How Knitting and Math Go Together

It’s common for knitters and crocheters to say that they don’t like math or that they’re afraid of math, but the intersection of fiber arts and mathematics is actually a really cool place.

For two years now Math for America has done a mini workshop on knitting mathematics, which enables teachers to craft objects such as a tessellated plane, a Möbius band, a trefoil knot, a Klein bottle, and other two and three-dimensional objects.

Scientific American also explored fiber arts and math a couple of years ago, looking in on a session at the Joint Mathematics Meetings that considered math, education and fiber arts.

One of the people mentioned in that article is Sarah-Marie Belcastro, whose website is basically the home of mathematical knitting online. It’s fascinating, even if it does go over my head quite a bit. But it’s really interesting to see how complex mathematical objects and concepts can be illustrated with yarn.

[Photo via Math for America.]

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I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

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