Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Onto another experiment (triangles)

That's what I do when one.. uhmm.. fails. Which leads me to believe that I am better with maths than I am with hosting radio shows!

I'll prove this to ya:


See those triangles? Perfectly equilateral. Using high-school trigonometry. How cool is that! Here are my objectives with making equilateral triangles:


  • user defines the length of the sides

  • user defines the stitch and row gauge

  • user chooses the method of making a triangle



Among the methods ofcourse, I went in for the three I know: short rows, k2tog-SSK at the edges and mitering. The picture shows the triangles I made using first two techniques. I am yet to knit one using mitering, for which, I'll have to cast-on enough to make the entire length of the perimeter and do double decreases in 3 corners for the 3 angles.

Returning to the subject of the 'test' scenario for this experiment, the 60 degree set-square sitting on top of the knitted triangle screams out loud: PASS.

Okay, so my intentions with the funky maths: to be able to control the 'flatness' of a knitted geometric shape. I should be able to derive - using maths - how much pucker I want at the center of the symmetric shape. For caps and likes, I might want a curvature, with a giant triangle sitting atop my crown. See where I'm going? It's insane, how we can accurately manipulate the structure without having to make 'guesstimates', 'educated' or otherwise.

This series of fun-with-maths will be pursued with much excitement.

1 comment:

AuntieAnn said...

Very interesting! The top of my last hat turned out ridiculous, the pattern had (for my yarn choice, anyway) too many straight rows between the decrease rows, so it turned out to look like a nipple -- SO not the look I was going for. There's a pic on my blog of "before", but not the fixed one.