thomasina's Guide to Geeky Knitting

Oddly enough, knitting and geekiness are like chocolate and peanut butter -- what at first seems like an odd combination is very complimentary. The mathematics that underlies knitting probably helps...

Index:
Geology and Paleontology (I have to start with this...)
Biology

• Microscale: Genetics and Microbiology
  
• Macroscale: Anatomy and Ecology

Mathematics

• General
  
• Topology
  
• Probability, Chaos, and Fractals
  
• Sequences and Geometry
  
• Tessellation

Computer Science
History
Linguistics
All blog entries in Geeky Knitting

thomasina's guide to Geeky Knitting

Geology and Paleontology

pseudotachylite (earning my undying gratitude at finally finding geologic knitting) suggested a tectonics scarf (now, 65 Ma, 190 Ma, 220 Ma, 280 Ma, and 350 Ma. The tectonics scarf was designed and knit by fisheggs at geoknitting, who has generously made the tectonics charts available to the geoscience / knitting community. I am starting my own journey to design and knit a tectonics shawl.

Also from fisheggs: a "Terry Dactyle" doll. Alan Dart created five dinosaur patterns. (I know, I know, only three are actually dinosaurs) for Sirdar, which are now out of print: Sirdar 4326 Troy Ceratops; Sirdar 4327 Tyrone O'Saurus; Sirdar 4328 Stella Saurus; Sirdar 4329 Terry Dactyle; Sirdar 4330 Wally Mammoth. These show up on eBay from time to time.

Xtreme-knitting's Jennifer Rose Thurston created these free dinosaur patterns, for Bronty, Trice, and Mr. Stegs: PDF pattern.

Presenting nautiloids, affectionately known as "Nauties," in the Spring 2006 issue of Knitty. Designed by Beth Skwarecki.

Index

Biology

Microscale: Genetics and Microbiology

One of my personal favorites is the DNA scarf pattern, designed by June Oshiro while she was a graduate student at Rutgers; it is now hosted on her own server, Twosheep.com. This is also very popular amongst knitters, as googling "DNA scarf" or google imaging on "DNA scarf" bring up a multitude of scarves knit on this pattern. I've knit it several times, won first place at the state fair (which I credit fully to the designer), and have a post on yarn substitutions that I have tried.

botanicallyhip has suggested the following: Geek Chic from the Fall 2003 back issue of Interweave Knits. It contains different interpretations of the DNA scarf by the staff members (the red 3D one was apparently designed by Ann Budd), as well as a translation of the DNA cables to pillow form, and a cute DNA cabled purse. There is also a short article on geeky knitting.

Kimberly Chapman designed "Baby's First DNA Model," a 3D interpretation of DNA incorporating a unique twisted tube.

Knitcast, the podcast about knitting, had their first interview with two knitting biologists who were inspired by their work. There are biology photos from the podcast, and hopefully there will be followup photos of the knitting, also. Permalink to the .mp3 podcast download post.

She Dances in Dragon, a redhead, decided to knit the variations in the MRC1 gene that result in her phenotype. She used the standard notation (G black, C blue, T red, A green), and has made her charts available: Redhead Genome Project chart; DNA chart, part 1; DNA chart, part 2.

Index

Macroscale: Anatomy and Ecology

The Fall 2004 online issue of knitty has a bubble-gum pink uterus stuffed doll! There is a disclaimer that it is not entirely anatomically accurate, but it surely looks good enough to pass to me.

The knitted digestive tract by Matie Trewe certainly deserves a large mention - it already has a widespread following, and a knitalong. Pattern here.

Index

Mathematics

General

I highly recommend Mathematical Aphrodisiac. A story by Alex Galt (originally published in True Tales of American Life edited by Paul Aster) with math, knitting, and romance... what more could one want?

sarah-marie's mathematical knitting pages has a good collection of annotated links to mathematical knitting and textiles in general.

From sarah-marie, the AMS Special Session on Mathematics and Mathematics Education in Fiber Arts has some interesting abstracts relating to knitting and other fibers. She has a photographic walkthrough of the session, with detailed annotations on the individual photographs. She also provides a list of academic journal articles, mostly on weaving.

Math4Knitters is a podcast that is mostly focussed on utilizing math in knitting, in a practical sense, but the underlying appreciation of math also comes through. Highlights (so far) include an interview with Meg Swanson (Episode 8), and a guest spot on the podcast Cast-On on fibonacci sequences (Episode 23).

This is made into a math problem for students, but it shows that people in Antarctica knit, too. Cool -- we are taking over the world!

Index

Topology

I really like the moebius scarves and klein bottle hats; there are multiple patterns online for these. I particularly like Priscilla at Fuzzy Galore's Moebius Capelet, which solves the problem I had with the scarves, which is that they are too droopy.

Continuing on the moebius front, there is a lacy moebius scarf, that can also be used as a head fitting, designed by Mary J. Saunders.

And someone (namely Isaksen and Petrofsky) designed a whole new moebius stitch, to have symmetry on both the horizontal and vertical axes. (Note: the estimable sara-marie disagrees with their conclusion that their stitch is the only way to properly make a knitted moebius strip).

Another file on creating a moebius scarf and klein bottle hat, and a crocheted moebius scarf.

My favorite Klein Bottle Hat is at sarah-marie's mathematical knitting pages; there are lots of other interesting mathematical shapes (warning, sarah-marie's patterns are written for left-handed knitters).

Since there is so much free moebius online, you might wonder why you would ever pay for a book based primarily on moebius shapes. However, I love the patterns that Cat Bordhi has come up with: in Treasury of Magical Knitting, she starts with scarves and continues on with hats and felted boots incorporating moebius twists. The second book, Second Treasury of Magical Knitting, has felted baskets and even a cat bed. (Oh, I so want to do that cat bed!). The price on the books is rather steep, though ($27 each for a thin paperback), which is the only thing stopping me from adding to my knitting book collection.

Index

Probability, Chaos and Fractals

From Priscilla at Fuzzy Galore there is the Probability Sweater, which involves randomization through rolling a die.

Lucy Neatby has designed the appropriately-named "Cables after Whiskey" sweater, where the cable crosses are set by a list of randomly generated numbers.

Randomization is also important in using up a yarn stash: a sweater knitted from yarn scraps randomly pulled from the stash often turns out more pleasing to the eye than any but the most carefully crafted yarn combinations.

Okay, this is not knitting, but there is a beautiful crocheted Lorenz manifold; this is based on the strange attractor in chaos theory. Dr Hinke Osinga and Professor Bernd Krauskopf, of Bristol University's engineering mathematics department, used 25,511 crochet stitches to represent the Lorenz equations: more in the BBC article.

Just for inspiration, Eleanor Kent is a textile artist who knits fractal designs and mathematical formulae.

Index

Sequences and Geometry

Those of you looking for cushions, there are tons of mathematically inspired ones at Woolly Thoughts. Check out the other designs, too -- I especially like the Double Vision scarf and the Square Deal afgan. Many of the projects can be crocheted, if that is more to your taste.

Elizabeth Zimmerman, one of the founding mothers of modern knitting, developed a lot of her patterns on mathematically-based principles. Wendy Johnson has an example of the pi shawl from Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. Wendy of Wendy Knits! has developed a very popular, free felted cat bed based on the increases and shaping in the pi shawl.

Priscilla at Fuzzy Galore suggests incorporating the Fibonacci sequence to transition between two different colors, and shows an example pair of Fibonacci Socks. I was inspired to fix my SnB Windy City scarf with a Fibonacci sequence.

More background on the golden rectangle and fibonacci sequence at Knitting-and.com by Manny Olds. This is theory and ideas only, design is an exercise for the knitter.

Also from Fuzzy Galore: using Ada Dietz polynomials in knitting patterns. Ada Dietz was a lesbian mathematician who incorporated solutions to multivariant polynomials into weaving patterns. These make a 2D pattern that can also be adapted to knitting.

Rachel Bishop designed the perfect shuffle scarf. A perfect shuffle will interleave the cards - do this enough times, and you will return to the original card configuration. Based on modular arithmetic, certain cards will group together in some shuffles, allowing multiple colors to be incorporated into the pattern.

Index

Tessellation

The formal definition of a tessellation is a repeating set of tiles (a single geometric shape or a set of shapes) that can tile a plane to infinity. First off, for those wanting to design their own tiles: a how-to guide and gallery (including an extensive collection of Escher tessellations) from Tessellations.org. Tessellation generally either requires a lot of intarsia, or a lot of seaming. Occassionally two-stranded knitting can be made to work.

Lucy Neatby has the most striking tessellations, and closest to the classic Escher-looking tiles. She uses intarsia to create two tessellated patterns, the Duck Sweater and Fish Wallhanging.

The Fish Blanket has been a popular subject on the Internets. The individually knit fish tiles also make up bands (unlike "classic" Escher tiling), but each tile is also distinct. Hytrevant Knits has an example of the original fish blanket, as designed by Paula Levy and published in Knitter's Magazine 51 (Summer 1998; OOP). April Brokenarrow has reverse engineered a similar pattern; example fish.

Once I started looking for knitted tessellations, it was like learning a new word - you see it everywhere. My Little Fishy is a child's raglan with three bands of two stranded knitted fish. Designed by Marie Grace Smith at The Garter Belt. This is stretching the definition a bit, since seeing distinct fish tiles making up a band is open to interpretation.

Index

Computer Science

The Fall 2004 online issue of knitty has Pasha, a penguin who just might be the Linux penguin.

Followed by something that definitely is the Linux penguin: in a bout of double geekiness, Heidi Antila has designed a Linux illusion scarf, with Tux, the Linux penguin, on one side and the word 'Linux' on the other. The pattern is in Finnish, in the online Finnish knitting magazine Ulle. In true open source fashion, the designer is generously allowing translations (which are released under a creative commons license): currently English and French, with Spanish coming soon. (This was brought to my attention by adriennec on the knittyboard.)

Given the binary nature of knit / purl, many people seem to have encoded binary sequences into their knitting. My favorite example is encoding the Code Red virus into knitting.

The best explanation of how to encode phases into binary, and from there into knitting, is provided by Joe Klinkhoff, after a discussion on knitlist: HEX and BIN meet my Friends Knit & Purl. I found this link through Of Troy, on the knittyboard.

Index

History

History inspires lots and lots of patterns. Celtic patterns are certainly popular. Some particular highlights (for me, at least):

The people at Woolly Thoughts have a wonderful Roman Mosaic jacket.

I love a lot of Elsebeth Lavold's knitting. Her Viking Knits project is an incredible interpretation of Viking patterns and knotwork. I like the first book, Viking Patterns for Knitting, the best; it is more technical and design-oriented. I also like her historical pattern-focused books, The Viking Knits Collection (Viking patterns) and The Embraceable You Collection (re-interpreting armor designs as knitware, from many different cultures -- including Klingon!).

I am thinking about knitting a shawl incorporating the Labyrinth on the floor of the Chartres cathedral, possibly as a shadow shawl, for my mother, who really should have been a historian.

Index

Linguistics

The Incan practice of encoding meaning with binary knotwork -- khipu -- certainly provides food for thought.

Elsebeth Lavold has charted the Danish (common) runic alphabet, available in Viking Patterns for Knitting.

I haven't seen this idea put into practice - but encoding braille into knits and purls seems like a natural fit. I might do this for a Christmas present.

Index

Comments

[helen]

i didn't see a link to elinor kents knit fractals.. no patterns, but beautiful insprirational knitting..

http://www.ylem.org/artists/ekent/index.htm

[thomasina]

Helen -- thanks for the suggestion; the Eleanor Kent link is already up there, but it might not have been, and the list *is* quite long (in fact I am trying to figure out how to hide most of it behind a "break" so that it does not take over my whole blog!). She does incredible work, so I'm happy to see her highlighted a bit more in the comments.

[Kirsten Watson]

Thankyou so much for this! I just stumbled over it in a google search, and it's an incredibly useful thing. Thankyou!

[Sharon]

Hey lady! Thanks for the linkage! I hope somebody out there enjoys wearing the scarf as much as my mom and I will. :)

[the kitchener bitch]

Have you also seen the dinosaurs at Extreme Knitting? There's a brontosaur (or whatever they call them now), a stegosaur, and a triceratops: http://www.xtreme-knitting.com/photos-dinosaurs.htm

[Alex Galt]

Hey,

Thanks for mentioning my story, and I love that you're at least as geeky as I am.

By the way, my mom (who is an obstetrician) actually used a hand-knit uterus (with a plastic baby doll) to demonstrate a cerclage when she was interviewed on TV once. I don't think she knew about the knitty pattern, though.

[spuffyduds]

Wow! I came here by searching for a pattern for a Klein Bottle hat (to make as a thank-you gift for a kind mathematician who is tutoring my son in trig) and this whole site is just AWESOME! Yay you for making it. And I love the blog title--I'm gonna be singing that all day now!

[grace]

Have you seen hyperbolic surfaces reproduced in crochet? http://www.amcdonough.com/musings/archives/201
has links to Daima Taimina's work.

I hadn't realized how often I blog about knitting and math until reading your blog.

[Alice Quint]

Thank you for all this information: sometimes, it seems lonely out here, especially when I mention to folks that mathemathics and knitting are close relatives.

[judy]

Just wanted to say helloo

[Albert]

keep up the good work!o

[lhuv]

You guys do a wonderful job! Keep up the good work!!!

[deirdre nelson]

i have been working on a project with knitted fish and thought you may be interested http://members.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=taighchearsabhagh

[Albert]

These prayers help me to keep God in my life, especially with the many distractions I encounter.

[Abramovicl]

Hi , i have some questions about you desing
maybe you can give designer contacts?

[ice yarn]

very good opinions.thank you very much for informing to me .good work :)

[Bob]

Dear web-master ! I looked your site and I want to say that yor very well"

[Bob]

I praise God for answering my prayers. God, you are so wonderful, majestic. Jesus Christ, I adore Your Sacred Heart.

[Albert]

These prayers help me to keep God in my life, especially with the many distractions I encounter.

[Marly]

I can find the prayer I want. I thank God for this website.

[Beverly Simmons]

What a great site! Lots of ideas & inspiration. Thought you might like to know about the free pattern I just posted for an afghan based on the MC Escher Seahorses tessellation. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/escher-seahorse-afghan-2

[geeky girl]

I absolutely love the Linux Illusion scarf, but I don't read Finnish and all translation links are faulty. What a bummer... ;(
Does anyone know of any other translations for this pattern?

[Jesse]

Hey There,

I'm a knitting desiginer, and I just had this pattern published at Knit Picks. I would be honored beyond all reckoning it were included here on your Geeky Knitting page.

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Since there is so much free moebius online, you might wonder why you would ever pay for a book based primarily on moebius shapes.