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rkr4cds Mar 18, 2012

I've forgotten which list I saw this on, but since Knitting is my first love, I just HAD to find out more about it!
http://www.sirenelisewilhelmsen.com/work.html  - 365 (Day) Clocks

The theory is to knit one st per minute - how the time is calculated I'm not certain (how you know what time it is?) but as a frustrated Industrial Engineer - I ♥ it!

It was said that if one writes to her you can get on her mailing list to find out about availability; I did and I received a cheery email from her the next day.
They're not in production now but I'll post it if I ever hear what the cost of these clocks are!

Wall clock:

Grandfather's Clock:

Close-up of 'Face':

thumperantiques Mar 18, 2012

Now that's cool, Bobbie!!!

Us Bears Mar 18, 2012

If the clock motor runs at a certain, set speed, you could tell time by the length of the sock that is knitted.

For instance, if the clock knits one inch of sock per hour, in one day, it will knit two feet.
Put a graduated scale on the wall behind the clock and you can tell the time, plus or minus one half hour by comparing the length of the sock to the scale.

If you used variegated yarn that changed color at precise intervals, you could tell time by how many stripes are on the sock.
For instance, if the yarn was colored brown, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, gray and white and those colors were dyed into the yarn at precisely the interval that the clock can knit in one hour, you would end up with a rainbow colored sock that would have one colored stripe for every hour.

I suppose you could make the yarn change color every fifteen minutes but that would be too hard to read from a distance.

rkr4cds Mar 19, 2012

I hadn't given it that much thought yet Randy, but knowing the gauge that those particular knit pins/hooks produce, by running a practice run with X-amount of a known amount of yardage, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out in advance how much yarn to pre-load: in separate colors/ in pre-marked lengths/etc - - -  to determine the time by observing the knitted tube.
Individual 1 - 5 minute sets could be differentiated is stripes though I'm not I'd want to go as detailed as that in an Art piece!
Great problem-solving, even if the final price tag is going to be out-of-my budget!

Us Bears Mar 19, 2012

I just reread the website.

The artist says the clock will knit a 2 meter long tube in 365 days.  That's equivalent to 5.4 millimeters per day.

Looking closely at the pictures, it appears like there are 48 teeth on the knitting wheel.
Judging by the thickness of the yarn and the size of the stitches, it looks like 1 revolution of the wheel would be about 5 mm.
One revolution per day; 48 clicks per day; that comes out to one click every 30 minutes.

It doesn't seem like you can really tell time by this clock.  It only shows the passage of time, not discrete measures of time.

If you speed the clock up so it knits one stitch per minute, it would make 162 mm of tube in a day.
(1440 min./day ÷ 48 stitches/rev. = 30 rev./day * 5.4 mm./rev. = 162 mm./day)

That's 1.134 meters per week;  4.5 meters per month and 59.1 meters per year.

If it went any faster, say 1 stitch per second, it would knit a whole lot of socks.  Almost 10 meters per day.  (9.7 meters.)
That's equal to 3.5 kilometers per year.  (2.2 miles.)

So, just puzzling it out like that, it's easy to see that if it ran any faster than it already does, it would produce a huge amount of knitted product.  At 2 meters per year, it's manageable.  At 162 mm per day it gets a little inconvenient.  At that rate, you'd probably have to cut it off and rethread it every week.  If it ran at the faster rate, you'd have to cut it off and rethread it twice per day or else you could end up with a seriously unmanageable and expensive to maintain mess on your hands.

At its present rate, it's probably more like a calendar than a clock.

rowarrior Mar 19, 2012

Well however it's done it looks cool