Alien surfaces

Hey! It's been pointed out to me that I haven't written anything here for ages, and I realised there's a couple of projects I haven't found the time to mention yet.

So, first off, Alien surfaces!
This project actually belongs to local mathematician Madeleine Shepherd, but I helped out with some of the maths, so I'm sure it's worth a post :o)
As part of a festival exhibition on 'alien surfaces', artwork inspired by descriptions of alien planets in science fiction, Madeleine knit a model of , the surface you get if you take the curve y=1/x and rotate it around the x-axis(for the region x>1 - although I think we took x>1/30, or thereabouts, to make the curvature show up more).
This surface has some very cool properties mathematically - it turns out that it's surface area is infinite, while it's volume isn't, which means that you could, hypothetically, fill one with paint, but it would be impossible to paint it's entire surface. Which is a bit mind-boggling. (The trick is that in comparing a volume with a surface area in this way, you're kind of assuming that you're covering the surface with a layer of paint of uniform thickness, the volume is only finite because the trumpet tapers off quickly as x becomes large.)

Since the surface has a rotational symmetry, writing down a pattern for it is relatively simple - you just need to work out the circumference at each row, convert this into a number of stitches, and work out how many stitches you need to decrease each time.
The difficulty is that the rows in this case do not correspond to the coordinate x, but the arclength - the distance you've travelled along the curve from the first row. Now, in differential geometry, this isn't really a problem, you can just change coordinates without any difficulty, but actually doing this in practice takes a bit more work because while it's easy enough to find the arclength from the position, inverting this formula is quite hard, and needs to be done numerically.
Happily though, Maple actually cooperated with this, so I now have a bit of code which is capable of doing this more or less automatically. If anyone's interested, or is keen to knit there own surfaces of revolution, I'd be happy to go into more detail on this. I was considering tidying up the code a little and convincing it to print out real honest-to-goodness knitting patterns, but I'm not sure how many people would be interested in this and have access to Maple?

And I love how the surface turned out, there's something amazing about writing down a bunch of maths and getting to see it suddenly turned into a piece of knitting! I'm quite keen to read the book it comes from too, I'd be interested to see how far the author was able to take this idea, and how this unusual geometry affected the people living there :o)
(Oh, and the tapir is because Madeleine seems to be quite keen on them)

Happy knitting!
Hugh.

Doilies... for science!

Hey folks!
I was doodling away last week and came up with some ideas I'd like to play with knitting. The main idea is that knitting can always be divided up into rows - mathematically we'd call this(ironically) a fibred surface. But this has some consequences - if you want to knit a shape, you start off by picking a fibration. If, though, you picked a different fibration, you could knit the same shape, but come up with a radically different pattern, and a radically different look. A very simple example would be if you were to knit a rectangle lengthwise rather than width-wise(if that's a word). I've come across examples of this elsewhere, such as (the awesome) Nona's Sidewinder socks, Ysolda's sideways hat Urchin, and especially this absolutely amazing sweater(which presumably belongs to Numei.com, but I haven't been able to find there), but I'm looking to take this idea a bit further.

My first experiment with this idea goes like this - I want to take a question mark, and knit it into a doilie, but in such a way that the question mark is actually a row in the pattern, so it's somehow intrinsic to the fabric somehow.
Or course, while I'm arranging my rows in interesting and nontrivial rows, it would be a shame not to throw in some lace. this will be relatively simple this time around, but I'm really hoping that in future attempts I'll be able to make this a bit more extreme and take advantage of the interesting shapes to make some really interesting lace patterns, but I don't have much experience with lace yet, and I really wouldn't be able to create my own.

Oh yes, and you might wonder why I chose a question mark? Well, primarily because it was the first symbol I found which was simple enough to do this with, but also this is supposed to symbolise inquisitiveness, the need to always find out more which I think lies behind all good science.

So there you have it - Science doily!
Hugh.

More whales!

Ok, just a quick post - following on from the Erst-whale, I decided to make a little school of other whales, and that each whale would be wearing a different kind of hat. Ever since I made the bee-hat, I've been feeling the need to put tiny hats of stuffed toys. I think the whales are particularly suitable for this because with out the "1" on the side the whales are a bit plain and featureless.

So, hats. The first one is a top hat, the second is(inevitably) a fez, and the third is a floppy sunhat. I really like how the tassels came out on the fez - I had some trouble with this, but eventually found that lots of strands of sewing thread worked very well. They're tied very tightly in the inside, so hopefully this is still baby-safe. The sunhat didn't come out so well - I'd hoped that the natural curliness of the stocking stitch would make the brim turn upwards nicely, but I think it curls a bit too tightly here. This might be better if I'd knit the brim on larger needles(here I'm using DK yarn and 3mm needles, so it's quite tight). I also had some trouble making the concave edges, where the brims meet the main part of the hat - for a convex edge a row or reverse stocking stitch makes a nice fold, but the other direction is harder. I found a row of knitting through the back of the loop gives a bit of a crease, but not as much as I would have liked. Any ideas, anyone?

The photos here were taken at the Hermitage, the little nature reserve next to the Observatory, where I took the whales to see the ducks. The first one shows top-hat-whale watching the ducks over the pond. The second one doesn't show so well, but it's fez-whale meeting a suprisingly friendly robin(can you see him? On the other end of the bench?). And the third one is sun-hat-whale having a doze in the sun, reading the newspaper and enjoying the view.

The plan is to make a couple more whales(cos there's a couple more hats I want to try) and then they'll be shipped off to the Neonatal unit all at once, cos I haven't sent them anything for *ages*.
Happy wednesday!
Hugh.

Completed Comrade Leonine

Comrade Leonine!

So, what to say about him? He follows the same pattern as the earlier Gay Pride lions, so there wasn't too much pattern to make up. He was also good and quick to knit, since the pattern is small and aimed to be as simple as possible.

Added to the basic pattern is the moustache and little beard - these are sewn on afterwards, and I'm very happy with how they turned out. Being so small it's very delicate getting these bits just right. And then there's his little hat. This is intended to be a little baggy flat cap. I think it could have done with being a little flatter, really. The crinkly bits at the edges came out nicely, but could probably do with being a bit more pronounced. I decided the hat really needed to be lightly stuffed to hold it's shape, but I think it might also have helped to tie the top down a bit to make it less tall and bring out the edges more.

The photos are taken around KB - I took Comrade Leonine and a few of the Gay Pride lions across and had some fun posing them in different positions. There are a couple more photos, and a bit more explanation here: Facebook link.
(I took some sensible pictures too, but they seem kinda dull in comparison - I guess if you're very keen to see more schematic pictures, let me know and I'll post some).

Otherwise, enjoy, and happy July!
Hugh.

Comrade Leonine

Back to the awful puns, I'm afraid- I have a geeky friend who is very much into his soviet history, and is a very big fan of Lenin in particular, and asked me if I would be able to knit a Lenin doll. There are some soviet Lenin caricatures around, particularly the one above, and I'm told the beard and the cloth cap are the main identifying features.
However, I decided that getting the human features right would be a little too difficult - I think you need to get them *just* right to look good. So instead, I came up with this scheme - based on the lion pattern I've played with before, I'll make a little lion with Lenin's hat and beard - hence, Comrade Leonine :o)

I should say, I'm really not keen on communism in general, or the soviets in particular. I am, however, very keen on history, and people being interested in history. I should really read more of it myself.

So yay, happy knitting, and happy history-ing, people o/
Hugh.

Patterns!

Hey folks!
I've been putting a few patterns up on Ravelry lately, and it only occured to me recently that actually I have made it kind of hard to find them. So I thought I'd put up a quick post listing the patterns which are available just now, and try to post in future if I add any new ones.
I'll post ravelry links for each of them, as well as the direct links to the patterns.
So yep, here they are - if you want to give any of them a try, let me know(I'd love to know how they're doing), and happy knitting!

Crab torus
A stuffed toy based on a crab, incorporating a torus. Or you could make it with a disc. I think the pattern isn't entirely clear, hopefully I'll get around to making some edits soon.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/crab-torus
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_4hj5g7vfchttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_4hj5g7vfc

Cthulhu mittens
A pair of mittens featuring runes and symbols relating to the Cthulhu stories(with artwork borrowed from Chaosium). I think the shaping for the mittens was a little iffy, you might prefer to just use the charts - it would make a lot more sense to duplicate stitch them on once the mittens are finished.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cthulhu-mittenshttp://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cthulhu-mittens
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_2dj92kqfdhttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_2dj92kqfd

Orbital
A knitted 'd' orbital - actually 3dz^2, it represents one of the ways in which an electron can behave in an atom. It's quick, simple, geeky, and I'm told it would make a good baby toy.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/atomic-orbitalhttp://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/atomic-orbital
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_15dmv8q8chhttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_15dmv8q8ch

Bee-hat
It's a stuffed bee, in a little pointy hat. I really like how the little dangly legs turned out, so I'm planning to make a few more.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bee-hathttp://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bee-hat
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_20wffw76fvhttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_20wffw76fv

Feminist torus
A squishy huggable stuffed female sign. I'm totally delighted with how well the shaping came out on this(seriously, you'd be amazed how much maths is involved in this).
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/feminist-torushttp://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/feminist-torus
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_18t32hxqdqhttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_18t32hxqdq

Lions
My little collection of toy lions, the Gay Pride. I really like this pattern, the shapes are all very clear and simple, and I like how they turn out.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lionshttp://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lions
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_0dbvd8vgvhttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_0dbvd8vgv

Trefoils
These are the two trefoil knots - one is a mirror image of the other, but no amount of fiddling will let you rearrange one into to other. They also have googly eyes and make good stress toys.
The pattern was written a while after I knit them, so it's really only "as far as I remember".
Also, in a minor correction, you really need to stocking stitch a row or two after you cast on - the pattern tries to make you start working short rows immediately.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/trefoil-knotshttp://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/trefoil-knots
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_11gbvw4jfzhttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd7bhmbc_11gbvw4jfz

Hugh.

Marine research

Ok, for some reason I seem to have quite a few aquatic projects I'm planning to make at the moment, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to post them all at once.

First, whales! I think I mentioned I was keen to make more whales, so there are likely to be at least a couple more. And given how much I enjoyed making the bee, they're likely to have hats. I have a bit of an ongoing hypothesis that all animals look better in fezs, so we'll see. It rather depends how silly I'm feeling at the time, but I think a small school of whales each with a different hat would be very cute. I suspect these will be headed to the Simpson neonatal unit, because I would like to send them more toys.

Second, pufferfish! I had an idea a few weeks back that it would be very cool to make an inflatable pufferfish. I played around with some stitch patterns, and I think I came up with a way for this to work. The fabric needs to be very stretchy, so the fish can inflate to a good size. More difficult to work were the spines - ideally these should show when the fish is inflated, but be concealed when it's let down. I think I can make this work using a combination of ribbing and a modified fur stitch, but it remains to be seen how convincing this will be as 'spines'. I still need to play around with the fins a bit, and see how much like a fish I can make it look, but I'm fairly confident it'll at least look cute when it's inflated.

Also, psalmon! (This is another of those awful puns) I'd like to knit a small collection of salmon, each of which will have a verse/phrase/something from a psalm sewn onto the sides. This might be tricky because they're likely to be smallish, so there won't be much space, and I'll have to work the shaping to leave a big enough blank patch for sewing onto. I think the fins might be a little tricky too, I think I'd like to make elaborate lacy patterns to represent the patterns on them.

And finally, hammerhead shark! There's something fascinating about their shape, which I think would be fun to try and knit. It'll be interesting to try to contrast this with the whales, see how well I can bring out the difference between them. I understand (female) hammerhead sharks are capable of undergoing parthenogenesis, which is my mind makes them badass feminists, so I'll be looking to make this into another feminist toy. I'm not quite sure how that will work yet, but I suspect it'll depend on what I can come up with to do with it when it's done.

So yes, lots of ideas, with varying levels of vagueness. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with most of them yet though