Fibers.
I work on various fiber projects, mainly focusing on quilting and knitting with natural fibers. I’ve given talks or shown pieces at local events in San Francisco, including: Dorkbot 2023, Open Sauce 2023, Medicine for Nightmares Semilla Fest 2023, AI Dreamlands at Pebblebed, Demos & Chill, and Noisebridge Hackerspace.
I co-created the Fyber Collective with a group of people at Noisebridge Hackerspace in San Francisco. We’re currently working an ongoing series of AI-designed textiles that we turn into physical objects. Our current projects also incorporate circuit hacking and motion sensors. We were featured in Mission Local in 2023.
Below is a selection of these projects, with live updates over at @lowtechfibers and meta-commentary about these projects on Substack. Detailed documentation of Fyber Collective projects is in the wiki, here.
Newer projects/skills: risograph printing, punch card looms, weaving, hand-quilting, core rope memory / woven computer systems.
From Cyberculture to Fiberculture #1, 2023
Cotton fabric, cotton batting, invisible thread. Sewn on a domestic sewing machine.
Stable Diffusion was used to generate a quilt design. Fabrics were sourced and used to match the design, and sewn together on a domestic machine. This first shot is a finished quilt, based on a pattern generated by a stable diffusion build. Scroll down to see the generated image next to the in-real-life quilt.
On the left: stable diffusion generated quilt design. On the right: the final physical object.
Tenses: Text-to-Textile Quilt (in progress April 2023)
Produced by Dr. Emeline Brulé & Michelle Venetucci. Materials include cotton fabric, cotton batting, polyester thread. Sewn using a domestic sewing machine and programmable Singer Futura Quartet embroidery machine. Designed and produced using Inkscape, Ink/Stitch, Singer Futura Quartet software, Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT.
For this project, we used Stable Diffusion to generate images of letters of the alphabet, which were then converted into a vector that was sent to a programmable embroidery machine.
We’re using thread and fabric in matching colors as a callback to an embroidery practice called whitework that gradually disappeared over the 20th century, where white embroidery was used on white fabric. We used ChatGPT to come up with a color scheme for the quilt, asking it to suggest colors and a layout inspired by San Francisco. It gave us some colors associated with mechanical components of the city, like the orange of the bridge and cable car red, alongside natural components, like foggy gray and ocean blue.
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Cybernetic Collective Quilt (In progress April 2023)
Mixed media including cotton fabric, cotton batting, cotton thread, motion sensors, arduino, LED lights, wood glue, particle board. Produced using a sewing machine, programmable embroidery machine, laser cutter, table saw. Designed using Inkscape, Ink/Stitch, Singer Futura Quartet software, Stable Diffusion, and ChatGPT.
Magic Quilt, 2023
Reflections Quilt pattern by Everyday Stitches. Queen Size, 88”x88”. Piecing and quilting by Michelle using a Husqvarna Viking sewing machine.
Selected knitting, 2018-2023
Cotton and alpaca wool
My great aunt taught me to knit when I was about 10 years old, sitting in her farmhouse sun room in Colorado Springs. Here are some selected projects from the past 5 years, mostly made with cotton or alpaca wool yarn.
