I am not that good at math. I know people say that even when it's not true, but I am really not good at math. I'm a grown woman who still counts on her fingers. The only C I got in college was in the one math class I had to take. Numbers and I typically do not get along.
So this will probably be the vaguest book review I've ever written because almost every concept in Crafting By Concepts, edited by Sarah-Marie Belcastro and Carolyn Yackel, went over my head.
But that's also OK, because this book is intended to work on a number of levels. Mathematicians can use it to more deeply explore mathematical concepts in the realm of crafts, teachers can use it to bring crafting into the math classroom to help students understand concepts better, and crafters can just skip all that and move on to the patterns.
About the Book
- Pages: 264
- Format: hardcover
- Number of patterns: 6 for knitters, as well as a variety primarily for cross stitching and quilting
- Skill level: none given, but intermediate to advanced knitters would do best with these projects
- Illustrations: full-color photographs
- Knitting lessons: None
- Publication date: March 2011
The Math of Knitting
I don't really know what to say about Crafting by Concepts because it is such a dense, academic book that also happens to have some cool crafty stuff in it.
For knitters, there are three chapters. The first looks at knitting a flat circle and explores why Elizabeth Zimmermann's formula made famous in her Pi shawl isn't actually mathematically correct. The patterns are two hats, for adults and babies, knit back to front in stripes as two rectangles that are grafted together, with stitches picked up along the bottom for the ribbing.
There's also a "Coney Hat," worked in colors that produce an optical illusion based on the colors they are knitted near.
A chapter on helix striping explores different ways to make stripes that spiral up a hat or socks (and includes patterns for both in adult sizes), while another chapter explores knitting a cross-cap, which is a mathematical object that involves self-intersecting lines (I don't know what that means, but that's what it says) and looks sort of like a flat fortune cookie.
The patterns are pretty cool, even if you don't understand the math behind them. If you know a math geek it would be a lot of fun to knit up one of these hats and try to explain the concept that's behind the pattern (or hand them the book and see if they can explain it to you).
And even if you don't have a math geek to knit for, the striping patterns in most of these projects are a lot of fun and will play with your brain even if you don't completely understand what you're doing by reading the instructions (the helix projects, for instance, involve many different strands of yarn, which will make a lot more sense when you're actually knitting and see what's happening). I won't guarantee you'll learn more math this way, but it'll certainly change the way you think about knitting and math.
Other Projects
After the first few chapters the book goes into other crafts and other mathematical concepts, including different ways to express fractals in cutwork, tatting, string, with beads and in cross stitch; needlepoint "diaper" patterns; group actions as expressed in cross stitch; a crochet pattern for a rectangular blanket made out of granny squares that are all different sizes; expressing mathematical concepts in the Japanese spherical thread art of temari; and lots of cool quilting projects, explained by the authors as being "semiregular tessellations."
Again, it doesn't really matter if you understand the mathematical parts in order to enjoy the patterns. These projects are all lovely, and the fact of their expression of mathematical concepts adds another layer of interest that might just make you feel like a math geek when you can say, "Oh, that wall hanging? It's an expression of group action." Even if you have no idea what that means.
Bottom Line
A lot of knitters -- and other crafters, I'd imagine -- are kind of afraid of math. If Crafting by Concepts does nothing else, it should help non-math-geek knitters to understand there's nothing to fear in the typical math of a knitting pattern. It also illustrates that a little mystery can be a lot of fun.
For knitters who are into mathematical knitting, this book offers a lot of interesting things to think about. It's fun to see mathematical concepts like the cross-cap, which can't really be rendered in two dimensions, come to life through knitting and other crafts. Crafty math teachers will enjoy the teaching suggestions that will allow them to use these projects and concepts in the classroom, hopefully bringing up the next generation of crafty mathematicians. And these projects take geek craft to a whole new level, which is pretty cool.
