other people's knit sites

I have been taking a fascinating foray into the world of knitted shapes and forms. This has lead me to kooky quasi-mystical sites on golden numbers, divine proportion, and to really wonderful mathematical modelling sites, which, innumerate old me can only stare at with jaw-dropped admiration. On the whole, the aesthetic end of the maths sites are a bit wanting: the just are rather awful visually.

Case in point is Mark E. Shoulson's site with homemade topological shapes- intriguing yet not visually quite there yet: web.meson.org/topology/

However,
one can find wonderful knit versions of all sorts of mathematical topologies, including the moibus strip (which I am already, sadly, a MASTER at making myself) here at: www.toroidalsnark.net/mathknit.html,

which Sarah-Marie calls"The Home of Mathmatical knitting"!
How great is that????
she is coming out with a very exciting new book, in December 2007- truly a great holiday gift idea for those hard-to-shop-for knitters:

Making Mathematics with Needlework Ten Papers and Ten Projects
by sarah-marie belcastro (Editor), Carolyn Yackel (Editor)
Price: $30.00 Availability: Not yet published.Expected release: December 2007 You may preorder this item.
here is the site for ordering the book:www.akpeters.com/product.asp?ProdCode=3318



All of this("research"? "time-wasting"?) is a spin-off of my attempting to make this giant ammonite pillow(as shown in the previous posting below). I have ambitions to make a large, more tall version using the Fibonacci series and some very thick grey yarn I have my eye on at Yarntopia (http://yarntopianyc.com/)

See picture of coveted object above, and imagine

knitted in chunky pearl grey wool.

Change color as desired.
This, in turn goes with my yearning to make a series of all-knit Platonic solids.

They would be(uh) art pieces-cum-room-decor, I guess.

Above is a painting of Luca Pacioli, apparently the father of modern accounting, shown at work decoding the secret of the universe through shapes and numbers....

medieval intellectuals thought that understanding such geometry brought one closer to understanding God, which is where all of the kooky divine-proportion sites come in.

It certainly is humbling to look at the organizational beauty and total appropriateness of the geometry in the natural world, and there IS something appealing about the idea that the world can be broken down into lovely sets of digits....

Much more visually astute than the average mathematician's site, and taking the wonder of knitted geometry into the realm of really inspired children's toys is

Kimberly Chapman's gallery (and instructions!) on her site at:

kimberlychapman.com/crafts/knit-gallery.html

Her site is very nicely organized and has all sorts of useful tutorials for making your own curly tubes, torus rings, and a darling stuffed DNA toy!
My favorites are her more abstract explorations, and I think the knitted tubes toy on the cone base is pure genius- just perfect.

Her knitted spirals are on my increasingly long list of things to try( I want to make an octopus), as is the DNA model- though I think it needs clusters of balls on it...

One of the best patterns for balls can be found here: tiajudy.com/yarnball.htm

It is a pattern by Judy Gibson, and can be found along with many other gems on her website, the beautifully named "String and Air".

It's a smallish, juggling sized affair.

There are surprisingly few larger sphere patterns on the web...

Hands down my favorite is the football, at Eve's wonderful Needle Exchange site,
found here:
http://needles.guzzlingcakes.com/2006/06/11/world-cup-soccer-ball-knitting-pattern/
which I also intend to have a go at.

Her pattern is elegant and fun and lends itself to all kinds of color variations due to it's star-like construction.
Hat's off!

This "globe" pattern is (jokingly) available on the Lion Brand site:http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/Globe.html silly, but witty....




There is also Eric Lancaster's gorgeous and innovative "pillow" (see image below)

at Shibuiknits(http://www.shibuiknits.com/Patterns/Pattern.php?Pattern=15 ,
which is available for online purchase at pure knits:
www.pureknits.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=66_87&products_id=273

This leads me once more, as all roads seem to these days,

back to the Institute for Figuring's site, and their wonderful slide show of the gallery of Crocheted Hyperbolic Models!
this can be found here:http://www.theiff.org/gallery/index.html#....

It's crochet at it's finest, and makes up for centurys worth of awful doilies and horrible granny-square vests in bicentennial colors...

Please remember:All of the patterns talked about here, shown above, and on the sites linked, are the result of hard work and many hours labour on the part of the designer. Please visit the sites and tell them how wonderful and ingenious they are, and please use the patterns for personal and non-profit use only. A bit of respect for the inventors, please...

While I'm not convinced on the spiritual decoding end of things, I am totally entranced with what one can make with some sticks and yarn and a bit 'o stuffing: look at all of the wacky forms that can be knit and crocheted, and how wonderfully irrational they are!
What richness!
What Variety!
La Chaim!