Psyche Inspired

Spun UP!

Liz Phillips

November 27th, 2024

Major: Physics

Genre/Medium: Embroidery; Animation

About the work:

“Spun UP!” is a stop-motion animation that reimagines the Psyche mission logo using embroidery. The central circle resembles the shape of the Psyche asteroid in motion as it spins around its own axis. Surrounding it, four semi-circles evoke the shape of the spacecraft’s cross-shaped solar panels. I drew inspiration from NASA’s long-standing tradition of mission patches to guide the design of this project. The background of black fabric acts as the fabric of space: an empty void that permeates the entire universe. But this blank canvas is nothing special without some decoration! The asteroid and spacecraft are depicted with silver thread, spun from metallic fibers, reflecting both of their compositions.

The animation consists of 25 individually embroidered frames—with some frames photographed partially completed—for a total of 47 distinct frames. I first created the animation digitally, using very simple lines and shapes to make the embroidery part easier. I then used embroidery software to manually convert each frame into stitch files. I used the embroidery machine at my library’s makerspace, which was the most time-intensive part of this project. Even with a machine, each frame took over an hour to cut, iron, load into the hoop, switch between colors, and clean up loose threads. I’m very grateful to the makerspace staff who helped me whenever I ran into trouble!

Thank you to my friend and collaborator Fernanda Vasquez Sanchez for volunteering to compose the music for this project! Initially, I didn’t plan to include sound, but having it has elevated the piece to something truly special. I can’t imagine it without music now! She did a wonderful job capturing the atmospheric and lighthearted quality I was going for, with very little direction from me.

Music composed by Fernanda Vasquez Sanchez.

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