Weaving memories into handcrafted artifacts with Spyn

Handcrafted objects, such as knit scarves or sweaters, subtly signify the time and skill involved in their creation. Yet a handcraft artifact itself cannot convey the experience of its creation. We present the design, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of Spyn, a system for knitters to virtually weave stories into their creations. Using Spyn, a knitter can record, playback and share information involved in the creation of hand-knit products. Spyn uses patterns of infrared ink printed on yarn in combination with computer vision techniques to correlate locations in knit fabric with events recorded during the knitting process. Using Spyn, knitters can capture their activities as audio, image, video, and spatio-temporal data. When users photograph the knit material, the Spyn system analyzes the ink patterns on the material and visualizes events over the photograph of the knit. In the design of Spyn, we investigate the role that technology can play in preserving and sharing the handcraft process over space and time.