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. …
Tag: maths
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 …
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. …
Hyperbolic Barbie
Hyperbolic crochet has become very popular in recent years. It has been used world-wide in various coral reef projects. The world expert in the mathematics of this art is Daina Taimina. Our latest mathematical pattern for Barbie and friends is Hyperbolic Barbie. Hyperbolic geometry is quite complicated but you don’t need to understand it to …
Carnival of Mathematics 175 – Sum Square Over The Rainbow
You might be wondering what a couple of knitters are doing hosting the Carnival of Mathematics. If you are not familiar with the methods we use to teach maths you might want to check out our main Woolly Thoughts site. It has got rather rambling over the last 20+ years. The Afghans page is a …
Tilting at Windmills
Before you scroll down, I want to ask you a question – Is this a pattern? You may think this is a totally pointless question. Try showing it to other people and see if their answer is the same as yours. You might be surprised. It doesn’t matter where we take this, or what the …
Warrington’s Geometric Car Park
This week we decided to go to Warrington – and this was the view from inside the car park. I love all these different size hexagons. This is the outside of the car park. Unfortunately, it was in shadow. There is a lot of building going on in the town centre. We really went to …
Take a fence
A friend recently posted a photo of his new garden fence. It prompted me to find some photos of our geometric fence. The house has this very small garden at the front and no garden at the back. When we moved in, over twenty years ago, there was a very old, rusted, fence sitting on …