Viral fiber art

Viruses inspire many different types of art, but I was unaware of the number of people who make viruses out of fiber!

On This Week in Virology #266 we heard from Emily who had knitted a dengue virus pillow (photograph at left).

The next week on TWiV #267 we heard from Carolyn who had knitted a picornavirus (photo below).

The following week (TWiV #268) we heard from Jessica who has also knitted two different icosahedral structures.

This made me wonder how many people knit viruses, so I searched Ravelry for ‘virus’. Here are some of the interesting creations I found.

Cold virus by Krista:

Dawn’s cold virus (rhinovirus):

Melini’s phage hat:

Two H1N1 influenza viruses:

And Susan’s bacteriophage:

There are also bacteria, such as this collection (with some viruses) from Clare:

You can find more by searching for ‘microbe’ at Ravelry (login required), where you’ll also find the patterns to reproduce these wonderful creations. Microbes are clearly inspiring and fascinating to fiber artists!

Do you make fiber viruses? If so let me know and we can include a photograph here.