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.]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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