Copper

I actually bought some copper wire and began fiddling with it to see if it could be knitted up. It really can be knitted! I also began looking at copper’s structure for some inspiration for a knitting stitch and have come up with this:

The crystal structure of copper is called the "face centered cubic", or for short, "fcc" structure. 

I think I will try to make a bracelet or cuff out of this stitch and see what I come up with.

Seen from Space

Local folk lore says that there are only two man-made things that can be seen with the naked eye from space. One is the Great Wall of China, the other is the Bingham (now Kennecott) Copper Mine. Although this is totally a myth (you can see lots of man-made things from low Earth orbit) it speaks to the vastness of the mine and its impact on people living near it.

Jonas Lie, Bingham Mine, 1917, Collection of the UMFA

The Copper mine is a big open pit mine that is a few miles south of the Great Salt Lake. It has been in the news recently because of a huge landslide that has caused the mine to close for a year. It is almost incomprehensible because of the scale of the slide and the mine, like a scar dug deep into the mountain. I know that we all need copper, I am using it right now in my computer, but it is very shocking to see the damage that man can do to the landscape.

I work at an art museum and one of our docents was telling me about her hometown where she grew up. It was named Lark, but it doesn’t exist anymore. The mountain that the town was on doesn’t even exist anymore. The Copper Mine displaced the town and the people who lived there. The mine affects my view of the beautiful mountains, but at least for now it hasn’t consumed my hometown.

The copper mine and its impact has been on my mind lately. I have been thinking about what copper is used for, and how I can use it. I would like to do another structural piece of jewelry like the Halite Necklace and Salt Bracelet I made last year. They were very fun to envision and knit.

So, this recent landslide in Kennecott made me think of copper. What is the structure of copper? Can it be translated into a knitted structure? What about knitting with copper wire? I think I am going to do some experimenting.

Finished Timpanogos Scarf

Here is the finished scarf just in time for my sister’s birthday. It was epic and took quite a while to do, but I like it. I was recuperating from illness last week and had a lot of time on my hands and this was the perfect time-filler. I am not sure if anyone else would want to do a mountain scarf like this, especially of a mountain that does not have the same emotional connection as this does to me or my sister. But, I made a pattern anyway and it is on my pattern page. That is my youngest as the cutest model ever. It took a bit to get him smiling instead of crying but he was a trooper in the end. 

Timpanogos Scarf

Graphing Timp was hard. In order to get the image on a scarf, I needed to graph the whole mountain, but the iconic features are very small when I do that. But if it were to do a close up, the elevation change is too large and the scarf becomes a shawl. So this is what I came up with

I am using some aran weight blue and brown to knit the scarf. I also want to distinguish the mountain from the sky and am doing the mountain in seed stitch and the sky in stockinette, all with a garter stitch edging. I hope it turns out and is not just a dorky looking scarf. 

Mount Timpanogos

 I grew up in Utah County, south of the Great Salt Lake, along the Wasatch Front. The Wasatch Front is the westernmost edge of the Rocky Mountains and, in my opinion, they are the most beautiful mountains. One of the most iconic mountains in Utah County is Mount Timpanogos. It is a mountain that is so recognizable because of a legend that everyone is told (although is totally made up) about an Indian maiden.

The legend says that an Indian maiden, Utahna, committed suicide by throwing herself off the mountain in a Romeo and Juliet fashion after her true love, Red Eagle, died from injuries he suffered in a bear attack. Utahna then became part of the mountain and you can see her silhouette today as a maiden lying down.

If you look just right, you can see the shape of the woman on the mountain. And once you see it, you will never NOT see it.

 I grew up in the shadow of Mount Timpanogos. It is by far the most familiar landscape to me. My sister currently lives with a spectacular view of Timp in her backyard. She asked if I would design something with the silhouette of the mountain on it for her. So for her birthday, I am going to design a scarf that has this iconic silhouette.

Here is what I am thinking in a quick sketch:

It’s going to be epic and big but that is how the mountain is, so here goes.