculpture.  Siren, a Norwegian product designer, residing in Berlin, designed this clock, measuring time through the length of the knitting. Each day one round is knitted and at the end of the year a two meter long scarf has been created. Knitting for the patient but also a very poetic way of measuring time.

photo by Miriam Lehnart

I love the idea and it also makes a little shiver run down my spine.  Maybe your time is up if you miss putting in a new ball of yarn at the end of the year? It reminds me of the story of the Norns- the legendary beings spinning the thread of the fate of human kind.

Mehr Zeit - more time (photo by Miriam Lehnart)

Inspiration BS003 – look-alikes

While i had my daily look through some design blogs i came across the lamp fishermen by the Swedish architects TAF. It caught my attention because it immediately brought up a lot of varying associations reaching from dodgy fish restaurants to nice holidays at the baltic sea coast, where you can sometimes find these glass balls used by fishermen to keep the tips of their nets above the water. When i started thinking about this and how such a simple design can bring up so many stories i wondered about other designs that i had seen and remembered because of a similar link to other objects.

image by TAF Arkitektkontor

Another designer that imediatly came to my head was Julia Reischel who was a lovely flatmate of mine in Rotterdam. Her lamp Jack also got a maritime look-alike: the buoy. But it does not only takes the shape as an inspiration but also uses the tilting movement of a buoy as a mechanism to swich on and dim the light.

image by Julia Reischel

A different take on the subject was made by Mieke Meijer from Vij5 designers who did not

make a product resembling some other object but created a material that carries the aesthetics of wood and takes the ecological value even further. Her newspaper wood is made of old newspaper that is glued together and sanded to reveal the lines that are such a distinctive attribute associated with wood. It can be used almost like wood, to build furniture or anything else that is thought of.

image by Vij5

Three lines and a fold travels 001 - Buchstabenmuseum Berlin

I am back from my three week holiday in Germany. Three weeks of beautiful spring weather, hanging out with my most favourite Architects, lots of long chats with coffee and wine and a little bit of much missed European culture.

I spent a fair bit of time in Berlin and I finally managed to visit the Buchstabenmuseum and saw their collection of letters.
It is located in the 'Berlin Caree' building close to Alexanderplatz. This old shopping mall is a very unlikely building for a museum. Its full of slightly trashy GDR nostalgia shops including a a supermarket selling ex GDR products. The supermarket was frequented by quite a few pensioners, who looked like straight out of 'Goodbye Lenin' - bizarre.

The museum itself is located in what looks like a former tanning salon. The smallish rooms are crammed full with letters leaning against walls or piled up on the floor. They seem strangely obsolete and useless.

So many Ss, what to do with them?

Berliners might know the iconic 'Zierfische' sign, formerly advertising a fish shop at Frankfurter Tor was dismantled a while ago. It found its new home here as well as the ' Hauptbahnhof' sign formerly mounted on what is now called Ostbahnhof.

Giant Knitting Nancy by Superblue - Inspiration - SYD 003

One of my 2011 New Year's resolutions (well, the only one, to be honest) was to learn how to knit. I never learned this craft as a child.  I remember my mum trying to show me how but refusing to go on teaching me because I did not take it serious enough. Sorry Mum! How could I not take knitting seriously? I did however have a knitting nancy and made long cords - but can't remember what I used them for.

Years later, on a different continent I was looking for a knitting nancy, because I wanted to make some I-cord necklaces (I-cord is the cord that you make with a knitting nancy if you take your knitting seriously! And using a knitting nancy is called french knitting - tres chic!).

I first tried to find one online, with very little success. See, in German Nancy is called Liesl (Strickliesl to be precise), and 'knitting liesl' does not get you many useful hits on the interweb search machines. Once I found out I was looking for Nancy (and not Liesl) it turned out any old Spotlight is selling what I was looking for and I ended up buying this rather ugly example of a nancy.

On my quest to make 2011 the year I learned to knit, I picked up a VOGUEknitting magazine the other week and came across this:

The Giant Knitting Nancy

image by Superblue

"Knitting + architecture in a public space? That's for me!", I thought. You can't get much more serious with your knitting than that! Superblue, a London based design practice, created the Giant Knitting Nancy in collaboration with Sculptor Dan Preston, and Jewellery Designer Holly Packer for the London Festival of Architecture in 2010.

image by Superblue

The seating sculpture was created by everyone who wanted to participate. It consist of the ever growing i-cord knitted 'on site',  inflatable balls, that can be used as seats, are inserted into the knitted tube. Located in Jubilee Park in the middle of Canary Warf it attracted a lot of lunch time office workers (above). Knit your own park bench, then enjoy a sunny summer's lunch with others. They took the nancy to the beach as well - looks like even more fun. I would love to find a knitting nancy on one of Sydneys many beaches.

image by Superblue

Check out their web page or facebook page for more great projects. It looks like superblue are having lots of fun at work - I am a little bit jealous.

If you want to know more about knitting nancies, have a look at this comprehensive post  by Wayne Smith on every knitting nancy known to man. While you are at it check out Waynes main page for everything from lightsabers to growing your own chocolate. (Sorry this is bit random)

DIY Easter Card - From the Workshop SYD003

The illustrations in today's post are from a DIY card I designed for the ABCD meetup goodie bag a few weeks ago. 
ABCD meetup is a designer, crafter and blogger networking event organized by the lovely Lisa of the red thread and Steph of Bondville. It was a fun evening and I met a lot of interesting and creative Ladies.
On this note:
Enjoy the extra long weekend (Australians get an extra public holiday on Tuesday, yey!) and

Pegge Hopper - Inspiration - SYD002

Pegge Hopper for Rinascente 1962

A friend of mine lend me some of her Japanese grafik design books a while ago. Their titles are translated into quirky English and read 'Stamp Tour in the World' or ' Book Design of Graphic Designers in the world'. All the writing is in Japanese, so not much for me to read, but a lot of eye candy.
While Flicking through them the work of Pegge Hopper caught my eye. I had never heard of her before.
Pegge grew up and studied in the Usa. In the 60ies, she moved to Italy for two years and worked for La Rinascente, an Italian department Store. She designed a series of advertising posters for the company.
I love the bunny rabbit cum easter egg above. It looks like it has been torn out of paper and put together like a collage. The shapes are simple and bold in colour. She manages to paint a picture and tell a storey with very few lines.

Pegge Hopper Maternita baby for Rinascente

Pegge Hopper later moved to Hawaii, where she lives until today. She became well known for her paintings of island women. These paintings are more detailed than her graphic work for Rinascente but they still are dominated by bold and simple shapes of single colour. Check out her website for more images. You can buy prints of her work in her online shop.

From the Workshop - Designgipfel Münster -BS003

Just a quick reminder, the Designgipfel is open this weekend and it is wonderful weather!