You may have seen this partially showing in pictures of Lori on the aquarium hood. But there is a story behind it.
Back around 1980, I saw a "string art" in the store front window. I kept going back to it to try to understand how it was made. That was before the internet, so I couldn't just "look it up". What amazed me was that all the strings seemed to wrap around one pin at a time to form a kind of circle.
I love geometric shapes and I love making things new to me. But figuring out how the string wrapped around every pin "just once" drove me nuts. I even went to the mall on Thanksgiving Day and convinced the security guard to let me in just to look at it again.
And it finally struck me. The number of pins (small brads, actually) had to be a prime number! I drew it on paper first to check that. And I was right... So I started with a 2'x2' plywood board and figured out a circumference of a circle that would fit well in it. I don't recall what prime number I used (57, 59, 63?) and I don't even want to try to counts them.
And it took darn near a full day to accurately adjust my compass divider
to get the spacing right. But I finally got it. On packing paper, LOL! And I still have it.
Then I had to tap brads just an inch high into a cloth-covered plywood board to stay 1/8" above. Each layer of thread requires counting a different number of brads. The smallest circle is barely less than half the number. Larger circles need fewer countings.
I discovered that carpet thread was stronger than clothes thread, so I used that. Keeping the circles tight required a bit of tension and clothes thread broke.
After making enough circles, I stopped and tapped the brads down flush. I said "pins" earlier, but brads have a small flat head and literally nailed the threads in place.
The pic I showed above was my first effort, so I kept it. I made a couple others as gifts to friends. My best was a rainbow. Light blue cloth with thread colors following the rainbow color order.
I did an oval version once just by extending the circle. You can use the string and nail method where you attach a string to two fixed points and trace around it with a pencil. That was a gift to another friend.
I also extended the idea to an apartment wall (ceiling to floor) using black and red yarn. It got a lot of attention from visitors. I have old photos of it, but I can't scan them these days. Need to fix that.
I tried to sell them on commission at an art store, but got no takers. They took lots of effort and even at (only) $50 back then, kind of expensive. But I sometimes wonder how life would have changed if they had "caught on".
So I guess I wanted to show off the original. If I get the scanner working again, I'll show off a few more. I really need to get the printer functioning properly.
