Nets & Knots: Techniques for Scaling Netted Lace

Craft, Netted Lace, Scaling 

                                                                                                                               A Thesis Proposal 

Presented to the School of Industrial Design 

Graduate Committee  

By 

Margaret Johnston

Master of Industrial Design Candidate 2023 

In Partial Fulfillment of the 

Requirements for the Degree 

Master of Industrial Design in the 

School of Industrial Design, 

College of Design 

Georgia Institute of Technology 

Primary Advisor  

Lisa Marks, Georgia Institute of Technology  

Committee Members 

HyunJoo Oh, Georgia Institute of Technology 

Wendell Wilson, Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract:

Traditional handcrafts have potential for a variety of applications in the modern field of industrial design. Previous work has demonstrated success in projects that adapt craft techniques at a large scale to create new products or architectural designs. This study explores options for scaling up netted lace-making techniques for use in a Georgia Tech Research Institute project that intends to send a net into space to collect space debris. Though fishing nets and sports nets are already mass-produced at a large scale, the machines that make them lack the nuance to incorporate unique design choices, such as crossed or gathered stitches, into the pattern of the netting. At the other extreme, small-scale handcraft methods of making netted lace allow for a wide variety of pattern choices but are labor intensive processes for the crafter. The traditional tools of netted lace become unwieldly at the scale necessary for this project. This thesis therefore proposes a new technique for net-making which fills the gap identified between industrial machines that mass produce fishing nets and the method that handcrafters use to make small lace samples. The tools and techniques created for this purpose, developed through analogy to a number of other textile crafts, decreases the labor required on the part of the crafter while preserving their ability to make a variety of pattern choices in the design of the net.