Amy Wendt

Designers

Amy Wendt

Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of Wisconsin--Madison

Madison, WI, USA

wendt@engr.wisc.edu

Biography

My affinity for craft and passion for fiber and textiles arose from growing up in the presence of talented family members and in an era that placed me among those students required to learn sewing and cooking. Later on, I also acquired university. training in the skills and sensibilities of an engineer. This background has led me to a point where creative impulses emerge now most strongly at the intersection where textile crafting is both inspired in design and informed in process by science, engineering and math.

Looks

Image for look 'Touché Truchet Scarf' — Touché Truchet scarf - modeled by the artist
Amy Wendt

About the look

Touché Truchet Scarf

Machine knitted with lace weight wool yarn

2023

Reversible scarf design is a non-repeating pattern constructed of Truchet-like square tiles. The scarf pattern is constructed from duotone square Truchet-like tiles that are symmetric across one diagonal. Each tile consists of three color regions such that each edge of the square is half one color and half the other. The color boundaries on the interior of the tile are defined by a Bezier curve, which is smoothly varied from a straight line between the midpoints of adjacent edges (scarf ends) to a deep curve (scarf midpoint), using a single parameter varied according to a half cycle of the sine function between the scarf ends. Colors are matched on abutting tile edges but the choice of two possible tile color arrangements (red center and beige corners or beige corners and red center) are randomly selected, producing contiguous color regions across multiple tiles. The scarf is jacquard knitted on a computer controlled knitting machine (Kniterate) with lace weight wool yarn.