Saturday, April 21, 2012

Woe is me... designer disasters...

Haha..that's actually a little hyperbolic but still.

Last night I decided that I was going to make a QR Code wristband. I've knitted a QR code before, and at first it even scanned, but now it doesn't. The yarn has gotten fuzzy and muddles the code just enough that you can't scan it at all. I even did it in black and white just to make sure. Here are the pictures...

Completed QR Code. Scannable (IRL).

Progress as it happened...
So I thought, I bet I can make another one, smaller on smaller needles and get it into a wristband to wear in public! How cool would that be?!

I broke out my fingering weight yarns and decided on colours. I was originally going to go with blue and orange figuring the contrast would work. It did but the gauge was WAY off and I would have needed an arm three times larger to make it scannable. The second attempt was on size 1 needles and the fingering yarn but now it was too small and the needles, made of bamboo, felt like they were going to break in my hands. Third attempt seemed to look the best but upon inspection, the orange just wasn't bright enough. So I went with yellow. I actually like the way it came out but it doesn't scan. Of course. Here's the final product:

QR Code to kobuu.com

Simple garter stitch for stretch!

Like I said, I like it, it just doesn't scan. So back to the drawing board. I am going north to visit @sara marks in lowell today and knit with her and @zen alpaca. Me thinks I need to swing by my storage room to find my crochet cotton OR I will be getting DMC Floss to work with for the same purpose. BTW, @virginia given, this would NOT count towards my "yarn diet" as floss is not yarn. LOL. I know I'll be doing this again, I really want it to work, and maybe just black and white floss will do the trick. I will update with my progress on this design later....

6 comments:

Sara Marks said...

I wonder if you need a mercerized cotton to keep it from getting too fuzzy.

Crafty Mama said...

ha ha ha, yarn diets are meant to be broken. :) (I wouldn't have counted the DMC floss for sure)

Kristina said...

I was thinking the same thing - cotton wouldn't fuzz as much. Good luck!

Kobuu said...

@Crafty Mama hahaha....yeah...there's that.

@Kristina next attempt will be with floss instead of yarn.

Agnes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Agnes said...

I totally dig your B&W QR code! The yellow and green one is a bit too neon light for me. Wish you luck figuring out the smaller QR code project.