Expansion of Crochet Stitch Mesh Functionality (2026 FUCKERY Award)
Aren Davey (2026)
Crochet is a textile fabrication technique where surfaces are created from manipulating yarn into loops with a hooked tool. Research from Representing Crochet with Stitch Meshes by Guo et al. demonstrates that crochet patterns can be represented as a stitch mesh, where a pattern is represented by a library composed of tiles of stitches that contain yarn geometry. However, Guo et al. only implemented a limited number of crochet stitches. This research expands the crochet stitch mesh library.
In addition to expanding the crochet stitch mesh library, this research develops a novel data structure called Stitch-Connection Mesh to represent crochet and creates a text to Augmented Stitch Meshes converter.
Aren Davey is an artist, creative technologist and senior in the School of Art, pursuing a hybrid degree in Computer Science and Arts. For the past year, she has been working in the CMU Textiles Lab, under the supervision of Jim McCann, on software tools to support crafters working in crochet. Under Professor McCann, Aren has developed new algorithms and data structures to represent meshes of crochet stitches. Simultaneously, in Prof. Golan Levin’s Advanced Creative Coding studio, Aren has used these data structures to build a powerful new interface that helps non-experts design crochet patterns. Aren has a long history of working in open-source arts communities; as far back as 2020, she was a Processing Fellow, and an artist-in-residence at the Clinic for Open Source Arts.
Expansion of Crochet Stitch Mesh Functionality is the winner of the 2026 the Moore Family Fund for Underwriting Creativity, Knowledge, Experimentation, Research and Yumminess, aka the FUCKERY Award. This award is the product of an endowed gift by Dan Moore, an awesome STUDIO alum whose ongoing friendship and support is very much felt at the STUDIO.