If the idea of knitting your own hat has always appealed in theory, but you don’t know your double pointed needles from your garter stitch, then you may wish to take a look at the Rocking-Knit chair.
The Rocking-Knit is the brainchild of students Damien Ludi and Colin Peillex, based at Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL), Switzerland. It allows a person to sit back, relax, and enjoy the gentle rocking motion of the chair, while a woolen hat is automatically knitted and eventually appears overhead, ready to wear.
This is achieved by an ingenious use of simple gears, which draw upon the regular back-and-forth movement of the rocking chair in order to drive the automatic knitting mechanism forward.
The Rocking-Knit was exhibited at ECAL’s Low-Tech Factory exposition, as part of the Designers' Saturday event held at Langenthal, Switzerland.
The brief video below shows the Rocking-Knit in sedate operation.