Digital Prints on Recycled Beverage Cans and Crochet

Needle arts have always been a major part of my art life.  I learned to crochet when I was 7 and made a ripple afghan that was anything but exact in the ripple department.  It was pretty pitiful, but it was so much fun I didn't worry if the ripples were a mess.  Much later in the 70's crochet was popular so there were always plenty of patterns around for me to make endless pieces in crochet.  Now I tend to leave patterns behind and just figure it out and crochet when the inspiration hits.

Today I still always have a crochet project going and when it comes to assembling my beverage can digital prints, I crochet pieces together.   Yesterday Kathryn who blogs (on her website)  Crochet Concupiscence sent me an email to tell my a piece of my crochet work was highlighted on her blog "20 Creative Things a Crocheter Can Do With Paper" You can see my piece and others in her post.

This got me to thinking how much crochet I have been doing in the last couple of weeks with my beverage cans so I thought I would share a bunch of pieces front and back and then show you how I start these pieces.  They are labor intensive and a bit wearing on your hands, but rewarding.  These pieces are small, nothing larger then 12" x 12".

Detail 

 Front

Back  

The general plan with these pieces are to string the can pieces and crochet together. 

Many of the pieces are then secured to a piece of hardware cloth so they can be hung.

 Front 12" x 12" piece

 Detail

 Detail of back

Back

You can see I started with a small square and then crocheted the rest of the rows around the square.  I

approached the first piece on the page the same way.

 This piece rolls together and can be hung in the round.  It is 8" x 20"

This would actually be the inside of the piece since it naturally rolls together.

 This piece is 10" x 16" with the height of 2.5"- the loops of the beverage can are rather long.

This is the back:)

Now let's see how they all start-  

I print the beverage cans- you can actually find my ebook on printing beverage cans on my kathyanne art site the title is The Complete Guide to Digital Printing and Assembling Beverage Cans.  It is also available on Nook and Kindle.  

After the cans are printed and varnished and ready to go I cut them in the size pieces for the project - punch holes and then string them onto colored hemp.

When I string the cans I don't put tons on.  As I want to add can pieces I just cut the hemp, add pieces then tie the hemp back to the piece and crochet.  So as you see in the pic above I chain stitched and then I crochet the pieces into the crochet chain.

Every other row I crochet without can pieces.  Otherwise it is totally unruly and there is no room for the cans.  As it is I pack them in.

Please visit my Digital Alternative Sites to get more information on digital printing.  These sister sites are about my digital alternative print processes. 

Digital Alternative Surfaces

Digital Alternative Studio

Digital Alternative Journaling

These sites also have tutorials.  They are new sites and I am in the process of building the content on them.