The challenge is to turn a square of fabric into a jacket without cutting off any pieces or adding anything on.
Author: Pat Ashforth
Sum Wear
You could be forgiven for thinking I am beginning to lose the plot. My latest design is for Barbie! This is not just any Barbie. This is Fibonacci Barbie. This is a project that has been languishing for more than 20 years. I started to make some mathematically-inspired clothes for a teddy bear, which I …
Moon Landing
It was in the week I went on my first visit to the school where I was to start teaching, in my first post, in September. Everyone was very excited. Strangely, I don’t remember watching anything at home but I do remember groups of the children huddled round televisions. Televisions in schools were still a …
Alan Turing
On July 15, Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, announced that Alan Turing will be the face on the new £50 note. You may not be surprised to know that we have Turing-related knitting. In 2014 the film The Imitation Game was released. It is described as a historical drama. Shortly afterwards I came across …
Two Kinds of Magic
Illusion knitting seems like magic. Things appear and disappear. A Kind of Magic is also the name of the chorus who became National Mixed Chorus Champions 2019 at the British Association of Barbershop Singers Convention. The chorus was an amalgamation of The Cottontown Chorus and Amersham A Cappella. Steve designed a wall-hanging to commemorate this …
More Needle Gauges (4)
This is my last board of gauges. They tend to be oddments that didn’t quite fit with anything else. Most are plastic. Many were given away with various magazines. Inox Calculator + Counting FrameThis is quite complex. The holes are metric sizes from 1.5 mm to 10 mm. In the photo all the smaller sizes …
World Wide Knit in Public Day
Next Saturday (June 8th) is World Wide Knit in Public Day. It is an annual event that takes place every year on the second Saturday in June. The aim is to promote knitting, and other fibrecrafts, and to help dispel some of the old preconceptions. Knitters are not little old ladies making bedsocks. There are …
A Kind of Magic
Steve has been pursuing his other passion – Barbershop singing. He belongs to Cottontown Chorus, from Bolton, who have been National Chorus Champions seven times, most recently in 2018. Last weekend they had to relinquish their crown at the annual convention of the British Association of Barbershop Singers (BABS). As retiring champions they were barred …
The Great Pyramid
Almost nine years ago Steve designed, and knitted, an illusion of the Great Pyramid and Sphinx. He constantly looks for new challenges and this was a very early one. At the time he wrote: He was pleased with the result. Photographs never do justice to illusion knitting. They have to be seen in real-life to …
More Needle Gauges (3)
Many of these gauges are relatively modern. The organisation is not always completely logical as there are so many different ways the gauges could be grouped together. This board has my two favourite gauges. I love them because they are so wrong. Can you spot them? Part of the reason I originally started collecting gauges …