We designed our first afghan in 1996. It came about shortly after the publication of our Woolly Thoughts book when we were contacted by Brown Sheep, a large American yarn company. They asked us if we would design an afghan for them. We agreed but actually had no idea what it was they were wanting. …
Category: Mathematics
Menger & Sierpinski
This is a Menger Sponge. It is made from plastic canvas. A Menger Sponge is a 3D fractal. It is named after Karl Menger. The basic idea is that you take a cube and remove a square tunnel from the centre, in all three directions; then you remove a square tunnel, in all directions, from …
The Big Lock-Down Math-Off
In a normal year The Math-Off is a best-of-three, knockout, event that takes place on The Aperiodical website for the whole of July. It usually involves 16 people. The aim is to present bits of fun, or stimulating, maths to entertain, puzzle, or provoke, not the kind of geometry or algebra you might have done …
The Big Lock-Down Math-Off
Today, Easter Saturday, April 11th, is the first day of The Big Lock-Down Math-Off. In the first match we are up against Andrew Stacey. It is basically Knitting v Superheroes. The voting for the first match ends at 9 am BST on Monday the 13th Don’t let maths put you off. Some days there may …
Love is in the air
This is the ideal time to make a small knitted box with a hidden gift. Cube Thing is made from three simple strips of knitting. They are not joined but they stay together to form a cube. You can put your gift inside and it can be taken out again without doing any damage to …
Modular Knitting 3
How to use modular garter stitch shapes with 45, 90 ad 135 degree angles. Previous posts about making the shapes1. Knitting at MathsJam2. More Modular Knitting Now you know how to make the shapes, what can you do with them? You could make a small cushion or go on, as many people have, to make …
More Modular Knitting
In an earlier post I described what happens at a typical Woolly Thoughts workshop about modular knitting and why these foolproof methods work. Begin with a garter stitch square, knit diagonally: Make a slip knot Increase by knitting into the front and back of the loop Increase at the end of every row until you …
Knitting at MathsJam
Last week I gave a talk at MathsJam Annual Gathering. This is an amazing annual event where ‘mathematicians’ from around the world get together. It isn’t the boring number stuff you might imagine. When 200 eccentrics (of the nicest possible kind) get together it leads to mind-bending fun, puzzles, games, performances, cake baking, singing and …
Borromean Baubles
These simple mathematical baubles can be made in lots of different ways and either hung as a decoration, or used to hold a small gift. The Borromeo family originated in Rome – that’s where the Rome bit of their name came from. In the twelfth century they set up a bank in Milan and became …
Barbie Spirals
Barbie has lots of new knit and crochet spiral dresses. In maths there are very specific definitions for some kinds of spirals. You can find lots of information about mathematical spirals on the internet. Some of them refer to ‘circling round a centre point’ but you will also find square, hexagonal and other shaped spirals. …