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The World of Illusion Knitting

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PICKING UP THREADS

This was written in
2007
so is now very dated

The journey back from that conference was another road with an unexpected turn. We had been communicating, for some time, with someone from an organisation involved with knitting and education. He was retiring and would have liked us to take over the running of the organisation. It wasn’t for us. We knew it wasn’t the way we wanted to go but, as our journey home from the conference took us close to where he was, we agreed to visit him. We spent a delightful afternoon in his office. He produced interesting box after interesting box and it was all very tempting. He had several items created by well-known knitters and crocheters including work by Jan Messent, James Walters and Sylvia Cosh. We already knew these people and had often seen examples of their work. We could have taken charge of all those wonderful creations. All the pieces were far more artistic than anything we had ever made. It was an interesting opportunity but clearly wasn’t our path. Nevertheless, something amongst that treasure trove triggered something in my brain. It was difficult to concentrate on what he was saying as a brilliant idea had forced itself to the front of my brain.

Steve knew something was going on in my head. He’d seen me go off at a tangent often enough before. This was more than a tangent. It was time to abandon all our self-imposed rules for shapes and go in a totally different direction. I had not been able to knit a Peano curve but I could crochet one!

A Peano curve is a complex thing. It twists and turns and packs itself together so that, theoretically, it fills all the space on a surface. The computer, and son Ben, came to the rescue again. Ben has the ability to assimilate information more quickly than either of us and in the time we were thinking about how best to draw it he had drawn five or six generations of the curve showing how it packs itself together. To turn this curve into something we could hang on the wall needed a bit of thought and we eventually decided it had to be in two parts. First it needed a grid to represent the graph paper or squared paper it would normally be drawn on. The curve itself could then sit on top of this.

I am not a very experienced crocheter but this would only require basic skills. The first problem was how to get perfect squares in the grid, with the spacing needed. I made several attempts and then thought of a way to avoid some of the trial and error. By the magic of email I had a reply from James Walters within the hour. James is an expert crocheter, with a thorough understanding of the maths needed, and he had the information at his finger tips.

I made the grid, in black, with perfect squares. The curve was in the brightest shade of green I could find. The technical part of the crocheting was simple. It was just a chain attached to the grid at strategic points. The demanding part was keeping track of those strategic points. Originally I was trying to work from a single sheet of paper showing the entire curve. When it is finished it is clear that the curve forms little blocks, and lines can be seen criss-crossing the surface between these blocks. It is extremely logical and systematic but it was impossible to keep track of what went where. Printing the four quarters on four pieces of paper helped a little and when those sheets were folded again for each small section of the curve it became considerably easier. When it was finished it was given a black backing so the grid lines could scarcely be seen and the green curve made a very dramatic squiggle across the black, going in at the bottom left corner and leaving again at the bottom right corner. This was a new technique, for us, and, if I was starting it again now, I would do it differently. The original is functional but could have been more ‘artistic’.

13b. THE PURSUIT OF AFGHANS continued