Dave LeCompte (he/him)
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bigdicedave.bsky.social
Dave LeCompte (he/him)
@bigdicedave.bsky.social
23 followers 69 following 84 posts
Game Developer, 3d printerer, dancer, movie-goer, theater-goer, road tripper, loser of found things.

https://bigdicedave.itch.io/
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bigdicedave.bsky.social
I had a long holiday weekend, which I filled by visiting two yarn shops and making two hats.
November 30, 2025 at 3:50 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
When I set out to make my most recent scarf, I weighed the yarn I had purchased, did some math, made a design (of sorts) that I expected to approximately use all my yarn.

The scarf ended up being 400 rows, 6 feet long, which is a little ridiculous, but it didn't use all the yarn I planned to use.
November 23, 2025 at 10:30 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Using the #sentro 48 needle circular knitting machine to make a scarf today - I had purchased 4 skeins of some nice wool yarn last spring, but I had avoided making this scarf for several months - in part due to season, in part due to not being satisfied with my skill to finish the ends.
knit scarf in blue and gray wool yarn, with a yardstick adjacent, showing that the scarf is approximately 6 feet in length. wool scarf with alternating bands of blue and gray wool yarn. Bands are made out of this row count: blue 25 gray 50 blue 75 gray 100 blue 75 gray 50 blue 25
November 23, 2025 at 2:57 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Continuing to get the (literal, figurative) dust off the hat-knitting pipeline.

I was having difficulty with the Sentro knitting machine feeling "tight", and producing what I believe are called "tucked" stitches. I wasn't sure if this was a result of gunk accumulating inside. [thread]
Work in progress picture looking down at a Sentro 48-needle knitting machine with two colors of green yarn, and claw weights. Finished knit green hat, with light green for the cap, darker green for the brim Hat with googly eyes placed on top for inspiration - the eyes are not fastened to the hat (yet?), considering other eye-options for this project.
November 19, 2025 at 5:38 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Today's knitting adventure - I disassembled, cleaned, lubed, and reassembled my Sentro 48 needle circular knitting machine and proceeded to attempt another experimental green hat (see previous post). This hat has 150 rows, which feels maybe a little longer than I was shooting for.
Knit hat in lime green yarn, knit on a circular knitting machine
November 17, 2025 at 3:40 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
New hat for November 2025 - reacquainting myself with my Sentro 48 needle circular knitting machine, reminding myself the procedures for making a hat, remembering how many rows goes into a comfortable hat.
A knit hat in a lime green color, knit on a 48-needle Sentro circular knitting machine
November 3, 2025 at 7:39 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Flow Field Half-Hexagon Quads

Still, largely experimenting with pen swaps and flow fields.

#iDraw #penplotter #flowfield #proceduralart
a hexagon comprising 8 smaller half-hexagon quadrilaterals, in red, blue, and black ink. The quads are filled with flow fields, which look to me a little like wood grain. The red pieces are the smoothest, followed maybe by the blue, then by the black. I find it interesting that I can't tell for certain whether blue is wigglier than the black or vice versa.
September 22, 2025 at 4:10 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Flow Field Chessboard

I took my flow field code and generated two flow fields - one mostly horizontal, one mostly vertical, then clipped the resulting paths into individual squares. I collected the squares into two SVGs, plotted them with different pens
#idraw #flowfield #procedural #penplotter
pen plotter drawing with flow fields alternately red-vertical and black-horizontal, forming a chessboard. The finished drawing is 8 inches square, each square being an inch on a side.
September 21, 2025 at 4:48 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
"Squared Circles" for 9/16/25
September 16 2025 was a "Pythagorean date", each element a square, the 2-digit year being the sum of the other two numbers. I nested a sequence of 4, 9, 16, 25 circles inside a square.
#idraw #penplotter #circles #pythagoras #procedural
pen plotter drawing of concentric circles, made up of 25, 16, 9, 4, and 1 "beads". The finished work has a vaguely astrological feel. "circle fractal" of circles filling the space in the corner between the ring of 25 circles and the square. I started with the shapes of the left side and bottom side of the drawing, along with the outer circle, then found a circle tangent to all three shapes, which gave me three new roughly triangular regions which I could recursively fill. I proceeded until the circles had got down to 1/20 of an inch. the beginnings of the ring of 25 beads being drawn
September 19, 2025 at 2:16 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
New Flow Field

variation on a theme - constrained the flow field to a circle, constrained the vectors in the field between -35 and 75 degrees, for a more "river" flow visual.

#iDraw #penplotter #generativeart #proceduralart #flowfield
"River" flow field, drawn in blue gel pen, flow lines are largely coherent, mostly going from top left to bottom right of the image. Beginning of drawing the flow field, individual strands are being drawn, some spatial coherence is visible. Nearly finished drawing, a few gaps are visible only a few gaps remain, resembling onion skin
September 15, 2025 at 3:46 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Flow Field drawing

Flow field, where the direction of the flow comes from simplex noise. Plotted using blue EnerGel gel pen with an iDraw H SE plotter.

#iDraw #PenPlotter #ProceduralArt #GenerativeArt
Completed drawing, with space-filling curved blue lines following a "flow field", generated from simplex noise Flow field drawing in process - the early drawing has some "tendrils" reaching out to the edge of the draw area, but most of the detail is within a circle - this is a result of the algorithm that generated the "seeds" that lead to the paths, which starts at a point and spirals out. Beginning of the drawing - some long tendrils are visible and many arching short paths connecting some of the tendrils, resembling contour lines from a mountainous region
September 15, 2025 at 12:31 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
A poster for "Math Jam", a get together of recreational math folks mathsjam.com

using Hershey fonts, bridson blue noise, and line segment SDFs.

#iDraw #penplotter #math #mathjam #mathsjam
A poster with the words MATH JAM in large letters, and small numbers and letters filling the rest of the poster, drawn in blue ink.
September 3, 2025 at 3:11 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
#iDraw #penplotter #proceduralart
an exercise in clipping shapes (circles) against other shapes (circles, half-planes) specified as SDFs.

Reminds me a little of a guitar or a fried egg.
a pen plotter drawing of a rectangle around a hexagon around a bunch of small circles, around a pair of medium sized circles, filled with a set of parallel lines. There's some extraneous lines in the upper right hand side that I need to sort out, I think my plotting bed is not quite level.
September 1, 2025 at 1:50 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Drawing an Apollonian Gasket with a circle inversion on an UUNA Tek iDraw H A3 pen plotter

#penplotter
apollonian gasket of 13 circles inside a larger circle close up of recursive tangent circle chains circle inversion of the outer gasket
August 22, 2025 at 5:06 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Has this happened to you?

You have a less-than-perfect experience at a local business (e.g. a movie theater), you go to their website to inform them of what was less than ideal, provide a few suggestions of how to make it better next time, avoid the bad experience.
January 28, 2025 at 12:17 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Three color beanie in white, light green, dark green, on my Sentro 48-hook circular knitting machine. I've been having fun (literally) cranking out hats on this machine, but now and then, I'll get a yarn (or a particular skein) that feels tight on the machine. #sentro #knittingmachine
knit hat, in white, light green, dark green. The bottom of the hat has dropped stitches and some of my most uneven work, inspiring me to try again.
January 21, 2025 at 5:14 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
My current health care provider (in the US) provides "virtual" (i.e. Zoom) visits with my PCP, which is good.

However, it seems like everything routes through one of the worst websites, I've had difficulty logging in, re-verifying my insurance coverage, my history of care has disappeared.
January 8, 2025 at 10:36 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
More #sentro #circularknittingmachine hats - using yarn I bought at Bayshore Yarns in Silverdale, WA.

www.facebook.com/profile.php?...
black/white/gray hat, with black and white pom pom green/blue hat, on Sentr 48 pin circular knitting machine green/blue hat with blue and turquoise pom pom on Sentro knitting machine
December 28, 2024 at 11:33 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
"One for them, one for me" - I made a hat for my sister (shh, don't tell her, it's in the mail even now) using a speckly gray yarn and a turquoise blue yarn. I also made a black/white/gray hat for myself. I intend to add a pom pom to the top of my hat.
Blue body hat with heather gray brim on the left, with black and white speckled hat on the right, resting on Sentro 48 circular knitting machine heather gray body hat with turquoise blue brim on the left, with black and white speckled hat on the right, resting on Sentro 48 circular knitting machine
December 24, 2024 at 4:41 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Latest #sentro #circularknittingmachine #knittingmachine project - I made a yellow/orange/white hat as a late/very early Halloween project.
yellow/orange/white "candy corn" knit hat, just off the Sentro 48 needle circular knitting machine yellow/orange/white knit hat, with a white pom pom. Red and white santa hat in background, for comparison
December 9, 2024 at 6:03 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
I don't normally look to NPR as my curator of interactive entertainment, but there's some stuff here I'll take a closer look at.

www.npr.org/2024/07/16/g...
The best games of 2024, picked by NPR's staff
NPR staff and contributors share their favorite video games of 2024 so far.
www.npr.org
December 5, 2024 at 5:38 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
my polyhedral puzzle printing project (that's a mouthful!) yielded these two guys. These are after Stewart Coffin designs www.johnrausch.com/PuzzlingWorl... Figures 101 and 107, respectively - the second and third stellation of the rhombic dodecahedron.
Two 3d printed geometric puzzles - one in orange, black, and white, the seconds stellation of the rhombic dodecahedron, the other in purple, black, and white, the third stellation. From designs by Stewart Coffin
December 2, 2024 at 6:51 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
New #sentro hat, reversible purple/pink or pink/purple
Knit hat in pink with a purple brim same hat as before, with purple and a pink brim showing
December 2, 2024 at 6:47 PM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Third project on the #Sentro, a hat in blue and white variegated yarn. The yarn is a lighter weight than my previous projects, which didn't work as well as I had hoped, including getting quite tangled around 2/3 of the way through the project.

I gave it to Mom, and she seemed to enjoy it.
Knit hat with stripes of white/blue/purple.
November 30, 2024 at 2:05 AM
bigdicedave.bsky.social
Holiday themed hat, knit on the #sentro 48. This was my second project, and it turned out quite well.

If I make another one, I'd probably make the white brim stripe a little wider, but it turned out well.
knit hat in red and white yarn. In the background is a Sentro circular knitting machine. Not in this image, a pom-pom, which I added later.
November 30, 2024 at 2:03 AM